“Just to think, they’ve beaten us a mile! And after all the talking we’ve gone and done, too. However will we hold our heads up after this?”
“See here, you don’t mean that those fellows have got their biplane rigged up already and are soaring around in the moonlight?” demanded Frank.
“Well,” Andy continued, “it looks like it, don’t it? Something that can fly and carry passengers certainly passed over our hangar just then. And not only that, but they let loose at us, no doubt intending to smash in our roof with a great big dornick.”
“Hold on, you’re jumping too far ahead, Andy. Let’s go slow and not get off the track so easy. If you were on the witness stand could you swear that you saw a biplane just disappearing over the trees yonder?”
“Well, no; perhaps not exactly,” said the other; “but I saw something that was moving along just as neat as you please.”
“Yes, and the moonlight is mighty deceiving, I know,” remarked Frank. “But we’ll say that you did see something, that might have been a flying machine or a cloud. Will you declare that you heard the popping of a motor?”
“I think I did, but perhaps it may have been the blood rushing through my brain, for I came down pretty solid. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if we learned, after all, that it was a motor in an aeroplane. Then think what they tried to do to us, will you?”
“There you go, Andy. Don’t be a false alarm all your life. We’re going to investigate that same noise presently, when we’ve threshed this other thing dry. It may be that they’ve gone and done it. But if two greenhorns can start up in an aeroplane by moonlight and sail around just as they please, flying must be easier than I ever dreamed of, that’s all.”
Frank did look puzzled. He could not bring himself to believe such a wonderful thing had happened. Knowing both Percy and his crony as he did, he doubted their ability to accomplish the feat in broad daylight, let alone night, with its deceptive moonlight.
And that was why he frowned as he tried to figure the thing out.