"Sure, son, sure. But suppose somebody just ahead of you made it his business to buy the hundred—how about that?"
"But there's a chance," objected Jerry, returning to the attack. "We might be able to get away without their seeing us."
"Don't worry; they're watching every move we make."
"Then I've got another scheme. See if you can pick it full of holes too." There was more than a touch of impatience in Jerry's voice. "They're watching this side, that's sure; and they know we're bound to figure on either Watertown or Chester. We'll fool them. I'll swim across to the other side, reach a telephone, get my dad, who's at Corliss these days on business. There's a Standard Oil tank at Corliss. Dad'll start the gas out inside of twenty minutes——"
"Corliss is a good two hours' trip by auto, my boy. It would take at least half an hour to get the message through, and another to get the gas here from the road. That means at least seven o'clock, and it would be dark before we were ready to go up."
"All right," agreed Jerry, refusing to give up. "Suppose it does get dark: there's such a thing as flying by night, isn't there? All we've got to do is to build a dozen flaring bonfires to see by——"
"Now you're talking!" exclaimed Mr. Fulton with sudden enthusiasm. "You've hit it. Not brush—that would smoke us out. But there are ten or a dozen open air torches here like those they use at street shows, and there's not enough water in the gasoline to hurt it for that purpose. Moreover, we can switch our engine onto that dynamo in the shop, and we'll string incandescent lights all through the trees; we've got plenty of them. There's at least a mile of bare copper wire about the place—what you two standing with your mouths wide open for? Thought you were going to get that gas! Where in thunder are all those boys?"
"Here they come—tired of waiting out there in the sun, I guess. So long, dad; I'm going with Jerry."
"You are not. You're going to be chief electrician. If Jerry can't put through his part of the job alone he doesn't deserve credit for having thought of the whole scheme."
The first part of Jerry's task proved easy enough. It took him well over the half hour Mr. Fulton had predicted, to find a farmhouse with a telephone, and Central seemed an unusually long time in ringing through to the office Jerry's father had been making his headquarters for the past weeks. Then it developed that Mr. Ring was out at a conference of business men. Jerry took the telephone number the girl gave him, and repeated it to Central, who again took her time in giving the connection. Jerry was about ready to drop with nervousness before he finally heard his father's gruff voice at the other end of the line.