Jerry opened his eyes wide. This was the first he had heard of any such plan as that.
"Think I'm going to let you go up alone, with a twisted wing that might give out?" demanded Tod scornfully. "Huh! I'll take her up alone if you'll let me."
"I'll let you fill her up with gas, if you're so ambitious as all that. I see an automobile throwing up the dust on the last hill of the town road. I expect it's our friends. I'll let one of the boys row me across to meet them. Ask Billings, if you can't find the wrench to unscrew the cap of the gasoline reservoir."
Billings proved to be sound asleep, napping off the effects of over-indulgence in browned perch, so the boys decided to await the return of Mr. Fulton, a search of the workshop having failed to reveal the wrench, and none of the Stillsons being big enough to take the big nut that capped the fifty-gallon tank sunk in the ground on the shady north side of the hangar. So they sat down beside it and waited for Mr. Fulton to come back with his visitors.
They finally appeared, Lewis and Harris standing about and listening in unenthusiastic silence as Mr. Fulton glowingly explained the whyness of the various devices and improvements that made the Skyrocket a real invention. They did not even venture an occasional question, although it was easy to see that they were impressed.
"What are they made of? Wood?" exclaimed Jerry in fierce impatience. "Do you know—if it wasn't that we've simply got to beat out those other fellows, I'd almost like to see these two sleepies get left. I don't like them a little bit!"
"Huh! Ask me if I do. They give me the willies. Never did like them, and ever since they acted so nasty about that accident I just plumb hate 'em. You'd think dad was trying to sandbag them or something like that. Just listen to them grouching around. I'd hate to be a woman and married to one of them and have dinner late."
Jerry had seated himself on the top of the reservoir, the cap between his legs. He caught hold of it with his two hands. "It's too blamed bad your dad couldn't hitch up with Uncle Sam!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, and if you believe what the papers say, we're going to need it, too. We might be mixed up in the big war any day."
"Well, I expect we'd better not sit here gassing any longer. Tod, chase over and ask your dad where that wrench is—unless you've got a notion I can twist this thing off with my hands." He gave a playful tug as if to carry out his boast.