“Filed!” exclaimed Dick, seizing the wire from Phil, while Tom leaped to the ground and came running around to where they stood. “It can’t be, Phil. Who would have done such a thing as that?”
“I don’t know, but just take a look at it,” said Phil. “You can see the smooth part left by the file, and the rough surface where the wire actually parted.”
“Let’s see, Dick,” said Tom, and all three boys examined the broken wire carefully.
“You’re right, Phil; that was no accident,” was Dick’s verdict, and Tom agreed with him. “There’s only one man I know that would be capable of doing such a thing,” he added.
Phil nodded his head. “Rocks Gurney,” he said, briefly. “You know after that licking I gave him he swore to get even with me, and this is the method he has used.”
“Just like him, too,” exclaimed Dick, indignantly. “Why, if that stay had broken while we were in the air, we’d have been in serious trouble.”
“Luckily for us, he filed a bit too deep, and the stay broke sooner than he thought it would,” said Phil. “The chances are he didn’t stop at just that one, either. We’d better go over every bit of the machine, and see if he’s monkeyed with anything else.”
This they did, and it was not long before Tom discovered a deep nick in another wire. In all they found five wires in different parts of the machine that had been partially cut through, enough to have caused disaster had they given way while the machine was in the air.
“I’m going to make inquiries and find out if anybody around the house has seen anything of Gurney or any other suspicious person lately,” said Phil. “I don’t think the machine was tampered with during the night, because the hangar is securely locked, and I didn’t notice anything wrong when I opened up this morning.”
The Strongs employed an old negro gardener, and when questioned he remembered seeing somebody near the hangar the previous evening while the family was at supper, but he thought it was some friend of the boys, and had not paid much attention to him.