The Aeroplane Boys Flight | Page 7

sleepin', then. You
will, won't you?"
"Sure," replied the Bird boy. "After you being so kind as to keep me
company, I'd never think of making a move, and you asleep. So just
settle down, and don't get excited if you feel me pushing my toe into
your ribs later on."
Felix was tired from his day's work. He had probably been constantly
busy since four the morning before. It was therefore a fight between
weary muscles and brain, and the desire to stay awake, in order to see
all that went on.
This lasted for perhaps ten minutes.
Then Andy knew that Nature had won out, for he could catch the
regular breathing of the stout farmhand, and from this judged that Felix
must be sound asleep.
From where Andy sat he had a fine view of the field on all sides of the
broken hydroplane, and especially in that quarter toward the fence,
beyond which the road leading to Bloomsbury lay.
He kept up a constant watch, never relaxing his vigilance for a single
second, for Andy knew that while one might be on guard for fifty-nine
minutes, if he relaxed just for a breath, that was almost sure to be the

time when something would happen. How often he had proved that
when fishing, and taking his eye from his float just to glance up at
some passing bird, when down it would bob, and he had missed a
chance to hook a finny prize.
The time passed on.
Three separate times did Andy look at his little dollar nickel watch, and
in the bright moonlight he could see that it was now after eleven. He
was beginning to believe that if there was anything doing that night, it
must come about very soon, when he thought he heard a sound down
the road that made him think a car that had been coming along had
stopped short.
Thrilled with the expectation that a change was about to occur, he sat
up a little more eagerly, and continued to scan the line of fence, as well
as the field lying between the road and the helpless hydroplane.
CHAPTER III
NOT CAUGHT NAPPING
Five, ten minutes passed.
Andy was beginning to fear that after all he had been mistaken, and that
it had been some other sound he had heard when he thought a car had
stopped down the road toward Bloomsbury.
Then all at once he detected a movement over at the fence, and the
figure of a man or boy was seen to quickly clamber over, dropping in
the field. Even as he looked a second followed suit, then a third and
even a fourth.
"Whew! what's all this mean?" Andy whispered to himself, as he took
notice of the fact that there was quite a procession of fellows changing
base from the road to the field: "Percy and Sandy thought they might
need help in their little game of smashing our machine, or carrying it
off somewhere, so as to give us a bad scare; and I reckon they've

picked up a couple more of the same kind as themselves. Well we
ought to be able to take care of four just as easy as two 5 and the howl
will be all the louder, I guess."
He moved over a little, and with the toe of his shoe nudged Felix under
the ribs.
"Quit shovin' there!" muttered the farm hand, possibly thinking he was
in bed with some other boy.
Luckily the night breeze was making the windmill turn, not very far
away; and as it needed oiling, there was a constant succession of
squeaks and groans; so that the chances of Felix being heard when he
spoke in this way were very small. Andy would not take any further
risk but creeping over shook the boy roughly.
"Wake up, Felix; they're coming across the pasture!" he whispered in
his ear.
That was quite enough for Felix. He seemed to grasp the situation at
once, and only muttering the one significant word, "Gosh!" he
immediately sat up.
Andy, moving as little as possible, pointed to where moving figures
could just be detected advancing in a bent-over attitude.
"How many?" whispered the farm hand.
"I counted four," replied the other.
"Whee! bully for that!" chuckled Felix, no doubt tickled because the
promised circus would be a double-ring affair, instead of the ordinary
kind, and therefore quite up to date.
Both of them lay there watching intently.
They could see how the intruders were crawling along, anxious
apparently only to avoid being seen from the direction of the farmhouse,
the roof of which showed dimly in the moonlight over on the other side

of the little ridge.
As the creepers drew closer, the watchers saw that they had adopted