John Goldfrap - The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless

The other gave a short laugh.

“No, we’ll hit them a body blow,” he said. “If I could blow them up along with their air-ship I’d gladly do it. I’d like to treat them as we mean to do with that white-livered Lieutenant when we get through with his services.”

“Are they going to kill him?” demanded the other with something like awe in his tones.

“No,” replied the man in the tramp’s rags, “not unless he gives too much trouble. They are going to put him to work in the sulphur mines of Ojahyama and let him slave for his living.”

Even from where he was the concealed boy could see the other shudder.

“It is a terrible place,” he said.

“It is the best place for men of his caliber,” retorted the other.

“Perhaps it would be as happy a fate for him as being compelled to slave for Foyashi.”

“I hear that he would not have anything to do with their schemes and defied them to kill him before he would aid them to manufacture his explosive until he was influenced by Foyashi,” said the first speaker.

“I guess you’re right,” replied the other worthy, “but he’s passive enough now, I fancy.”

They both laughed and arose to go. As for Lathrop he lay almost paralyzed with fear. Of course much of what he had heard had been meaningless to him, but he did understand that a plan was on foot to blow up the boys’ aerodrome, destroy their ship and possibly injure themselves. As the men’s footsteps died out, as they walked off down the path through the woods, the boy, who a minute before had been seriously pondering some sort of harm to Frank and Harry felt conscience-stricken.

What he had just heard had changed him from a possible enemy into a fellow-schoolmate and he determined to warn the boys of their peril. With this end in view he was hurrying down the path, retracing his steps towards the aerodrome, when he was seized roughly from behind and whirled about. The man who had seized him was the one who had assumed the costume of a tramp. His eyes blazed with rage. He had hurried back to get his knife, – which had dropped from his pocket as he sat talking, – a few seconds after Lathrop had left his place of concealment. As luck would have it, in pushing through the bushes he had discovered the depression in the grass where the boy had lain. A brief investigation showed him that it had been recently occupied and that whoever had crouched there must have heard every word they said. Calling his comrade the two had set out at full speed in pursuit of Lathrop.

As his captor gripped the boy in a hold that clutched like a vice, Lathrop realized that he had fallen into bad hands.

The boy was startled but his presence of mind did not desert him. Lathrop, although, as has been said, a hectoring, dictatorial sort of youth possessed plenty of courage of a certain kind, and was no coward. He therefore exclaimed angrily:

“Take your hand off me. What do you want?”

At the same moment he gave an adroit twist, an old football trick, and in a shake had freed himself from the other’s detaining hand.

“You needn’t crow quite so loudly, my young rooster,” exclaimed the man in the tramp’s dress, “I merely wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Well,” demanded the boy.

“What were you doing up there in the woods while we were talking?”

Lathrop didn’t know whether or not the men were armed, so that he decided that it would be folly to tell them the facts; he therefore took refuge in strategy.

“What do you mean?” he asked with an expression of blank amazement.

“Oh, come,” said the other, but there was a note of indecision in his tones, that showed that he was not as sure of his ground as he had been, “you don’t mean to say that you weren’t lying hidden while we were talking up yonder and heard every word?”

“As I told you,” replied Lathrop, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I am on my way home through these woods and you have stopped me in this unceremonious fashion. If there was a constable within call I would have you arrested.”

“Oh, come on, Bill,” struck in the nattily dressed one of the pair, who had hitherto remained silent, “the kid doesn’t know anything – that’s evident, and we are wasting time here.”

“I’m not sure of that,” retorted the tramp-like man, still unconvinced, “if I thought,” he added with a vicious leer, “that he overheard us, I – ”

The sentence was not completed for the reason that at the moment a lusty voice was heard coming up the path from the aerodrome singing at the pitch of its lungs:

As the singer came upon the scene in front of him he broke off abruptly and the two men who had intercepted Lathrop took to their heels.

“Hullo, there, my hearty,” cried Ben Stubbs, for he was the vocalist, as his eyes took in the situation, “what’s all this?”

His voice held a sharp note of interrogation, for he had immediately recognized one of the two men who had made off as the fellow who had sneaked up the by-street in White Plains the day before.

“Who are you?” demanded the boy suspiciously, not certain whether in the newcomer he had a friend or a fresh source of danger.

“Me? oh, I’m Ben Stubbs, formerly skipper of the tug Mary and Ann, but now one of the crew of the Golden Eagle II , sky clipper. And you, my young middy, I recognize as the chap who was down at the aerodrome a short while ago, and got all het up because Frank Chester wouldn’t let you see the air-ship – now the question is what were you doing with those two fellows, who are as bad a looking pair of cruisers as I ever laid eyes on?”

Lathrop saw at once that unless he told the truth he would be a fair object of suspicion, and at any rate he had made up his mind to warn the boys of the danger that threatened. He therefore in a straight-forward way told of the afternoon’s happenings.

“You come along with me,” exclaimed Ben, as the boy finished his narrative, “we’ve got no time to lose.”

They hurried down the path to the aerodrome and Lathrop repeated his story to the boys.

“Well, forewarned is forearmed,” remarked Frank, “and thank you, Lathrop, for doing the square thing.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Frank,” Lathrop replied awkwardly, recollecting his fiery threats of a short time before. To tell the truth, Lathrop was thoroughly ashamed of himself, and declining the boys’ hearty invitation to supper, hurried home to the house on the hill.

He had learned a lesson he never forgot.

“Now,” said Frank, as soon as he had gone, “we’ll give these fellows a surprise if they come around here to-night that will stick in their minds for a good many years.”

Under his directions everyone got busy for the rest of the afternoon driving wooden posts at six foot intervals all round the aerodrome. When the posts were all in position a copper wire of medium thickness was strung from one post top to another and the ends connected with the dynamo ultimately destined to supply the Golden Eagle II’s searchlight and wireless equipment. By the time Ben Stubbs, who had quite ousted Le Blanc as cook, announced by a clarion summons, beaten on a tin wash-pan, with a big ladle, that a supper, consisting of his famous baked beans, chops, spinach and coffee was ready – not to forget Ben’s masterpiece, a huge strawberry pie, – Frank pronounced his preparations also complete.

After supper everybody sat around the stove in the portable house, for the nights were still chilly, till about ten o’clock. They had all made as much noise as possible early in the evening with the ultimate motive of accentuating the quietness later on.