"It seems, Mr. Jerrold," said he, "that I never call on you except when I'm in trouble."
The inventor took fresh interest.
"You're in trouble now?" he asked, showing a good deal of concern.
"I'm in the hardest kind of luck," went on Matt, and he proceeded to explain how he and Ferral had bought the Hawk, and how Brady had executed his balloon-house plot, stolen the machine, and almost caused a tragedy.
Hamilton Jerrold had been himself entangled with Brady and knew just what kind of a scoundrel he was. His experience with Brady had left much bitterness in its wake, and Jerrold was eager to do whatever he could to bring the leader of the Brady gang to justice. Apart from his own feelings in the matter, Jerrold felt that Motor Matt had a claim on him.
"The Hawk," said Jerrold, "is a good machine, but the Eagle is a better one. We can cross the lake in the Eagle and land wherever you want to, and it is needless for me to say, my boy, that both the air ship and myself are at your service."
"Thank you, Mr. Jerrold," returned Matt gratefully. "Is the Eagle ready for use?"
"During the last week Payne and I have been improving her, and we did the very last tap on the car yesterday. All we have to do is to fill the tanks and put a little more gas in the bag—inside of an hour we can start."
The boys accompanied Jerrold into the back yard, where he had the air ship under a canvas shelter. Payne, Jerrold's assistant, was working around the car. As soon as Jerrold had told Payne what was wanted, the latter began making the Eagle ready.
"This is a great town for flying machines," remarked Ferral, as he watched the operation of getting the craft ready for a voyage.