“But didn’t you do Perc a great favor that time he had his machine knocked to flinders on the table rock up yonder?” demanded Elephant, turning to point his rods upwards to where quite a mountain reared its head toward the clouds, and which was locally known as Old Thunder-Top, though in the atlas it had another name.
Nobody had ever been able to climb to the summit of that precipitous height, and when the Bird boys landed there once from their aeroplane and planted a flag above the nest of the white-headed eagles they achieved a great triumph. The incident to which Elephant alluded had been brought about during a sudden thunder storm that had caught the rival aeroplanes while making a flight to the top of the mountain; and at that time the Bird boys were indeed placed in a position to save the lives of Percy Carberry and his comrade Sandy; but since gratitude was a foreign element in the make-up of the jealous rival, he had never shown that he meant to change his tactics toward Frank and Andy.
“Oh! never mind about what we did,” remarked Frank. “Forget it, just as Percy has done. Tomorrow, we’ll get as busy as beavers, packing the machine in the cases; and how lucky we didn’t break them up as you wanted to do, Andy, just to get rid of the stuff, you said. I guess we ought to be able to ship on the next day, and then learn just how long it’ll be on the way, so we can time our own going.”
“Huh! seems to me you ain’t botherin’ much about whether your dad’ll give his consent, eh, Frank?” remarked Larry, grinning.
“Oh! I’m taking that for granted; because you all seemed so sure he wouldn’t refuse me that favor,” chuckled Frank. “But come along, boys; what do we care if Sandy did get the news first hand, by climbing that tree when he saw us coming along the road, and keeping those big ears of his wide open. So far as I’m concerned I’d just as soon tell them myself all about our plans; because if we’re away down in Arizona, and they stay here in old Bloomsbury, I don’t think Percy’s got a long enough arm to reach that far, and do us any harm.”
“He sure would if he could, and don’t you forget it,” muttered Elephant; and at that Andy looked more or less troubled.
As our story concerns the doings of the Bird boys in other fields than that of their old stamping grounds around the home town, we need not accompany them further on their visit to the fishing hole. Enough to state that the finny tribes bit eagerly at times, and that besides having a fish dinner at noon, they all carried home respectable strings to exhibit as evidence of their prowess with hook and line.
Frank doubtless felt satisfied with his sport, even though he did not take the largest bass, nor the greatest number for that matter; and the whole of them came home by sundown, tired, yet satisfied with the day’s sport.
During the many hours spent alongside the deep hole where the fish loved to lie in these late summer days, there was plenty of time in which to discuss the coming departure of Frank and Andy for the Far West. And it can be set down as certain that the subject was threshed as dry as a bone before the quartette separated for the night.
Early the next day Elephant and Larry showed up at Frank’s house, to find him already busily at work out there at the hangar, taking off bolts, and dismembering the wonderful aeroplane with the confidence of one who was familiar with every minute detail of its construction; which was only the truth, for with his cousin he had partly built at least three “fliers” up to now, and was continually thinking up some new arrangement that would make the task of piloting aeroplanes through the upper air currents much easier, or possibly add to their safety when rocked by furious gusts of wind among the clouds. Andy soon showed up, and almost quivering with eagerness to get busy. There did not seem to be the slightest thing in sight to disturb the two who were planning such great things.