"Come on, come a little closer and we'll have you," whispered Nipper excitedly.
On it came toward the upturned mouth of the vacuum. It was ten feet away, then eight, seven, six. Now it felt the air disturbance, for it began to flutter harder. Then—zipp!
It was caught in the air current and in a twinkle disappeared down the yawning month of the sucker.
A mighty cheer went up. But they were silenced quickly when another moth appeared. But before this one had gone half way down the light shaft, two others came. Then came two more, then three or four, until they were fluttering in the white light like so many scraps of paper. And always when they reached a point over the opening of the sucker they were whisked out of sight like a flash, to be carried into the big bag at the other end of the machine.
The crowd began to press in closer. The men were talking loudly now and congratulating the young engineers, and as for Nipper and his comrades, well, they were pleased, and showed it by the smiles they wore.
But just at this moment the sound of an automobile coming from the direction of headquarters was heard and the next instant Mr. Ford's car dashed up.
"Hello, boys, how's she working?" he inquired and there was something in the tone of his voice that disturbed the scouts.
"Why, it's running in great shape. We have nearly half a bag full of moths now. What's the matter?" queried Nipper.
"Well, I have some bad news for you. I'm sorry, fellows, but your little machine isn't as original as we thought it was. Here's a telegram I received this evening from my attorneys in Washington. They say that a machine like yours was invented in Germany several years ago and patented in this country, too. They say several stories were printed about it in German and American magazines at the time. That means that we can't put it on the market as we had visions of doing and—!"
"Well, well, that's too bad," said deep-voiced Mr. Bassett, who had come out of the automobile with the other judges to hear what Mr. Ford had to say. "Too bad they can't get a patent on it. I thought the lads had an A-1 business proposition here and I was about to make 'em a spot cash offer for an interest in it. Why, it's the best thing we've seen in all the tests. No one has had anything anywhere near as good."