"Very well, I will hear what you have to say."
As the car moved slowly off, the chauffeur steering it carefully among the scattered crowd, the two occupants of the tonneau were engaged in a conversation that must have been deeply interesting, judging from old Barr's gestures and exclamations. If one could have penetrated behind his mask they would have seen his thin lips curled in a delighted smile and his eyes glisten with cupidity at the proposition Sanborn was craftily unfolding.
CHAPTER IV.
EBEN JOYCE APPEARS.
Hardly had the automobile containing the old man and the machinist vanished down the road in a cloud of dust before a shout from the crowd proclaimed that the Golden Eagle was once more in sight. At first a mere speck against the blue, she rapidly assumed shape and was soon circling above the heads of the onlookers, her engine droning steadily, as if she had been some gigantic beetle.
"I say, Frank, this is glorious. How much better she flies than when she was laden down with her cabin and fittings."
Billy shouted this comment at the top of his voice, so as to be heard by the others above the roar of the engine.
Far below them—spread out like the figures on a carpet—they could see the plain; with its big crowd massed in one corner and dozens of tiny figures scuttling about so as to get a better view of the air-craft by getting right underneath it.
"Watch, I'm going to give them a scare."
It was Frank who spoke, and, as he did so, he shoved forward his control-wheel post till the front elevating planes were dropped at an acute angle. There was a sharp snap as he opened the circuit and the roar of the propellers came to a sudden stop.