FIGURING IT ALL OUT

"That's a strange story you're telling us, Percy," said the Head of the local police force, at which the boy bridled up immediately.

"I don't see what there is so funny about it, Chief!" he exclaimed, frowning. "I tell you my hangar was broken open last night, and I'm out a biplane that cost me a good round sum. It's up to you to get on the track of the same, and recover it. I hereby offer a reward of three hundred dollars for the recovery of my machine uninjured, and make it five hundred if the thief is captured in the bargain."

When he said this Percy assumed all the airs of a millionaire; but then it was well known about Bloomsbury that the Widow Carberry was very wealthy; also that her only hopeful could wheedle her in to settling any sort of a bill he chose to contract, so that the mention of the sum of five hundred dollars was not anything extravagant for Percy.

"Oh! it wasn't that I doubted your word at all, Percy; don't think that," Chief Waller hastened to say; for like most men he was ready to bow down in front of the golden calf; and more than once Mrs. Carberry had been very generous to the force—when her house took fire and came near burning, but was saved, thanks to the energetic work of police and fire departments; and again, when a hired man tried to carry off some of her jewelry, but had been easily caught, and the plunder restored.

"Then what makes you act like that, I'd like to know?" demanded Percy, looking very much put out, as though he did not like to be treated with suspicion, especially when his old-time rivals, the Bird boys, were around.

"Why," the officer went on to say, "when you said that about your aeroplane being taken, it struck me all in a heap; because Frank here was just telling me that two men broke into his shop last night after eleven, and knocked things around, just because they failed to find his hydroplane in its bunk as usual. They wanted that machine, and wanted it so bad, that, as a last resort, they went over to your place, and confiscated your biplane."

It was Percy's turn now to look astonished. He even condescended to notice the presence of the two Bird boys, and surveyed them with interest.

"Is that a fact, Frank? Did somebody break into your place last night? I remember now that I did see you pottering about your craft up there somewhere about the Quackenboss place, but I'd forgotten it till the Chief mentioned that you didn't have it in the hangar. That's the time you were lucky. See what I got for having mine at home all snug and nice. It's been hooked clear as anything, and not a trace to tell who did the business."

"Hold on there, Percy," said the Chief, with a broad smile, "perhaps it isn't such a deep mystery after all."

"Tell me what you mean when you say that," demanded the boy, loftily, as though he resented the fact that anything should be kept from him a single second.

"Why, Frank and Andy found these things in their shop, left by the two men who tried to get their hydroplane; and the chances are ten to one the same parties went right straight over to your place and got yours as a second choice."

"I don't like the way you speak of my biplane, Chief, which cost ever so much more money than the contraption the Bird boys own," Percy remarked, sneeringly; "but never mind, tell me what these things stand for. An electric torch and—why those things look like black masks. Great Caesar! and the Bloomsbury bank was robbed last night, they told me when I was rushing around looking for you. See here, do you think the yeggs who did that neat job got away with my biplane?"

Percy was getting more excited than ever now. When he did, he seemed to just foam a little at the corners of his mouth, his eyes glittered, and his face turned red.

"There seems to be no doubt of it," replied the Chief, calmly, and yet with a stiffening of his figure, as though conscious of having already discovered a most promising clue, that could not but reflect credit on his astuteness as an officer of the law.

"They knew all about Frank's machine and mine too, then?" continued Percy, still grappling with the tremendous problem.

"Looks that way," the official went on to remark, "and makes me think more than ever that they must have a friend right here in Bloomsbury who put them wise to lots of things. Time'll tell that. But I don't suppose you found anything around your place like Frank did, to tell that some strangers had been there while you slept?"

"Not a blessed thing; though, to tell the honest truth, I didn't hang around long when I found my biplane was gone. It was the best machine I ever owned, and as you know I've had several, all told. And inside of three days I expected that the latest model of aluminum pontoons would be along, to turn it into a water as well as an air craft. Now chances are, I'll never see it again, because, like as not, nobody knows which way in creation they went."

"We happen to have a pointer about that same thing," Andy could not help saying, though he hardly liked the superior air of the other, not being able to overlook such things as easily as his cousin did.

"I hope, then, you'll give it to the Chief, Andy," the Carberry boy remarked, for the first time directly speaking to one of the cousins.

"Sure thing. We want to see the rascals copped just as much as anybody does. You see, Felix, he's the farm hand up at Mr. Quackenboss' place, and me, we thought it good policy to stay around, and keep an eye on our machine while it was lying overnight in that meadow. I had had a long watch of it, and was taking my turn at sleeping when just at daybreak Felix shook me, and said there was a queer noise up aloft that kind of scared him, and which he rather believed must come from some sort of air craft.

