Airship Andy Or The Luck of a Brave Boy Part 14

"Eh, well, I guess not," cried Gus. "Huh! Everybody knows how you did it out of spite against Jones because he hindered you running away from dad. Why, they found your cap right near the barn ruins."

"Is that so?" said Andy quietly. "How did it get there?"

"How did it get there? You dropped it there, of course."

"Purposely to get blamed for it, I suppose?" commented Andy. "That's pretty thin, Gus Talbot, seeing that you know and your father knows that my cap was taken away from me when he locked me up at the garage, and I had no chance to get it later. You left the cap near the burned barn, Gus Talbot, and you know it."

"Me? Rot!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Gus, but he stopped eating the ice cream and acted restless.

"In fact," continued Andy definitely, "I can prove that both you and Dale were sneaking about the Jones' place a short time before the fire broke out."

"Bosh!" mumbled Gus.

"Further than that, I can tell you word for word what pa.s.sed between you two. Listen."

Andy remembered clearly every incident of his flight from the haystack in Farmer Jones' field. He recited graphically the appearance of Gus and Dale, and the remark he had overheard. Gus sat staring at him in an uneasy way. He acted bored, and seemed at a loss to answer.

It was more than half an hour before Dale returned. He acted glum and mad.

"Is it all right?" inquired Gus eagerly.

"Right nothing!"

"Get the money?"

"No."

"What's the trouble?"

"I saw a constable and told him I could give him a chance to make a fifty-dollar reward, us to get ten. He heard me through and said it wouldn't do."

"Why wouldn't it?" demanded Gus.

"Because this is in another county, and he'd have to get the warrant.

Said it was too much trouble to bother with it."

"Humph! what will we do now?" muttered Gus in a disgusted way.

"That's easy. Get Andy over the county line, and find someone else to take the job off our hands," replied Dale Billings.

CHAPTER XIII-JIU-JITSU

"Come on," ordered Gus to Andy, unfastening the end of the rope and giving it a jerk.

"Hey, not that way," dissented Dale.

"Why not?"

"Think you can parade him through the town without attracting attention?

We've got to be careful to cut out from here without a soul seeing us till we strike a country road. You march," commanded Gus anew to his captive, heading in another direction. "And you just so much as peep if we meet anybody, and you get a whack of this big stick."

Andy submitted to circ.u.mstances. He figured out that it would be some time before his captors could perfect their arrangements for interesting some officer of the law in their scheme. He readily guessed that for some reason or other they did not wish or dare to return personally to Princeville. Andy calculated that it was nearly ten miles to the county line. He believed he would have half a dozen chances to break away from his captors before they reached it.

"Huh, what you going to do now?" inquired Gus in a grumbling tone, as they came directly up against a high board fence.

"You wait here a minute," directed Dale.

The speaker ran down the fence in one direction to face at its end a busy field occupied by aviation tents. He tried the opposite direction to find matters still worse, for there the fence ended against a lighted street of the town.

"What's beyond the fence?" inquired Gus.

"Not much of anything-a sort of a prairie," reported Dale, peering through a crack in the fence.

"We can't scale it."

"Not with Andy in tow. Here we are, though."

Dale had discovered a loose board. He began tugging at its lower end, and succeeded in pulling it far enough out to admit of their crowding through the opening. He went first, grabbing and holding Andy till Gus made the pa.s.sage.

"Keep away from those lights over yonder," ordered Dale, indicating a point on the broad expanse where some aeroplane tents showed. "This way, I tell you," he added in a hoa.r.s.e, hurried whisper. "There's a man."

Andy pushed forward, came to a dead halt, bracing himself as his captors tried to pull him out of range of a man seated on a hummock, apparently watching some night manuvres of airships over where the lights showed.

"Mister, oh, mister!" shouted Andy.

He received a blow on the mouth from the fist of Gus, but that did not prevent him from renewing the outcry. The man sprang quickly to his feet and came towards them.

He was small, thin, dark-faced, and so undersized and effeminate-looking that Andy at once decided that he would not count for much in a tussle with two stout, active boys. Dale thought so, too, evidently, for he squared up in front of Andy, trying to hide him from the view of the stranger, while Gus attempted to pull his captive back towards the fence. Andy, however, gave a jerk that drew Gus almost off his feet, and a bunt to Dale that sent him forcibly to one side.

"What is this?" spoke the stranger in a soft, mellow, almost womanly tone of voice. "Did some one then call?"

"It was I," proclaimed Andy. "These fellows have tied me up and are trying to kidnap me."

"It is wrong, I will so investigate," said the little man, coming straight up to the group and scanning each keenly in turn.

"See here," spoke Dale, springing in front of the man, "this is none of your business."

"Oh, yes, it is," returned the stranger in the same gentle, purring way.

"I am interested. Speak on, young man."

"Get him away!" directed Dale in a sharp whisper to Gus.

Then, quick as lightning, he made a pa.s.s at the stranger. He was double the weight of the latter and half a head taller. Andy expected to see his champion flatten out like the weakling he looked.

"Ah," said the latter, "it is so you answer questions. My way, then."