The Boy Aviators Treasure Quest | Page 5

with some irritation, as he spied him.
Sanborn threw the cigarette away with an ill-tempered exclamation.
"Gee! It's a wonder you don't start a Sunday-school in here," he said.
"Well, I don't think it would do you any harm to attend one for a
while," answered Frank, "and by the way, can't you make it possible to

come in a little earlier? You are a valuable man to us and you can't do
your best work if you are sitting up till all hours at the village hotel."
"You ain't got no complaint about my work, have you?" was the surly
rejoinder.
"No, I think that you are a very capable mechanic but I hate to see you
wasting your time and opportunities this way," replied Frank. The boy
was in some doubt as to the wisdom or the utility of calling Sanborn's
attention to the latter's bad habits, but having embarked on his
admonition he was not going to quit just because the man was surly.
"When are you going to go up?" asked Sanborn, changing the subject
abruptly.
"Right after breakfast," was the boy's reply, as he looked out of the big
sliding doors and surveyed the cloudless sky. "There doesn't seem to be
a breath of wind and it's ideal weather for a good long flight."
But if the boys were up early they were not the only ones astir.
Gladwin, who was an experimenter and who, although he had only
been up a few times, meant to compete in the big race, was already
busy outside his aerodrome, lovingly adjusting the engine of his
queer-looking monoplane which had already been wheeled out.
Malvoise, his hands in his pockets and a red sash about his waist, was
also studying the sky. As Frank gazed about in the crisp morning air a
dozen other aviators opened up their sheds and the day-life of the
aviation camp began.
After breakfast had been despatched the boys at once went to work on
their engine, a hundred horse-powered, eight-cylindered machine which
was capable of driving their twin-screwed craft through the air at a rate
of sixty miles an hour. One of the cylinders needed a new gasket and
they were engaged on the task of fitting it when a sudden hail outside
the shed made them look up inquiringly. A short, fat youth with a pair
of spectacles bestriding his round good-natured face stood in the
doorway. The boys recognized him instantly.

"Why, hullo, Billy Barnes!" they cried, "come on in."
"Hullo, Frank, hullo, Harry," grinned the newcomer, frantically shaking
hands. "I'm an early caller, but I slept at the village hotel last night and
the beds there are as hard as a miser's heart. So I decided to get out
early and take a chance on finding you fellows up and about."
After the first hearty greetings between the boys and the young
reporter--with whom the readers of the other volumes in this series
have already formed an acquaintanceship--the boys started asking
questions.
"What are you doing here anyhow?" demanded Frank.
"Yes, you mysterious scribe, tell us what you are after--a scoop or a
story of how it feels to ride in an aeroplane?"
"Well," laughed Billy in response, "I've had so many flights in the
Golden Eagles--both one and two--that I really believe I've had too
much experience to write a story about it from the novice's standpoint.
No, the fact is that I am down here on a story--a good one too."
"You can't keep away from the newspaper field, can you?" laughed
Frank.
"No, that's a fact," agreed Billy ruefully; "I've tried to, but it's no good."
"Well, you ought to be 'a man of independent fortune' now, as the
papers say," cried Harry.
"You mean with the percentage I got of the recovered ivory?"
The others nodded.
"I always felt I didn't really deserve that money," urged Billy. "You
fellows did most of the work in Africa, I just trailed along."
"Oh, get out, Billy Barnes!" cried Frank. "You did as much as any of us
in overreaching old Barr."

"Go ahead and tell us about this story of yours," demanded Harry.
"Well, it sounds like a weird dream and perhaps you fellows will laugh
at me for taking it seriously, but a few days ago an old fellow in a
tattered blue suit called at the Planet offices and said he wanted to see
the city editor. Of course nobody ever does see the city editor, so I was
sent out to ascertain what the visitor wanted. I saw at once he had been
a seafaring man. He told me his name was Bill Hendricks, known better
as Bluewater Bill. He beat about the bush a good while before he would
tell me what he was after, and