Battling the Clouds Part 13

You see, the trouble is, sonny, that it is hard for your mother to realize that you are going to grow up soon. You notice that I say you are _going_ to, not you _are_ growing up. This is a gentle way of leading up to what I want to say about flying.

"'Dear boy of mine, please, _please_ let your promise stand, with this much of a release. If ever, _ever_ there comes an occasion of the _greatest importance_, an occasion where you know I would approve--and you always do know when I approve--then you may fly. I hope and pray that it will not come, but if it does, you will know how to act. And whatever you do you will know that your mother stands back of you because she trusts in your judgment.

"'I sound like a _n.o.bul parent_, don't I, Bill dear? Well, I _do_ feel that I am on the safe side, because I cannot foresee any possible occasion for you to go flying off from school. However, if ever you feel that you _must_, why, you _may_!

"'Get that nice boy Ernest to teach you everything he can, and if you have to fly, ask him to fly with you.'

"That's all she says about _that_," said Bill with a happy grin, "but now I feel safe. I don't know why, but I had a sort of hunch that I ought to ask her to let me fly if I had to."

"It is certainly nice of your mother," remarked Ernest, "but I agree with her that there will be very little chance of your finding it absolutely necessary to go aloft in the near future. Of course if you go, I will go along."

"I have not read the rest of the letter," said Bill, "but I had to show you this. I will read the rest now."

He hurried back to the library and resumed his reading. And the very next sentence made him sit up straight, a dark scowl on his face.

"And now I must tell you something so dreadful and so sad that I can scarcely write it," said the letter. "You will remember the money that was stolen from a certain officer next door to us here? It happened just before you left for school. Oh, Bill, you will find it almost impossible to believe it when I tell you that our Lee, Lee whom we have always found so honest and so faithful, is _under arrest_ for taking it.

"It seems that two ladies were sewing or visiting on the porch across from our quarters, and a colonel was reading at the end of our own porch. Lee came out and went to the telephone and kept saying h.e.l.lo so many times that they all noticed him. The telephone is right beside the window, and inside, on a desk, the money was lying in an open envelope under a paperweight. The weight was so heavy the money could _not_ blow away. Lee was the only one out there while the owner of the desk was away from it. He was only gone for a moment, while he spoke to an orderly at the back door.

"You know Lee always has lots of money of his own, but now they don't believe that his grandfather sends him the money at all. He is up for trial and if he is convicted, (and the circ.u.mstantial evidence is very strong) he will be sent to Leavenworth for years and years. It is a _dreadful_ offence.

"The money was in an official envelope, and if _that_ could only be found Lee would be cleared, unless it was found in his possession. They even ripped up his uniforms to see if it was hidden there, but now they think he has burned it. Of course I believe in Lee. It is all a horrible mistake, and some day perhaps it will be cleared up, but not soon enough to save Lee because if he even gets inside Leavenworth he will feel disgraced for life and I don't know _what_ will become of him.

"Oh, Bill, it is simply _too awful_! Of course they found three or four hundred dollars on him, but he always has a great deal too much money for an enlisted man to be traveling around with. Dad is simply sick over it. Our Lee! We don't know _what to do_. Who could have taken that money? And where is the envelope? If we could only find that! They say a criminal always leaves some clue behind him, but the person who stole that money must be a clever thief. There is nothing, absolutely _nothing_ to guide us.

"Isn't it too awful? I wish you would write to Lee. He is in the guard house, but I could get a letter in to him without any trouble. Make him understand, Bill, that you believe in him and are his friend. He is down-hearted."

There was but little more in the letter. Bill's mother had felt too sad to fill the pages with all the little details of the Post. And Bill, after he had read about Lee, felt as though he could never smile again.

He felt helpless and lonesome and very far away. He wished heartily that he was back on the Post. It _did_ seem as though he could help if he only knew what to do.

Advice: that was what he wanted. But who was there to advise him? The princ.i.p.al of the school was absolutely out of the question. He thought of the instructors one by one. No good on such a count.

Troubled beyond words, he made his way slowly to his room. Frank was not there, and Bill sat down and wrote a letter to his mother, which he later sent special delivery. It was rather a rambling and purposeless affair, but the best he could do under the circ.u.mstances. The note which he enclosed for Lee was quite different in tone, and was intended to make the prisoner believe that it was only a question of a few days before the real culprit would be led to justice.

The trouble with Bill was that he could remember nothing at all of the events of the fateful morning of the robbery except that he was busy packing and yelling good-byes to everyone who pa.s.sed the back door of the quarters, Bill's locker being on the back porch, past which long lines of student officers on their way out to make road maps continually marched two by two, followed by the usual company of little and big mongrel dogs that are always found on army Posts. Bill could see the men and the dogs and he remembered the greetings, but who pa.s.sed by or what occurred on the front porch he did not know. His mind remained a blank.

Frank came in whistling. He grinned in an unfriendly fashion when he saw his roommate slumped in the camp chair by the window.

"Heard the news?" he demanded.

"No; what's up?" asked Bill without interest.

"Well, the school was just put under strict quarantine," said Frank.

