"But Frank—"
"Yes, I know what you're going to say, Andy; that night will soon be coming swooping down on us. That's so, and I'm sorry in one way, for it's going to be a tough old job finding a suitable place to fold our wings on in the darkness. But we're up against it good and hard, you see, and it's what you might call Hobson's choice."
Andy showed more positive signs of anger.
"What business have they got bothering us this way?" he grumbled. "Say, don't you suppose it would be all right for me to try a few shots at 'em with the fine Marlin repeating rifle we're carrying? Perhaps I could give 'em a scare anyhow and make 'em haul off."
"No, I wouldn't think of it," replied Frank, hastily. "You might cause trouble to our own delicately balanced little aeroplane by firing. And then again, what if you brought about an accident and sent them down to the earth like so many stones?"
"But you know those other chaps banged away at us and they didn't bother their heads a cent whether they upset our whole business or not," objected Andy, belligerently.
"Two wrongs never make a right, Andy."
"But when they opened fire on us," the other went on, complainingly, "that constituted a declaration of war, and so you sec, we'd be quite justified in giving 'em back the same kind of medicine."
"You forget that one of those two in the biplane is a former schoolmate of ours and that perhaps he's just being compelled to chase us right now," said Frank.
"Think so, do you?" growled Andy, above the rattle of the exhaust; "well, I'd like to warrant you that Puss Carberry is grinning right now, because of the fright he thinks he's giving us. No, sir, he's only too willing to do anything to upset our plans. I know him pretty well, and I wouldn't put any meanness past that fellow."