“You mean about Fawn not going to Chicago at all?”
“Yes.”
“Well it means he’s a trickster surely, but more than that. He’s in the plot, of course. And I’m beginning to believe that it’s bigger than I thought. Fawn and Barsky—both in the same town, both probably working together against dad and me. It was a sorry day when I let that so-called Russian into my shop!”
“It surely was,” agreed Ned. “But it’s too late to think of that now. What is the next move? I want to get my hands on Fawn, as well as on the others.”
“We start scouting to-morrow morning!” decided the young inventor. “It oughtn’t to be hard to pick up the trail of this blue aeroplane. I had some inquiries made around Lake Carlopa, and she seems to have headed west. That, naturally, would be the best place for the robbers to go—plenty of open places to land, and with widely scattered cities and towns they wouldn’t run so much risk of being captured. We’ll start scouting in the morning.”
Accordingly the Blackbird was made ready. This craft was not as small nor as speedy as the Hummer, but she would carry three, and Tom decided to take Koku along to identify the robbers if possible.
“Good luck, Tom!” called his aged father, as he was ready to take off the next morning. “Bring back that chest!”
“I’ll do my best!” was the answer.
CHAPTER XXII
A STRANGE MESSAGE
Though he had no more than very slight clews on which to pursue the robbers, Tom Swift was not without a definite plan on which he proposed to operate.