“No—let me see now—no, it was his left. Why? Do you know him?”
“Yes,” answered Ned, with a queer look at Tom. “We know him.”
“I suppose they’re friends of yours, both of you being in the airship business, so to speak,” went on Mr. Kimball.
Neither of the young men answered that, but Tom, after he had taken off the damaged union coupling, asked:
“Did you happen to notice if one of the men had red hair?”
The farmer considered for a moment, and then replied:
“No, I didn’t see any one like that.”
This was not surprising, considering that Barsky’s hair was so short that its redness could not be noticed until he took off his hat. And very likely he would be wearing a leather helmet in the aeroplane.
But Tom and Ned had established the fact that the blue aeroplane containing the robbers had passed this way recently. Tom made a cautious inquiry about the chest, but Mr. Kimball had not noticed that. And, very likely, it was stowed away in the fuselage of the craft, out of sight.
“How long did they stay?” asked Ned.