Evidently the reporter was chagrined at his lack of success, for he inquired the direction of the nearest port and the time of the trains.
Schreiber, who was a walking time-table, gave him the necessary information, and he strode off. The boys, however, continued their way until they came to the brook. Sure enough, they could get under the wire fence easily if they wished to try it.
But as they were feeling hungry, they determined to postpone further investigations until later. Well, a week went by, and at last the night they had settled upon arrived. It was bright moonlight, and the day had been a very busy and a noisy one. For, as it happened long ago, the signers of a certain important paper connected with our national history had settled on this day to "proclaim liberty throughout the land." It was "the Glorious Fourth!" Billy and Gibb had fired fire-crackers until there weren't any left; had gone in swimming four times, which were three too many; and had told their families that they were going over to Westport in the evening to see the "celebrashun," which was not exactly the truth. But the Hope farm was in Westport, if in any place, and perhaps the result of their visit might be termed a celebration.
It was nearly midnight when they reached the brook, and splashed down it until they came to the wire fence. They ducked under the lower strand, and, soaking wet, they scrambled up the bank on the other side.
"Say! ain't this excitin'?" whispered Gibb, as they peered around the corner of the barn, and saw that the house was still and deserted. The moonlight made everything quite bright, and the boys saw that a track like a railroad switch, only with double rails on each side, ran up to the door of the barn, and extended through the orchard into the meadow a distance of almost half a mile. It was strongly and carefully made, but what it was used for the boys had no idea.
"If we could only get into the barn," sighed Gibb.
"Hush!" answered Billy. "Let's see if the door's open."
They sneaked out of the shadows, and found a long rope with a cross-piece hanging within easy reach. Billy gave it a pull. There was a creak, and the great doors opened out slowly, exposing the whole front of the huge barn. There before them, they saw a strange object—a flat-boat on wheels it appeared to be at first glance, with a superstructure of tall tubes, strung and guyed with tense wires no heavier than fiddle-strings. But that was not all. A succession of wide flat surfaces stretched one above another. They looked like sails spread the wrong way.
When the doors had swung open so noisily the boys looked toward the house to see if they had been discovered, but not a sound or a stir did they hear or see.
"Come in. Let's look at the thing," Gibb said, entering cautiously, "What under the sun is it?"