"I came to talk with you about that. While I'm giving you your breakfast, I'll tell you my plans. Dad, and all the rest except Whipple, are off in the swamp, somewhere, keeping track of Jerrold's air-ship, and that will give us a chance."
Matt swung his bound feet over the edge of the cot, and while he sat there the girl drew a chair close and began giving him his breakfast.
"Dad has been doing a lot of criminal things," said the girl, "and all he built that air-ship for was to make it easy for him to rob people and get away without being found out. Didn't you guess that when I showed you that article in the paper? I thought you might."
"I've been mighty thick-headed," answered Matt, between mouthfuls, "and I never thought the thing through that far. Possibly it's because so much has been happening to me since I went into that place on Hoyne Street."
"It's nearly broken my heart having dad act like he's been doing," said the girl, her lips quivering. "If mother had lived she'd have kept dad straight, but when she died dad just seemed to go to the dogs. He has tried to make the people in South Chicago think he was just an honest inventor, but, even at that, he stole all his ideas from Jerrold. That balloon house, that he built out of some of the proceeds of his first robbery, was put up for what they call a 'blind.' With a big house like that, out in plain sight, dad felt that everybody would think his work was open and aboveboard. When he committed any robberies, the Hawk was taken from the shed in the dead of night, and Harper would steer it for the place they were to rob. The blackest kind of a night was always selected, and only flat-topped buildings were robbed. You see, the air-ship would alight on the roof, and dad and the rest would break into the building from the top. When they left they always went in the same way they came, and the police were puzzled because they could not find any clues in the lower part of the buildings."
"It was a slick scheme," commented Matt.
"That's the way Hartz & Greer's place was robbed," proceeded the girl. "Dad and the rest got fifteen thousand dollars' worth of goods from Hartz & Greer, and for more than a week the stuff has been hidden in that house on Hoyne Street. But now dad has left South Chicago for good and all. He's afraid the police are beginning to suspect him, and that Jerrold might try to do something on account of those stolen blue prints."
It was perfectly plain to Matt that the girl's recital of these crimes, in which her father had played the leading part, was anything but easy for her. She was talking from a sense of duty, and Matt honored and admired her for the stand she was taking.
"It doesn't seem possible," said he, gently, "that Brady is your father."
"But he is," she answered brokenly, "and he has brought shame and disgrace on me. But what could I do? Dad knows how I feel about his actions, and he has watched me and kept me away from other people ever since he began his stealing. When you came to the house, last night, it was the first chance I have had to tell what I know. I overheard dad and Pete planning what they were going to do if you came, and—and I hoped you would come, although I knew you would never leave the house until you were taken away as dad's prisoner. I felt sure, though, that I could help you to escape, and I feel even more sure of that now than I did before."