The Airplane Boys among the Clouds | Page 2

fit now to know what Frank's got in that wise old noddle of his. He ain't the one to do things for nothing, take it from me, Elephant."
"Hi! step out of the way, Larry, if you don't want to get run over!" exclaimed the other, suddenly gripping his companion's sleeve. "Here comes a car, and the driver's tooting his old bazoo to beat the band."
"They're slowing up, don't you see," observed Larry, who had been startled by the other's abrupt warning. "No need to scare a feller like that, Elephant."
"Well, that machine don't belong around here, anyway; and I guess they're tourists doing the lake road course. Lots of 'em come this way just for the view, which they say can't be beat," the other went on, in a low tone; for the touring car had drawn very close by now.
Two men sat in it, one apparently the chauffeur, and the other occupying the commodious seat in the tonneau. The latter was a keen-faced man, with a peculiar eye, that seemed to sparkle and glow; and Larry immediately became aware that he was experiencing a queer sensation akin to a chill, when he returned the gaze of this individual.
Still, the other could look very pleasant when he chose to smile, as was the case immediately after the car came to a halt within five feet of where the two Bloomsbury high school boys stood.
"Looks like you had had pretty good luck, boys," he remarked, smoothly.
"Pretty middlin'," Elephant said, indifferently, as though this were an everyday occurrence with him; when to tell the truth, he and Larry had not done so well all season as on this particular day.
"Guess you know where the old fishing hole lies," laughed the stranger, pleasantly. "Quite a collection too--black bass, perch, 'slickers,' as we used to call the pickerel, and even some big fat sunfish. Many a happy hour have I spent just as you've been doing. And I'll never forget how fine those same fish tasted after I'd cleaned them myself for the frying-pan."
"That's what we do, sir," replied Larry, now beginning to think the stranger rather a nice spoken man.
"My friend and myself were just wondering what aviator you've got up here," continued the gentleman, as he cast a quick glance out over the lake. "You see, our attention was attracted toward that circling biplane as we came along. I happen to know some of the most famous fliers myself; but I never heard that any one of them was hiding up here this summer, trying fancy stunts. Look at that dip, Longley. That was a corker, now, I'm telling you. Do you know who that fellow is, my boy; the one handling the levers of that sparkling biplane out yonder?"
Larry and Elephant glanced at each other and grinned. Then the little fellow threw out his chest, after a pompous way he had, and observed:
"Sure we do, mister. That's a chum of ours. His name is Frank Bird, and he knows more about aeroplanes in a minute than the rest of us do in a year. His cousin, Andy, is along with him. They stick together through thick and thin."
"Bird!" remarked the other, watching the agile movements of the biplane eagerly, as Larry could not but note. "A very suggestive name for a flier, too."
"That's right," burst out Larry. "Frank always said he was just forced to take to being an aeronaut. He says it's just as natural for birds to take to the air, as it is for ducks to swim in the water."
"Bird?" the other went on, turning to his companion. "Seems to me, Longley, there used to be a professor by that name in one of our colleges, who went daft on the subject of flying."
"You're right, Marsh; and he lost his life down at Panama; tried to cross the isthmus in a dirigible, and was never heard from again."
"Oh! but you're wrong, sir!" exclaimed Elephant, eagerly. "He was saved through those two boys in their monoplane, and is alive and well in Bloomsbury right now. It's a great story, and all to the good for the Bird boys."
"I'd like to hear it some time or other," replied the gentleman called Mr. Marsh by his companion who was serving as chauffeur. "But it seems to me these young fellows must be unusually bright boys to do what they're doing right now."
"That's easy for Frank and Andy Bird, sir," declared Larry. "Why, they've got a shop that they keep under lock and key, where they spend most of their time when they ain't flying. That biplane is what they made last winter--got some of the parts, and did the rest themselves. And it would be just like Frank to have invented some clever stunt that's going to just revolutionize flying."
Again a