The three—Lieutenant Cameron, Motor Matt, and Joe McGlory—were in Cameron's quarters in officers' row at the post.
One window of the room overlooked the parade ground and, if the weather had not been so thick, would have given a view of the old barracks, beyond. Another window commanded a prospect of the lake, just now surging high and lashing its waters against the foot of the bluff on which the fort stood.
The post was practically abandoned, and no more than a handful of soldiers were in possession. Most of these comprised a detail of the Signal Corps sent there for the try-out of the Traquair aëroplane with which Matt had acquitted himself so creditably.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and all day long Matt and McGlory had been housed up at the post on account of the storm.
Ping Pong, the Chinese boy, was watching the aëroplane, which was in a big shelter tent not far from the post trader's store.
The cowboy, grumbling over the cheerless prospect from each window of the room, finally returned to his rocking-chair and sat down.
"What next, Matt?" inquired Cameron. "You don't remain long in any one place, and I've been wondering when you'd leave here and where you'd go."
"We're liable to break out in any old place on the map," said McGlory. "That's what I like about trailing around with Pard Matt. You never know, from one week to the next, whether you're going to hang up your hat in Alaska or Panama. It's the uncertainty and the vast possibilities that hooked me."
"I haven't laid any plans," remarked the king of the motor boys. "The failure of the government to buy that aëroplane, after Joe and I had put up a lot of money and time building it, leaves me with the machine on my hands. It's something of a white elephant."
"It needn't be a white elephant," returned Cameron. "You can crate the Comet and leave it here at the post until you find a use for it. The other aëroplane which you and Mrs. Traquair sold the war department is going to prove such a success that I am sure the government will be after this one. It will take a little time. There's a certain amount of red tape connected with the matter, you know."