The Aeroplane Boys Flight | Page 8

loaned Andy his double-barrel Marlin shotgun, an old model when compared with the up-to-date hammerless and the repeaters, but no doubt a good, serviceable weapon.
Of course they had no idea of trying to pepper the marauders, though it would seem as though they richly deserved to be punctured with a few small bird shot, because of the meanness of their contemplated action.
To give them a good fright would satisfy Andy, and he had made the eager farm hand promise to fire up in the air also because he was afraid lest Felix allow his indignation to have full swing, when he saw what the four boys meant to do.
They were skulking very close to where the aeroplane lay now, and the critical moment had undoubtedly arrived when the surprise must be launched.
"Ready, Felix!" he whispered, in the softest of tones.
"Yep!" grunted the farm hand, at his elbow.
"One, two, three! Blaze away!"
With the last word Felix let go with his old musket, into which he must have rammed a tremendous charge, for it made a report like unto the crash of thunder, and came very near sending the owner flat on his back.
Immediately on the heels of this boom Andy pulled one of the triggers of his double-barrel, so that the report seemed almost merged in with that of the other weapon.
The four boys had jumped to their feet at the flash and report which startled them when Felix fired. And as they turned to dash wildly away and that second shot came, they became madly excited, evidently under the full belief that they were being made targets for a whole battalion of sharpshooters.
Two of them collided, and rolled over on the grass, kicking wildly and scrambling to their feet again, to resume their flight toward the fence, which doubtless seemed three times as distant as when they were creeping toward the stranded aeroplane.
The whole thing was so ridiculous that Andy burst out laughing, and could hardly hold his gun; seeing which the farm hand made bold to snatch it out of his hands, and aiming directly at the place where the fugitives were just then in the act of mounting the fence in their panicky flight, he pulled the trigger.
There was a series of loud yells, which would seem to indicate that a few of the small shot contained in the shells with which the Marlin had been loaded must have reached their mark, and pricked the boys like so many needles would have done.
That was the last seen of them, though for a short time they could be heard running along the hard road, and exchanging excited comments, possibly comparing their injuries.
Then a car was heard to start off with a great deal of bluster, and came dashing along past the farmhouse, though those in it bent low enough to keep any one from discovering who they might be.
Andy did not know whether to be a little angry or not because of what the impetuous Felix had done, but apparently nobody had been seriously hurt; and on the whole, the four "sneaks," as Felix called them, deserved some punishment; so he let it go at that.
There was no further alarm that night. Neither of the guardians of the hydroplane expected any, after the prompt measures that had been taken to inform meddlers of the warm reception they might expect.
All the same, Andy kept up his vigil until sleep almost overpowered him, when he aroused Felix to finish out the night.
With the coming of early dawn he knew that the safety of the imperiled aeroplane was assured, and that when the horn blew, he and Felix could both go in to breakfast. Indeed, he released the farm hand long before that time, so that he might go about his usual early morning chores; and Andy himself found plenty to do around the machine until summoned to the morning meal.
The farmer was a hard sleeper, and had not heard a single thing that had taken place; so that he was surprised when told how the enemy had come after all, and what measures the boys had taken in order to frighten them away.
He even told Felix he could have a day off as soon as the last load of hay was in the barn, just to show how he appreciated the bold way in which his hired help had tickled the rascals when they were getting over the fence. Indeed, the farmer said Andy had been too lenient, and that if it had been his aeroplane that was threatened in that mean way, he would have felt wholly justified in emptying both barrels of the gun after the marauders, first giving them time to get a certain distance off, so that no serious results might follow the discharge.
But Andy was never