"Oh!" exclaimed Percy, looking intensely interested, of course; "go on, please."

"I jumped up, and sure enough I glimpsed a biplane passing over, and headed up the lake at a pretty good height, I thought it looked like your machine, but as I remarked to Frank later on, whoever steered it had a different way about him from your method. While I was wondering what took you out so early, and I could see there were two in the machine, a big flock of crows passed over, and I lost track of it.

"So, you see, Percy," broke in the eager Chief just at that point, "we've got a pretty good clue already about the direction the rascals took, who broke into the safe of the bank, and carried off a bagful of money, and valuable papers; and then followed that up by cribbing your biplane. It was north they went, up the lake, in fact; and that's the quarter we'll have to look for them. But let me tell you it's putting it pretty hard over on a police officer to make him try to track a stolen flying machine."

"But you can get in touch with every town to the north, and pick up pointers here and there!" Percy declared, excitedly. "Get back to town as fast as you can, Chief, and with a couple of your men I'll carry you wherever you want to go. In the meanwhile, you can leave orders for your men to do the wiring business; and whenever we strike a town we can ring up Headquarters over the 'phone, and learn what news they've managed to pick up."

Percy seemed to think that all he had to do was to tell the Chief what he wanted; but then his plan of campaign was really a good one, and the police officer was wise enough not to quarrel with his bread and butter; for the Widow Carberry was a large property owner in Bloomsbury.

"You just take the words out of my mouth seems like it," he remarked; "and that is the best plan we could carry out. I was just going to suggest to Frank and Andy here, that if they felt like taking a little spin off to the northward this fine morning, and discovered anything suspicious, they could get word to us, perhaps through the Bloomsbury Central, for we'll be apt to keep in touch with home."

Percy did not know whether to look pleased at this suggestion or not. It would be just like the everlasting luck of the Bird boys to make another remarkable success out of this thing, for they seemed to have a failing that way, while all the hard fortune came in his direction. That would give him a pain to be sure, for he was horribly envious of their local fame as successful aviators; but at the same time he hated to lose that beautiful biplane, which he had not owned very long, and which had taken his heart by storm.

So Percy finally compromised, as he frequently did. He even forced a grim smile to appear upon his face, though it did not deceive Frank in the least; and as for Andy, he never took the least stock in Percy Carberry's honesty. In his mind there was always a deep meaning underneath every action of the other.

"Why, sure I hope Frank will discover the thieves, and recover the stuff they've grabbed from the bank; also that he'll have the good luck to get back my biplane without its being badly wrecked. That reward is worth trying for, and I don't go back on my word."

All the same he knew very well that neither of the Bird boys could be forced to ever accept one penny from his hand, no matter what good Dame Fortune allowed them to do for him.

Andy was watching keenly when the Carberry boy walked back to his machine, and climbed into the steering seat. Frank, happening to look that way, saw his cousin's face lighted up as if in glee: and he even heard him chuckle. Perhaps Percy may have caught the same sound, for he turned his head after dropping down into his seat, and scowled darkly at Andy. There is nothing like a guilty conscience to bring about a self-betrayal; and somehow Percy seemed to know what the Bird boy was thinking about just then.

At any rate, he was an adept at the pilot wheel of a car, though inclined to be a reckless driver; just as he was also a daring air voyager, taking desperate chances that promised to bring him to grief one of these days.

Backing the car swiftly around, he sped away. Sandy Hollingshead, who had not once moved from his seat, or uttered a single word all the time, turned his head to look back; and Andy thought he too scowled darkly, as though stirred by unpleasant thoughts; but in another minute they had vanished around the bend far along the pike, and the Chief alone was seen, whipping up his nag, in the endeavor to get back as speedily as possible to Headquarters.

"Well, of all things, don't this just take the cake?" remarked Andy, when he and his cousin once more found themselves alone beside the motionless aeroplane, that nestled like a great bird on the grass close to the road.

"It certainly looks as though we might be in for a little more excitement," replied Frank; "but what seemed to make you chuckle so much, Andy? You must have noticed something that escaped my attention, because I was busy thinking of other things. Suppose you open up, and tell me?"

"I was tickled half to death to see how Percy tried to walk, as if nothing was the matter with him, when all the time he couldn't keep from limping; because, don't you see, one or several of those bird-shot Felix scattered around last night, must have stung him about the legs. That's why he scowled so at me, Frank!"