“As near as I can make out, it covers the ground,” the young air pilot replied. “Now I’m going to put out this light. We don’t really need it any longer, and if they are watching us through any peep-holes, it would give our plan away.”
“We ought to know every part of this coop, Frank. As for the machine itself, I warrant you could find any stay or guy while it’s pitch dark. Let it go. There, they are trying the door again. Seems as if they can’t understand why it doesn’t give way. If it keeps on shutting them out, sooner or later they’ll try to batter it down. Oh! if I only had a gun here.”
“I intended having one with the seaplane, but thought I wouldn’t bother until we meant to start on a trip,” explained Frank, keen regret in his voice.
“Seems to me it’s always the unexpected that keeps cropping up with us,” complained Billy. “I can look back to lots of times when things happened just as suddenly and without warning as this has.”
“But they didn’t down us, you want to remember,” advised the other, in that confident way of his that always made his chums feel so much better.
“Now they’re starting to pry at the doors, Frank, which means business. Hadn’t we better be getting ready to make a start?”
“First of all I want you to stand by, and when I give the word fling both the large doors wide open,” Frank told him. “After that, as I switch on the searchlight, so as to see what lies ahead, climb aboard to your regular place. And, Billy, please don’t have any hitch in the program if you can help it!”
“Depend on me, Frank,” said the other, slipping away in the darkness that now filled the interior of the big hangar.
Frank mounted to his seat. As no flight of consequence was intended, he did not bother donning the head shield he always carried with the machine, his gloves alone being deemed necessary for the occasion, though both of them had wisely secured their fleece-lined leather jackets. Just as Billy had said, Frank was so familiar with every lever and stay, as well as with the engine, that, with his eyes blindfolded, he could have manipulated the intricate working parts.
Quickly he adjusted things to his liking with a deftness that left nothing to be desired. The fact that those unseen parties on the other side of the door were becoming more insistent with every passing second did not seem to disturb Frank at all; for he knew very well they could not stop his departure now.