"The returns are in from Devil's Lake City and Minnewaukon. Time, two hours and seven minutes. Distance traveled, ninety miles. This was at the rate of a little less than forty-five miles an hour, and the government ought to be completely satisfied. I know I am. Motor Matt, allow me to congratulate you."
One of the officers was doing the speaking.
It was three hours after the sensational finish of the trial. The crowds had departed. McGlory, a few officers, Cameron, and Matt were in the tent at Camp Traquair. Cameron, his head bandaged, was lying on a cot, but he was wide awake and smiling.
"I knew he could do the trick," said Cameron; "in fact, I've been confident of that ever since I saw him wabble around on his first flight with the aëroplane. What beats me, though, is how those ropes became notched."
"Sergeant O'Hara thinks he knows how it happened," explained the officer who had read off the June Bug's record. "He and the other three guards were having a game of seven-up, last night, when they should have been giving their entire attention to watching the aëroplane. O'Hara thought he heard a noise around the machine. He investigated, but found no cause for uneasiness. After that, O'Hara declares, the card playing stopped; but, it now seems clear, the evil had already been done."
"We don't know that this fellow calling himself Siwash Charley was the scoundrel who filed the guy ropes," spoke up another officer.
"It's a positive certainty, in my own mind," declared Cameron.
"What your individual belief is, lieutenant, would hardly stand at a court-martial, or in a court of law."
"That's true, yes, sir. Siwash Charley was seen in Devil's Lake City yesterday——"
"Circumstantial, but hardly conclusive. He can't be found now. Fully a hundred men have been looking for him and are now on the trail, but Siwash Charley, if he was here, has vanished."