“What was it?” demanded Andy.
“Did you see somebody?” demanded Elephant, getting his poles in every sort of trouble, in his eagerness to learn what it was all about back there.
“Yes, and what do you think, fellows, he just dropped down out of the branches of that big birch tree, and hurried into the bushes like fun. Take my word for it, he must a-been up there all the time we was sittin’ talking; and if that’s so, he learned about Andy here getting that letter and check from Uncle Jethro, ’way down in the cow-puncher country.”
“But who in the mischief was it, Larry, did you know him?” persisted Elephant.
“I should say yes; and who but that sneak of a Sandy Hollingshead, the shadow that hangs around after Percy Carberry, and does most of his mean work for him. And chances are, he’s makin’ for town right now, to tell all he’s learned. Say, won’t your old rival, Percy, be mad, though, when he hears of the luck that has come to the Bird boys?”
CHAPTER III—LOOKING FOR TROUBLE
Andy looked somewhat serious when Larry said this; but Frank on his part only laughed.
“Well, what does it matter?” he remarked. “The thing will be town talk in a little while, and those fellows would hear it that way. Let Sandy run with his great news and give his chum a pain. You don’t think for a minute that because we’ve got a chance to go off there to the cattle country, that Percy Carberry would make up his mind to hike that way, with some sort of machine he’s got coming, to take the place of that new biplane the bank thieves wrecked for him in Lake Ontario?”
“But you know how bitter he’s always been against us, Frank?” expostulated Andy.
“Many’s the time he’s tried to do us a bad turn; and even up in the air he used to take the greatest delight in swooping past us, just as close as he dared, and give us a scare; though he quit that when you threatened to lick him.”