“It’s a cinch,” chuckled Art. “They ain’t one of ’em knows about the machine. Just keep high enough so they can’t make out our faces, an’ I’ll do the rest with the glasses.”
“An’ them we miss, the other boys ought to get.”
The first results amply proved that the boys’ theory was a good one. Near the County Fair road, in the southwest corner of the district, a small, scum-covered cow pond stood in a low pasture. Art, using his glass, made out a Wolf running from the pond, which he had evidently examined with no result. As Art kept his glass on the opaque green pool, the aeroplane made a circling sweep. When it was about to pass over the water, a slime-coated boy, dripping water and mud, scrambled up out of the center of the pond, his face upturned, his eyes staring and his mouth open.
“Number nine,” exclaimed Art. After another squint with the glass he added jubilantly: “Joe Andrews. He just had his nose out.”
While the aeroplane swung to the end of the district, Art jotted the name and number on his chart. Bonner’s machine was not a varnished, silk-winged aeroplane. The new white linen sections on the old, soiled and oily planes were even grotesque. But it was built on scientific principles, light and stout, carried a four-cylinder, twenty horse power motor that was working as well as it did before the accident at the circus. The principal expense in the rebuilding of the flying machine had been the cost of a new magneto. Other needed material had been secured in Scottsville.
“Now,” suggested the jubilant young aviator, “we’ll take a turn about the whole district and look wherever it seems unlikely anyone would hide.”
The circuit required less than twelve minutes, and the aeroplane passed the camp again. Not a Coyote was seen but the Wolves were picked out, scattered here and there, by their white staff flags. Turning westward at the camp road, the aeroplane headed directly across the “hide out” district. Art kept his glass busy, but no Coyote head rewarded him.
“That looks like about the last place anyone would hide,” suggested Art pointing directly ahead. “Let’s try it.”
He referred to a broad wheat field which spread over the top of a low hill. The crop had been cut and threshed, and a large part of the field had been newly plowed. The plowed part covered the crest of the rolling field and was apparently devoid of all life except blackbirds. A white-flagged Wolf could be seen in the distance cutting across a corner of the plowed slope.