"Well, we're going over every inch of that plane today," Jack informed him. "But I've just been thinking that it might be best not to say anything; in fact, to make it seem that our suspicions have been lulled to sleep."
"Yes," said Don, "I'm inclined to believe, with you, that that is our best method of self-protection."
"All right, then, we'll say nothing to anybody. If we discover anything it may help us to solve this mystery."
Don continued to the hut, where he warmed up the breakfast the other three had left for him. Meanwhile they were at the hangar, beginning their minute examination of their plane.
It was well toward noon, and when they were coming to the conclusion that no matter what might have been the designs against them, none had been successfully carried out, when Andy made a sudden exclamation which brought the others to his side.
For more than an hour he and Jack had gone over the engine together, while Fred had made every possible test of the electrical and radio equipment. Jack and Fred were at this time examining the elevators and rudder, and Andy was going over the fusilage, carefully inspecting every inch of strut and frame work, and by accident had laid his hand on one of the main bracing wires. His trained touch had brought the involuntary exclamation.
"What is it?" Jack asked, as nearly excited as he ever permitted himself to get.
For a moment Andy did not reply. When he did it was to ask the others to come closer.
"Look at this," he said, pointing with index finger to a place far up on the bracing wire.
Now it may be explained here that for the purposes of strength and endurance these wires are made up of many smaller strands, finely twisted together. Sometimes one of these strands will break, and often a careless aviator, or an over-confident one, or one who does not want to subject himself to what he regards as an unnecessary delay, although he knows the danger inherent in such a course, will clip off the broken strand, close up to the main wire of which it is a part, and do the job so well that even a trained inspector might not easily discover how, to save time, he was endangering his own safety and perhaps the lives of others.