Battling the Clouds Part 5

He came smiling across the room and joined them.

"h.e.l.lo, everybody!" he said gaily. "Getting some grub? It didn't take me very long to get through, so I thought I would wander down the street and see if I could run across you. Thought you might like to go to see a movie."

"That is mighty nice of you," said Bill heartily, "but I sort of wanted to see a little of the town this afternoon."

"I think that is a good idea," said Jardin. "We can go to see the movies any old time. I saw my dad at the hotel and have some good news to tell you. We are going to stay here for a couple of weeks. Dad thought that I would make an awful kick about it, and I would if I hadn't met you fellows, but between us we ought to be able to start something going. If I had one of my cars here I could give you a good time, but we will have to take a fall out of your little steamer."

"Say, that's fine!" said Frank with enthusiasm enough for two. "I will have a chance to show you the Aviation Field, and Bill can show you the School of Fire, and there are some dandy fellows over at New Post and up at Old Post too."

"I would like to see them, especially the Aviation part," said Jardin.

"I might get some pointers about flying my plane. It will be done before long,--in a couple of months anyway. I worked hard enough for that car,"

he chuckled. "I thought up every kind of mischief you ever heard of and then some, and tried 'em all out, and all the time I kept hollering for an airplane. I just wore dad out. He offered me everything you ever heard of if I would stop cutting up, and at last he hit on this airplane which was what I had been after from the start. So we made an agreement, regular business affair you know, and we both signed it. I am to stop smoking the day school opens and also agree to go to whatever school he picks out and to keep the rules and remain for the three terms of the school year. He has got to give me plenty of money, though. You can't have a decent time in school without your pocket full of money."

"I don't see why you need much," said Bill thoughtfully.

"Take it from me, you do," replied Jardin. "I have been in about every high-cla.s.s school around our part of the country and I _know_."

"I am going to boarding-school this fall, and I don't believe I will have much of an allowance. My folks won't think it is wise, I know."

"A lot of people are like that," said Jardin. "Are you going away to school too, Frank?"

"I expect I am," said Frank. "I don't know where yet; the folks have not decided for either of us, but we hope we will go together; don't we, Bill?"

"Sure!" agreed Bill.

"Wish you knew where you were going," said Jardin. "I would make dad send me where you were. That would be a lark. The Big Three: how would that go for a name, eh?"

"Great!" said Bill absently. He finished the last spoonful of his ice-cream. "Let's go out and see the town," he suggested. "There is a shooting gallery around the corner that has the cutest moving targets I ever saw."

"That's the ticket!" said Jardin. "I can shoot almost better than I can do anything else."

They wandered out, and turned down to the shooting gallery. A soldier was leaning idly against the door frame. Bill looked twice, grabbed the young man in a bear hug.

"Lee, you old scamp!" he cried. "How did you happen to get here?"

The dark face of the handsome young half-breed lighted up. "I drove the car in," he answered. "Your mother is shopping and your father will come in with Colonel Spratt in time for dinner. I have been watching these people shoot. Are you boys going to try it?" He glanced at Jardin with a keen eye, then looked away instantly.

"I can't shoot for sour apples and you know it. I suppose you want to have a good laugh at me," said Bill. "All right, here goes!" He laid down his money and received the little rifle.

"No moving targets for me," he said to the man in charge. "And I want the biggest target you have, at that."

"Here is one we let the ladies shoot at," the gallery man laughed. He put up a brilliant affair of different colored rings encircling a large black spot.

"That is the thing for me," said Bill.

"Us ladies!" jeered Frank, laughing.

"Shoot!" commanded Lee.

Bill aimed, breathed hard, blinked and pulled the trigger violently.

There was a black hole in the outside ring.

"Good boy!" said Bill, patting himself. "Good boy! 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' I have just three tries, I believe."

The next shot was a trifle closer. Bill held a little steadier. The last shot he took his time about and pulled carefully, using his finger instead of his whole side. A bell clanged. He had actually hit the bull's eye! Bill fell against Lee in a make-believe faint.

Frank tried next, Jardin refusing to make an attempt. At last however, after Frank had repeated Bill's performance, Jardin selected a rifle and asked for the moving targets to be set in motion.

He aimed quickly at the head of the smallest duck, and it disappeared behind the painted waves. Again and again he repeated this while the boys stood spellbound.

"That's easy!" said Jardin, laying the rifle down on the counter. "I can beat that easily."

"Do it," said Lee, handing him a rifle.

"Put up your hardest target," instructed Jardin. "I want something worth while."

The target popped into place. It was a pretty little figure of a dancing girl with a tiny tambourine in her uplifted hand. She whirled and turned and the little tambourine gleamed and sparkled. Jardin took careful aim at the tambourine and missed. Three times he missed, the boys exclaiming that no one could hit anything so delicate. Finally he gave it up, giving a number of explanations _why_ he did not hit it.

Then, quite idly, Lee picked up a rifle and with a half smile at the gallery man he shot without raising the rifle to his shoulder. A shower of tiny flashes burst from the uplifted tambourine. Then three times, as fast as he could lift a rifle, Lee hit the little tambourine and the bright flashes leaped up. It was evident that Lee had been there before because without a word the man removed the little dancer and placed a row of small and lively dolphins in view. They curved in and out of sight and looked very funny indeed. But Lee shook his head. The man removed the target, and feeling under his lapel drew out a pin, a common white pin which he stuck carefully in the middle of the black cloth at the end of the gallery. Lee's bullet drove the pin into the cloth as neatly as though it had been done with a mallet.

"Want to try?" he asked Jardin.

Jardin smiled sourly. "I am no professional," he said.

He and Frank sauntered out, followed by Bill and Lee.

"Who is that soldier?" asked Jardin. "Isn't he just an enlisted man?"

"That's all," said Frank. "He is the Major's orderly."

"I don't like his looks," said Jardin.

"Neither do I," agreed Frank. "But you had better not tell Bill that. He is crazy over Lee."

"Every man to his taste!" Jardin said with a sneer.

CHAPTER V

About a week later, Bill, accompanied by Lee, drove the Swallow over to the Aviation Field. They found Horace Jardin staying there at Frank's quarters, as the houses are called on all army posts. Mr. Jardin had gone down into the Burkburnett Oil Fields and Frank had invited the boy to come and stay with him. Mrs. Anderson, a weak and idle person, was flattered to have the young millionaire as her guest and revelled as Frank did in his glowing yarns of everything concerning the Jardins.

Horace treated Mrs. Anderson and the Major with all the politeness he could muster.

It was always his policy to be agreeable to other fellows' parents. It made things easier all around to have what he privately and rudely called "the old folks" think he was a fine boy, and he found that they always "fell for it" when he paid them a little attention.