“Well, no, not quite so bad as that,” admitted Pudge; “but I knew some of those German spies must have tried pretty hard to capture the craft, and if that failed I reckoned they’d wanted to do something to put her out of commission. Now, please, sit down here and tell me everything.”
“Ours is a long story, Pudge,” said Frank, “as you can judge for yourself when I tell you we’ve been far up over the fighting lines in Belgium, found ourselves bombarded by shrapnel, and threatened by half a dozen Taube flying machines, as well as a Zeppelin!”
“Gosh! all of that?” gasped Pudge.
“Yes,” added Billy, shaking his forefinger at the stout chum, “and before we relate the whole story in detail you’ve got to tell us what happened last night that made you fail to come back when we expected you.”
“Oh! I wanted to, all right,” spluttered Pudge, as though he felt that somehow his bravery or his honor might be involved in the explanation demanded; “but, say, there were three of them, all big husky men, at that, and they caught me unawares just by that turn of the road. It was getting kind of dusk, too, and I never dreamed of trouble till one clapped a hand over my mouth, and the others held me while they tied a bandage around my face. Whee! I was near smothered at first.”
“They were Germans, Pudge?” questioned Billy, interested in the fact that Pudge had also had his share of adventure.
“I heard them talking in German, which made it look that way,” replied the other soberly.
“They didn’t hurt you very much, did they?” asked Billy, looking more closely at their jolly comrade.
“More my feelings than anything else,” replied Pudge, shrugging his fat shoulders disconsolately. “They just kept me there while they waited to catch some sort of signal. I listened, too, and heard some shouting, but that cloth kept me from making out what it meant. Afterward they set me free, and disappeared. I didn’t know what to make of it when I got to the hangar here and found the Sea Eagle gone.”
“You even felt afraid they had grabbed our seaplane, didn’t you?” asked Billy.