Matt dropped down on a heap of straw and leaned back wearily against a side pole. McGlory threw himself down beside him, his face thoughtful and angry.
"I hadn't any notion Burton was running in a rhinecaboo," said the cowboy presently, "until the Comet had jumped into the air and I had looked back and seen Le Bon near the place from which the machine had started. When I turned and looked at you and the Comet, there was the Haidee girl perched on the lower wing, throwin' kisses to the crowd. I knew then that Burton had turned his trick, and I lammed loose a yell; but there was too much noise for you to hear it. I kept my eyes on the aëroplane and the girl and—and I saw something then that made my hair curl later when the fire broke out."
"What was it?" asked Matt.
"Haidee, pushing something out on the left-hand wing and jabbing it down there with a hatpin, so it would stay."
"We must have been three or four hundred feet away from you, Joe," returned Matt, "and how could you see it was a hatpin?"
McGlory sat up, opened the front of his coat, and drew a blistered hatpin out of the lining.
"I hunted around under the machine, while we were fighting the fire," he explained, "and picked up that. So, you see, I know it was a hatpin."
A frown crossed Matt's face.
"What do you make out of that move of Haidee's?" he asked.
"She pinned a ball of something soaked in oil to the wing and touched it off," averred McGlory. "It smouldered for a while and then blazed up and set fire to the canvas."