The Boy Aviators Treasure Quest | Page 4

he and
his brother bade the queer old man good-night and entered their shed. It
was filled with the appetizing odor of frying steak. On the top of the
blue flame stove in a screened-off corner, Le Blanc, one of their
mechanics, was cooking the simple meal with the loving care of a
ten-thousand-dollar chef.
"Smells good!" remarked Harry sniffing. "Where's Sanborn?"
Sanborn was the other machinist and had been taken on in the place of
their faithful old Schultz, who had fallen heir to a large sum of money
in Germany, and gone home to spend his days in a cottage on the
outskirts of Berlin.
"He has gone down to the village," replied Le Blanc, vigorously
shaking the pan of sizzling potatoes.
"He seems to spend a lot of time down there lately," remarked Frank.
"I'd rather see him about the aerodome," put in Harry; "we don't want
everybody to know all the details of our trials."
"That's so," assented his brother, "I'll speak to him about it when he
comes in to-night."
The two lads fell to with keen appetites on their supper, which was
served on tin plates and washed down with coffee out of tin mugs. Not
a very aristocratic service, but the boys rather liked roughing it than
otherwise, and you may be sure that the "dinner set" off which they ate
did not engross a fraction of their attention. The meal disposed of, Le
Blanc and the boys fixed up the folding camp cots and spread their
blankets. There was still no sign of Sanborn. Frank was still struggling
to keep awake in order to read the man a sharp lecture when he
returned when drowsiness overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.

It was an hour later, and not far from midnight, when two dark figures
crossed the deserted aviation field and threaded their way among the
various aerodromes. They paused in front of the one in which the boys
were asleep. Had the lads been onlookers they would have seen that
one of the men was Sanborn, the new machinist, and the other was
Malvoise, the driver of the sable Buzzard.
"You won't lose your nerve?" said the Frenchman.
"Not me. I'm sore at those kids, anyhow," was the reply. "The eldest
one undertakes to call me down for going out at night all the time."
"Well, you have a good chance to get back at him and make some
money at the same time," was the other's rejoinder.
"You are sure the money will be forthcoming?"
"Well, I should say! Old man Barr, who bought the patent of the
Buzzard dirt cheap from her inventor, has a pile of it. He's going to
manufacture the Buzzards to make money out of 'em and he'll stop at
nothing to gain the prestige of winning this Hempstead Plains Cup."
"I've heard of old Barr before. He's a regular skinflint, but I suppose, if
you say it will be all right about the money, I'll have to take your word
for it. I need some coin too badly to stick at anything."
"That's the way to talk. By the way, talking of the inventor of the
Buzzard, I saw a piece in the paper about him to-night."
"What was it?"
"Why it seems that the poor beggar applied for shelter at the Municipal
lodging-house in New York and told them a long tale of Barr having
robbed him of his invention. They sized him up as being just another of
those inventor bugs and so sent him to the booby hatch in Bellevue."
"A good place for him," was the rejoinder, "these inventors are all
crazy."

"Well, Luther Barr's found a way to make this particular crank pay,"
was the reply.
"That's so. Well, good-night. Oh, say what was the name of the man
who planned the Buzzard?"
"Oh, Eben something--let's see--Eben--it began with a J. I've got
it--Eben Joyce, that's it--Eben Joyce."
"Queer name that--Eben Joyce," was Sanborn's comment. "Well,
good-night."
"Good-night. You won't fail us."
"Not I," responded the machinist, as he slipped into the aerodrome and
was soon wrapped in slumber as profound as if the thought of
committing a treacherous act had never entered his mind.
CHAPTER II.
BILLY'S STRANGE TALE.
The next morning, as soon as the alarm clock rang out its summons at
four-thirty, the boys were up and stirring, dashing the sleep out of their
eyes with plenty of cold water. Le Blanc and Sanborn soon joined them,
the latter heavy-eyed and sleepy-looking from the late hours of the
night before. He was smoking a cigarette.
"Look here, Sanborn, I don't want to be too strict, but you know there's
too much gasolene around here for it to be safe to smoke in the shed,"
said Frank,