"I saw him looking all about a lot, and he seemed right interested in a heap of little things," Larry remarked.
"Yes," put in Elephant, who did not like to hear his chum do all the talking. "Lots of times he'd turn to the other chap, and nod his head or wink his eye, just like he wanted to say: 'There! what did I tell you, Longley; wasn't I right?'"
"Oh! he did, eh?" grumbled Andy, shaking his own head in an angry fashion; "well, all I can say is, that Mr. Marsh'd better keep his nose away from places where it ain't wanted. He's just after something slick, Frank. He means to steal some of your clever ideas, that's what."
But Frank was not so easily convinced. He believed in hearing all he could before making up his mind.
"Look here, Larry," he said, earnestly, "he must have given some sort of an excuse for coming out here again, didn't he?"
"More than a few, Frank," was the other's prompt reply.
"As what?" continued the young aviator.
"Oh! he kept on saying he was so much interested in you fellers that he just couldn't continue his vacation tour without seeing more of you. In town they're talking already about the race that's going to take place between you and the other biplane; make up your mind Percy was the one to scatter the news, and spread his boasts about how he's going to make you look like thirty cents. And Mr. Marsh, he just wanted to know if it was so, and all about the same; because he says he means to hang around Bloomsbury till that event is pulled off."
"Hear that, Frank, will you?" burst out Andy. "Told you he was a spy of some kind. Perhaps Mr. Marsh expects to spring a neat little surprise just before we start in that bully old race. Mebbe he's got a few cards up his sleeve. Mebbe he wants to stop us from starting, and claim we're using a device that is patented by the firm that employs him. Anyhow, he's bound to give us trouble."
Apparently Frank was not in the same anxious and worried frame of mind as his cousin. He paid no attention to what Andy was saying, but went on questioning the one who had been in camp, and talked with the gentleman in question.