Burton looked at the letter. While he was doing so, Wily Bill made a desperate grab for it. The showman was too quick for the "barker," and jerked the sheet out of reach.
"That's your game, is it?" growled Burton. "Go back to your job, Wily. Come to me after the show, and we'll talk this over. I don't like the way you're acting in this matter, and if you know when you're well off, you'll put your foot on the soft pedal and keep it there. Not a word! Clear out!"
With a black scowl, and a look at Carl that boded him no good, Wily Bill turned on his heel and made his way back to the side show.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE MAN FROM WASHINGTON.
"Sufferin' hurricanes, what a blow!" remarked Joe McGlory. "What good's a flying machine, pard, when a spell of weather puts it down and out? The Comet's a back number in a hatful of wind."
"Hatful!" repeated Motor Matt. "If this breeze isn't doing fifty miles an hour I'm no hand at guessing."
The two motor boys were in their old rendezvous, the calliope tent, sitting on a couple of overturned buckets and listening to the roar and boom of bellying canvas, the flutter and snap of banners, and the whistle of violently disturbed air around the tent poles.
The big card played by Burton was the aëroplane flights, two of which were given every day, before the afternoon and the evening performance—wind and weather permitting. Since the motor boys' engagement with Burton, Matt had not failed to take the aëroplane aloft on an average of more than two days a week. This violent wind made the morning flight at Reid's Lake one of the "off" days. There was a chance, however, that the wind would go down with the sun, and that it would be possible to do a little flying before the evening show.