The Rover Boys in the Air Part 4

"No, Sam, I'll soon be O. K."

"Jumping lobsters! But this beats all!" went on the youngest Rover. "I don't know if I had better tell you or not." And he looked around, to see if anybody but his brothers was present. The grown folks had left the room.

"Tell us what?" demanded Tom, who quickly saw that Sam had something on his mind.

"Tell you the news."

"What news?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Maybe you can't stand it, d.i.c.k. It will keep till to-morrow."

"See here, Sam, I'm not a baby," retorted the oldest Rover boy. "If you've got anything worth telling tell it."

"But it may make your head ache worse, d.i.c.k."

"No, it won't. Now, what's the news? Out with it."

Instead of answering at once, Sam Rover walked over to the door and closed it carefully.

"No use of worrying the others about it," he half whispered.

"But what is it?" demanded Tom, and now he showed that he was as impatient as was d.i.c.k.

"I got a letter from Grace Laning," went on Sam, slowly, and turned a bit red. "She told me a piece of news that is bound to upset you, d.i.c.k."

"Is it about the Stanhopes--about Dora?" questioned d.i.c.k, half rising from the couch on which he rested.

"Yes,--and about some others, too. But don't get excited. Nothing very bad has happened, yet."

"What did happen, Sam? Hurry up and tell us,--don't keep us in suspense!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Well; then, if you want it in a few words, here goes. Grace was visiting the Stanhopes a few days ago and she and Dora went to Ithaca to do some shopping. While in that town, coming along the street leading to the boat landing, they almost ran into Tad Sobber and old Josiah Crabtree."

"What! Those rascals in that town--so near to the Stanhope home!"

exclaimed d.i.c.k. "And after what has happened! We must have them arrested!"

"I don't think you can do it, d.i.c.k--not from what Grace says in her letter."

"What does she say?"

"She says she and Dora were very much frightened, especially when they discovered that both Sobber and old Crabtree had been drinking freely.

The two got right in front of the girls and commenced to threaten them and threaten us. n.o.body else was near, and the girls didn't know what to do. But at last they got away and ran for the boat, and what became of Sobber and old Crabtree they don't know."

"What did the rascals say to them?" questioned Tom, who could see that his brother had not told all of his tale.

"They said that they were going to square up with Dora and with Mrs.

Stanhope, and said they would square up with us, too, and in a way we little expected. Grace wrote that Sobber pulled a big roll of bank bills out of his pocket and flourished it in her face. 'Do you see that?' he asked. 'Well, I can get more where that came from, and I am going to use that and more, too, just to get even with the Rovers. I'm getting my trap set for them, and when they fall into it they'll wish they had never been born! I'll blow them and their whole family sky-high, that's what I'll do.'"

"Sobber said that?" asked d.i.c.k, slowly.

"So Grace writes. No wonder she and Dora were scared to death."

"Oh, maybe he was only blowing, especially if he had been drinking too much," came from Tom.

"I don't know about that," answered d.i.c.k, with a long sigh. "With such a rascal at liberty,--and with money in his pocket--there is no telling what will happen."

"What do you suppose he meant by blowing us sky-high?" asked Tom. But this question was not answered, for at that moment Mrs. Rover came into the room, and the course of the conversation had to be changed,--the lads not wishing to worry her with their new troubles.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE TELEPHONE

Tom and Sam spent the balance of the day in looking for the missing biplane, walking down to the river, and even visiting Humpback Falls, where the youngest Rover had once had such a thrilling adventure.

"Don't seem to be in sight," remarked Tom, after they had tramped through the woods and over the rocks until they were tired.

"Looks to me as if the _Dartaway_ had gone further than we supposed possible," replied Sam. "Maybe she's a hundred miles from here."

"Oh, she may have gone clean over to the ocean and dropped in," said Tom. "But I don't see how she could--with n.o.body to steer. How long would an auto keep to the road without somebody steering?"

"Do you know what I think we ought to do? Go back home and telephone to the villages and towns in the direction the biplane took. Somebody must have seen the craft,--if she kept in the air."

"By Jove, Sam, that's the idea! Why didn't you think of that before? It would have saved us quite a tramp."

The two boys turned back, and reached home a little after the supper hour. The meal had been held back for them.

"Any luck?" asked d.i.c.k, who sat in an easy chair on the front piazza.

His cuts had been plastered up and he felt quite like himself again.

"No luck; but Sam has an idea," answered Tom, and mentioned what it was.

"You must have supper first," said Mrs. Rover. "Then you can do all the telephoning you please." And so it was agreed.

During the past few months the telephone service in the neighborhood of Dexter's Corners had been greatly improved and the lines could be connected with nearly all of the villages and towns roundabout.

"I'll try Carwood first," said Sam. "I'll call up Tom Bender. He's a wideawake fellow and would know if an airship had been seen."

Carwood was soon had on the wire and Sam presently was talking to the boy he had mentioned--a lad who worked in the general store with his father.

"See an airship?" cried Tom Bender. "We sure did--scooting over this burgh like a streak, too! Was it your machine? Who was running it? I tried to make out but couldn't."

"n.o.body was running it," answered Sam. "It ran away on its own account, from back of our barn. Where did it go to?"

"Ran away! Suffering toadstools, Sam, you don't mean it! I don't know where it went, it went so fast."