A small piece of cotton waste had gotten into the supply pipe, and completely stopped the flow of gasolene.
"There it is!" cried the aviator, as he took it out, holding it up for all to see.
"I wonder if anyone could have done that on purpose?" asked Dick, looking at his chums, reflectively.
"You mean—Larson?" inquired Jack Butt. "He's capable of anything like that."
"But he wasn't near the machine," said Paul.
"Not unless he sneaked in the barn some night," went on the machinist, who seemed to have little regard for the former lieutenant.
"Well, there's no way of telling for certain, so we had better say nothing about it," decided Dick. "Then, too, any of us might have accidentally dropped the waste in the tank while we were working around the ship. I guess we'll call it an accident."
"But it must have been in the tank for some time," argued Larry Dexter, "and yet it only stopped up the pipe a little while ago."
"It was probably floating around in the tank, doing no damage in particular," explained Mr. Vardon. "Then, when we made the ship tilt that way, to test the stabilizer, the gasolene shifted, and the waste was flushed into the pipe. But we're all right now."
This was proved a little later when the motor was started with no trouble whatever. There was not a very good place to make a start, along the edge of the stream, but Dick and his chums realized that they could not always have perfect conditions, so they must learn to do under adverse ones.