Once the breakfast had been disposed of, Bud was trembling with eagerness to get started. He could not understand why the others should delay so, when time was slipping away.
Presently they left the cabin, closing the door behind them. All of the blankets, as well as their food supplies, had been left inside, and they did not want any wandering wild animal like a 'coon or a fox to make way with the latter during their absence at the proving grounds. It was this same caution that urged Hugh to cover up the aperture through which they had obtained fresh air during the night just past, and which went by the name of a window.
The open field which Bud had once before mentioned as the very place for the trial spins with his aeroplane model was not very far distant. The man who had originally started to make a farm away up here had diligently cut down trees for a space of several acres. He had also grubbed the ground so thoroughly that it had remained clear all these years, save for an annual crop of grass, now withered and dead.
"If we can help any, Bud, just tell us what to do," Hugh said to the inventor, after the three boys had come to a halt on the border of this open space.
"That's the kind of talk I like to hear, Hugh," the other replied, looking up with a smile on his anxious face. "Just wait till I get these covers off, and then you'll see what I've been doing all these months when some of the fellows were kidding me on being a regular old book worm and not wanting to come out and play even football with them. It was the hardest kind of work, but if she even goes a little, I'll think it wasn't time wasted. All I want is encouragement; I've got the bull-dog grit to carry it on all right."
"I reckon you have, Bud," was the only comment Hugh made; and he ought to know, because Bud was a member of the Wolf patrol and the leader had watched him work many a time as though there were no such word as "fail" in his lexicon.
So Bud busied himself in undoing stout cords and opening both bundles. When Hugh saw the nature of the load he had been packing up the side of Stormberg Mountain, he shook his head and laughed.
"What did you think I was, Bud, a mule, or a Chinese porter used to carrying as much as half a ton on his back?" he demanded. "Why, that engine would have given me a bad scare if I'd seen it beforehand. And I toted that all the way up here from the road, did I? Well, anyway, I've earned the right to boast after this. A motor is no light load, I don't care how small it may be. Don't you agree with me, Ralph?"
Ralph was chuckling to himself, seemingly much amused.
"I should say yes," he replied; "and I don't wonder you complained of feeling a touch of pain in the muscles of your back last night, Hugh. But really the load Bud took himself was larger and just about as heavy as yours, you see."