"I like the enthusiasm of these boys," Hawke told Mr. Phipps, when Herb had joined his companions. "In all my experience I never came across a more promising bunch. There isn't a dullard in the lot."
"To tell you the truth," answered the rancher, after a long drag at his Havana, and regarding with kindly eyes the group at the end of the veranda, "the idea of showing them how to build the machine appeals to me about as much as the bird—or man—hunt, although that is an important factor of course. And I hope you may be able to land the thief, whoever or whatever it is."
"Say, boys," he added, in a louder tone, "you'd better all stay for dinner to-night, and we'll have a little moonlight party on the veranda here—how about it, Mr. Hawke?"
"Sure—you'll stay, won't you, Hawke?" queried Jerry, while all the others nodded their ready assent to the rancher's proposal. Hawke was easily induced to fall in with the scheme.
"And by the way," continued Mr. Phipps, "why don't you take Hawke for a scouting expedition up in the mountains to-morrow, while you're waiting for your uniforms and the material?"
"We'd just been talking about that," assented Fly. "We thought mebbe we'd find the place where the bird lives."
Mr. Phipps and the aviator smiled at this naïve response.
"Carlito can take you," said the southerner, "and Herb wants to try out a new gun he has. Suit you, Mr. Hawke?"
"I'm here on a vacation," responded the aviator. "And anything like that sounds good to me."
After a while the boys grew more calm, and the party on the veranda settled down to the quiet of the waning afternoon. Mr. Hawke and the southerner found topics of conversation in politics, aeronautics and affairs of the day. The boys separated into groups of two, some reading or glancing over the illustrated magazines, others talking in low voices, flipping penknives or whittling. At last the sun sank in a bed of red, gold and purple behind the tallest mountain peak, lighting up its snowy whiteness with vivid crimson and yellow, and deluging the sky with beautifully mingled colors, which gradually trailed off at each side into faint lavender.