"What's that?" cried Elephant. "Sure you don't suspect these two fine looking gents might be another pair of crooks like the ones that tried to steal Frank's monoplane last summer, do you?"
"Oh! rats! You wouldn't understand if I did try to explain. There they go now, in a cloud of dust. Guess they saw us pointing at the car. Come along, slowpoke, and get up with Andy," and Larry linked his arm in that of his comrade, though he had to stoop considerably in order to make the connection.
"Why, hello, fellows!" exclaimed Andy, who now for the first time became aware of the fact that they had been trailing after him.
"Just dropped around to see if we could be of any use putting the new machine away," remarked Elephant, as if an apology were needed to account for their presence; but both boys had always been accounted special friends of Frank and Andy, and warmly greeted, though not taken into the secrets of the shop, where mystery reigned much of the time of late.
"And there's Frank coming right now!" declared Andy. "I guess he made up his mind he didn't care to put her through all her paces, with me away. We're sure proud of this new one, fellows. Why, she works like a clock, and minds her helm better than anything that ever answered to the call of the plane."
"Say, did you happen to notice that car on the road over there?" asked
Larry.
"I saw one moving along in a cloud of dust; but didn't notice who was in it. Why do you ask that?" answered the young aviator, looking at his friend curiously.
"Oh well, it happened to be those same two men you saw, when you brought little Tommy ashore," remarked the other, mysteriously.
"But I thought they were headed for Bloomsbury?" exclaimed Andy.
"That's what they said; but you see they thought it worth while to run past and come away out here, just to take a peek over the fence and see what you Bird boys had in this section."