“Cut in the fence that makes the rear of the hangar,” was explained. “Come in. Let me show you.”
Dave cast a hurried glance about the interior of the hangar as he entered it. Except that the little door which protected the rear window opening was out of place, everything seemed in order. Their tramp friend, however, had stooped over near the Ariel.
“Look here,” he said, and the boys, crowding nearer to him, noticed that he held in his hand the crisped, blackened end of what resembled a fuse.
“Where does it lead to?” asked the startled Hiram.
Very gingerly the tramp ran eye and hand along the sinister-looking fuse. He seemed to locate its end as he reached under a corner of the airplane.
“Better get it outside,” he suggested, and the boys saw that he had unearthed a round box-like object resembling a dry electric battery. The fuse ran to its center. The tramp carried it outside, set it down in the grass at a safe distance from the hangar, and observed:
“Better soak it in a pail of water before you handle it much. Those things are dangerous; very much so! If I don’t mistake, you’ll find it’s dynamite.”
“Then some one’s up to a mean trick again!” cried the excitable Hiram, unable to repress himself. “Dave, you’re not going to stand this; are you?”
“Why, Hiram,” responded Dave quietly, “we don’t yet know our bearings. Maybe it’s a joke——”
“Joke! Joke!” fairly yelled Hiram. “Yes, the same kind of a joke as that fellow Vernon played on us when he stole the Comet at the Washington aero meet. Or like that partner of his, who dropped a steel hook on the biplane purposely to wreck us.”