"Well, this is interesting anyway," said Fred, with the now completed message before him. "Here's the whole of it: 'Take every precaution against attempt to damage plane. Braizewell may employ desperate methods.'"
"Phew!" Don ejaculated. "It seems to me that Braizewell, through that scoundrel of a pilot of his, already has attempted to employ desperate methods. This holds out a mighty pleasant prospect for our peace of mind so long as we're held here, I'm thinking."
"Guess old Cap. Allerson ain't a whale of a sleuth, eh?" put in Jack.
"Looks as though he had doped Henryson out all right," Fred agreed.
"Yes, I wish when I was doing the job of sticking him into the mud I'd shoved him clear through to China," added Andy, apparently the least concerned of the four, and actually smiling in spite of the gravity of the situation that confronted them, as he recalled the ridiculous picture of the scheming pilot, Henryson, planted head-first in the mire, his feet waving frantically in the air.
"Say," he added, a sudden thought hitting him. "That fellow ought to be stuck up that way for life, with a sign hanging on him, 'Don't approach; I'm contaminated.'"
"I'm not afraid to predict that before long he'll be stuck up before the whole world as a cowardly trickster," said Jack. "He's bound to be caught at his dirty game sooner or later. He can't get away with it forever. Why, right now half the fellows suspect that he had some sort of a hand in that fire."
"Well, for the sake of our friend Captain Allerson, if the fellow is trapped I hope it's the whaling cap.—the town constabule—who lands him."