[CHAPTER VI.]
ROBBERY.
Motor Matt made as graceful an ascent and as pretty a flight in the aëroplane as any he had ever attempted. Archie Le Bon, swinging below the machine on a trapeze, put the finishing touch to the performance by doing some of the most hair-raising stunts. Loud and prolonged were the cheers that floated up to the two with the Comet, and there was not the least doubt but that the aëroplane had successfully diverted the minds of the spectators from the recent trouble with Rajah.
After the Comet had fluttered back to earth, and the crowd had drifted away toward the side show, Matt and McGlory left a canvasman in charge of the machine and dropped in at the cook tent for a hurried meal. There was now nothing for the two chums to do until the next flight of the day, which was billed to take place at half-past six.
"Did you ever have a feeling, pard," said the cowboy, as he and Matt were leaving the mess tent and walking across the grounds toward the calliope "lean-to," "that there was a heap of trouble on the pike, and all of it headed your way?"
"I've had the feeling, Joe," laughed Matt.
"Got it now?"
"No."
"Well, I have."
McGlory halted and looked skyward, simultaneously lifting his handkerchief to test the strength and direction of the wind. Watching the weather had become almost a second nature with the cowboy since he and Matt had been with the Big Consolidated. Aëroplane flights are, to a greater or less extent, at the mercy of the weather, and the more wind during an ascension then the greater the peril for Motor Matt.