The highway had no turns, except the suburb’s cross streets. It was possible that Griff might have turned into one of them, perhaps to return a hired motorcycle to its garage; nevertheless, so strange had been the action of the youth that Bob decided to ride on, at least to the last police officer along the main traffic road, to see if he could learn whether the trail continued or not.
The traffic officer, used to seeing this rider, greeted Bob and told him that several motorcycles had passed him. Bob, riding to the curb to rest, was puzzled. Had one of those been the motorcycle he had followed?
A thought caused him to ride on.
Griff, Bob knew, from his own inquiries, “hung out” with quite a rough crowd of youths; they had very little reputation in the suburb, and one of their haunts, near Rocky Lake, came to Bob’s mind. Griff, riding his motorcycle, might have gone on to the inn or roadhouse or “speakeasy” or whatever it was, near the picnic grounds at Rocky Lake.
Tired, but determined, Bob went on.
Some time later he approached the gayly lighted roadhouse.
He smiled to himself as he observed the name of the place.
“The Windsock!” it was called.
On roadside signs, down the road in both directions, were admonitions to automobilists to “set down at The Windsock,” “Don’t fly past The Windsock,” and such tempting notices.
A windsock, Bob knew, was the cornucopia of doped cloth, closed at one end and held open at the other by a metal ring, which was fastened in a prominent, high position at every flying field and airport, to be filled by the draft of a breeze and thus, by its position, to indicate to flying craft which direction to “head in” or to “take off.” Since an airplane is much easier to get off the ground, and back to earth, headed into the wind, the “windsock” was a most important adjunct to every field; and Bob knew that the name, and the symbol, a real windsock on top of the inn, had been chosen by its owner because he had been an ex-pilot who put his money into the hotel venture and tried to attract picnickers, automobile parties and other patrons of a less savory nature by the novel idea of having his dining alcoves built to resemble the cozy little cabins of airplanes and had his meals served by girls clad in suits and helmets resembling those worn by pilots. Also, he had let it be rumored around town that he chose the flying symbol and the aviation idea because, in his inn, “the sky is the limit!”