“It is a terrible place,” he said.
“It is the best place for men of his caliber,” retorted the other.
“Perhaps it would be as happy a fate for him as being compelled to slave for Foyashi.”
“I hear that he would not have anything to do with their schemes and defied them to kill him before he would aid them to manufacture his explosive until he was influenced by Foyashi,” said the first speaker.
“I guess you’re right,” replied the other worthy, “but he’s passive enough now, I fancy.”
They both laughed and arose to go. As for Lathrop he lay almost paralyzed with fear. Of course much of what he had heard had been meaningless to him, but he did understand that a plan was on foot to blow up the boys’ aerodrome, destroy their ship and possibly injure themselves. As the men’s footsteps died out, as they walked off down the path through the woods, the boy, who a minute before had been seriously pondering some sort of harm to Frank and Harry felt conscience-stricken.
What he had just heard had changed him from a possible enemy into a fellow-schoolmate and he determined to warn the boys of their peril. With this end in view he was hurrying down the path, retracing his steps towards the aerodrome, when he was seized roughly from behind and whirled about. The man who had seized him was the one who had assumed the costume of a tramp. His eyes blazed with rage. He had hurried back to get his knife,—which had dropped from his pocket as he sat talking,—a few seconds after Lathrop had left his place of concealment. As luck would have it, in pushing through the bushes he had discovered the depression in the grass where the boy had lain. A brief investigation showed him that it had been recently occupied and that whoever had crouched there must have heard every word they said. Calling his comrade the two had set out at full speed in pursuit of Lathrop.
As his captor gripped the boy in a hold that clutched like a vice, Lathrop realized that he had fallen into bad hands.
CHAPTER V.
TWO RASCALS GET A SHOCK.
The boy was startled but his presence of mind did not desert him. Lathrop, although, as has been said, a hectoring, dictatorial sort of youth possessed plenty of courage of a certain kind, and was no coward. He therefore exclaimed angrily: