"Humph!" grunted Herc, feeling his head ruefully. "But," he added, cheering up vastly, "we had him on the run, anyhow."
"That's so," agreed Ned, "and I see, 'by the same token,' as Mulligan says, that he was in such a hurry he left the spoons behind him."
He pointed to a scattered heap at the door which the farmer's wife pounced upon gratefully. The spoons were all there but one, and Kennell's exit must have been hurried, to judge by this fact. Evidently he had dropped them by accident and had not tarried to pick them up.
While the farmer's wife looked on in wonderment, and not a little fear, Ned and Herc prepared their machine for flight. In a little less than ten minutes' time, they had taken the air with a roar and whirr, throwing the domestic animals about the place into panic. Without incident they winged their way back to the aviation field, arriving there in time for a hearty noon-day dinner at the farmhouse.
Ned's head was bandaged, and Herc's cheek was swollen, but they volunteered no explanation of their injuries, and Lieutenant De Frees concluded that they had met with some slight accident of which they did not care to speak, and deemed it best not to ask questions.
During the noon-day meal, Ned watched the countenances of Merritt and Chance narrowly. Although he had not the slightest thing to base his belief upon, an obstinate idea had entered his head and would not leave it, and that was, that they had, in some manner, something to do with the occurrences of the morning. He mentioned this to Herc afterward, but was laughed at for his pains.
"It was some sort of a hard-hitting ghost that landed me that sleep wallop," declared Herc, who, as we know, was reprehensibly given to slang on all occasions.
The afternoon passed quietly. Merritt and Chance asked leave to go into the town, which was not far off, and they were granted an afternoon's furlough. In what manner they employed it, we shall learn before long. Ned and Herc watched them go off, arm in arm, and Herc turned to Ned with an indignant snort.
"Whoof! I'll bet those chaps are up to some more cussedness. Look how they've got their heads together. Wonder what they are plotting now?"