"The town and all the country is so full of that new disease, what-you-call-it, that we are going to be shut up here for goodness knows how long. And they say there are seven fellows down with it in the hospital now. What do you suppose they will do if it gets to be an epidemic in the school? I saw old Nealum just now, and he was mum as an oyster: looked bad, because he always loves to give out information, you know. We are to go to chapel in half an hour for instructions and new rules. Wish they would send us home! I don't like school."

"I would like to go home too," said Bill.

"Why, I thought _you_ were dippy over your 'dear school' and your 'sweet teachers,'" sneered Frank.

"It's all right," said Bill, "but I got a letter from home just now. Lee is under arrest for stealing that money."

Bill was looking out of the window. He did not see the look of triumph that swept over Frank's face.

"Good work!" said Frank. "I knew he was a crook, and I knew that sooner or later they would grab him. Did they find the money?"

"They didn't find the money, and Lee is as straight as I am!" declared Bill. "And if you say anything different I will lick you out of your skin! I have a mind to do it anyhow!"

Frank glanced at the door. "You make me tired!" he said. "You won't let anybody have an opinion without jumping them for it. Wait and see what comes of this before you get so brash! I am going out to the field. Ern is waiting for you there, or perhaps he will meet you in chapel. Nealum told me there was going to be a halt on most of the indoor cla.s.ses. They want to keep us out in the air. That will give us a lot more time with the planes. Too bad your mother won't let you fly. You could fly home. I would do it if _I_ owned a plane. Jardin is sick of his."

He went off whistling, and Bill walked wearily to the chapel.

Days went by. The country trembled for the children and young men and women who were being stricken, the teachers redoubled their efforts to keep the boys well and happy, and the boys themselves regarded the affair as a happy interlude in the year's grind.

Our four boys spent all their leisure time on the aviation field. The Jardin plane seemed possessed. Every night, after the mechanicians had spent the day working over it, the machine would go sailing off the field, purring and humming and flying smoothly and evenly. And as surely as morning came something was wrong! Jardin was frantic. Frank, always at his elbow, irritated him into admissions and statements that he scarcely recognized as his own when he afterwards thought about them.

He was not wise enough to put two and two together.

Another letter came from Mrs. Sherman, and on the same mail one from Major Sherman written, not from his cozy desk in quarters, but over at his office.

Bill looked very grave after he read it. Strangely enough, he had left his mother's letter for the last. Major Sherman wrote to know what watch Bill had p.a.w.ned. A p.a.w.nbroker in Lawton had written him to say that he would be glad to sell the watch left with him as he had a good customer for it. Major Sherman wanted an explanation from Bill. He had simply written the man to hold the watch until he had heard from his son.

Bill was stunned. What it all meant he could not guess. Something strange was in the air. He felt the influence of evil but could not place it. Taking his mother's letter, still unopened, he walked slowly to the library. It was full of boys, all laughing and talking. It had become a lounging room during the quarantine. Bill could not read there.

Slamming on his cap, he wandered over to the hangar. Climbing into Ernest's plane, he huddled down where he was effectually hidden. He knew that Ernest would not be out of the chemistry laboratory for hours, and he tore open his mother's letter and read it rapidly.

Lee had been convicted! Bill groaned in anguish as he read the words.

He was to be taken to Leavenworth as soon as a couple more trials were held so that all the prisoners could go under the care of one officer and a squad. _Lee going to prison!_ Bill could not believe it. And Lee had told Mrs. Sherman that he would never be taken to Leavenworth alive.

Bill shuddered.

Stunned by his emotions, Bill lay motionless in the cramped quarters he had chosen. Presently he heard a light footstep. It stopped close beside him and Bill, raising himself on his arm, peered over the edge of his small quarters at the back of Frank Anderson, who was bending over the engine of Horace Jardin's plane. No one else was in the hangar. Bill heard the sc.r.a.pe of steel on steel and saw Frank slip a small screwdriver into his pocket. Then Bill dropped out of sight, and soon he heard Frank retreating to the small door of the hangar where he stood for a moment looking out before he went out.

Five minutes later he returned with Horace Jardin.

Horace as usual was sputtering.

"I tell you, Andy," he said with his usual bl.u.s.ter, "this is the _last_ day I will fool with that plane. Absolutely the last! If she doesn't go before night, she needn't go at all. I will get rid of her. Dad wrote me this morning that he had had a letter from the chief mechanician here, and what the fellow says about the plane looks as though the company had put one over on us. Dad won't stand for that. He is going to make them replace the car. But they can't have this one back. I will sell it sure as shooting! I need money."

"What's your price?" asked Frank.

Jardin registered deep thought. "I need five hundred," he said.

"I will buy it," replied Frank. "I can make a little on it if I sell it for junk, and you can't afford to d.i.c.ker around like that. It would be out of place for a Jardin to be dealing in second-hand stuff. Everyone knows I have nothing."

"How do you come to have the five hundred then?" asked Horace suspiciously.

Frank flushed but did not hesitate.

"A present from my grandmother," he said, trusting to luck that Jardin would not know that the lady had been dead for many years.

"Well, if she doesn't go by to-night, she is yours for the five hundred," promised Jardin. "I wonder where those mechanicians are. Let's go look them up."