he spoke three other figures glided from the shadows of an untenanted house near by and silently took up their positions a short distance beyond him. They were out of the path of the auto’s lights and their faces could not be seen. The light glinted on something that each held in his hand, however, and which were clearly enough revolvers. Things looked pretty blue for the Boy Aviators.
The sudden turn events had taken almost bereft Frank of his wits for a minute, but suddenly it flashed across him that the man who had waved the lantern did not talk like an ordinary robber and that it was remarkable that the others took so much trouble to keep out of the light. The next instant his suspicions were confirmed by hearing the voice of the first comer snap out:
“Which one of you has got them gyroscope plans?”
Frank’s reply was startling. Without uttering a word he suddenly drove the machine full speed ahead.
It leaped forward like a frightened wild thing.
As it dashed ahead it bowled over the would-be robber, but that he was not seriously hurt the boys judged by the volley of bad language he sent after them. As for the others, as the car made its leap they had stepped nimbly aside.
“Look out for the excavation. Frank; we’ll be in it!” shouted Billy in an alarmed voice as the car rushed forward.
“Why, there’s no excavation, Billy,” rejoined Frank, bending over the steering wheel. “That was just a bluff on the part of those men, of whom, if I am not much mistaken, Fred Reade was one.”
CHAPTER V.
THE BOYS DECIDE
Their strange experience of the preceding night was naturally the topic of the day with the boys the next morning. That Fred Reade was concerned in it there seemed no reason to doubt, though just what part he had played was more shadowy. A perusal of the two newspapers, the Planet and the Despatch, the next day, however, gave the boys an inkling of one of his motives for his desperate attempt – if, indeed, it had been engineered by him – to gain possession of the Joyce gyroscope. This was the announcement that the two papers had agreed to start their contestants off in a spirit of rivalry by naming the same day for the start and imposing exactly the same conditions, the prizes to be lumped. Among other things in the Despatch’s article the boys read that Slade, the noted aviator, was an entrant.
“Mr. Reade,” the paper stated, “will accompany Mr. Slade as the correspondent of this newspaper. He will ride in an automobile which will carry supplies and emergency tools and equipment. Every step of the trip will be chronicled by him.”
There was more to the same effect, but the boys had no eyes for it after their sight lighted on the following paragraph:
“Those remarkable and precocious youths, the Boy Aviators, are, of course, not equipped for such a contest as this, requiring, as it does, an excess of skill and knowledge of aviation. A noted aviator of this city, in speaking of the fact that they have not entered their names, remarked that boys are not calculated to have either the energy or the pluck to carry them through an enterprise like the present.”
“That’s Fred Reade, for a bet,” exclaimed Billy, as he read the insulting paragraph. “He’s crazy sore at you and everyone else beside his sweet self. I suppose he wrote that just to make himself disagreeable.”
“Moreover, he knows in some mysterious way that we have the first option on the Joyce gyroscope,” put in Harry, “and maybe he wouldn’t give his eyes to get it for the principal Planet contestant.”
“He’s certainly shown that,” said Frank. “I’ve heard of the Slade machine, and it is reputed to be a wonder. In whatever way Reade heard that we had the gyroscope, there is little doubt that he realizes that fitted with it the Slade plane might win the race.”
“And there’s another reason,” burst out Billy Barnes. “You see now that the two papers have agreed to run the race off together it eliminates the two prizes, and according to the conditions both will be massed and awarded to the winner.”
“Well?” questioned Frank.
“Well,” repeated Billy, continuing, “this means that if Reade has been backing Slade to win the Despatch contest, and there is little doubt he has – now that the two contests are massed if Slade has a better man on the Planet’s list pitted against him the Planet man may win, and then Reade gets nothing.”
“You mean that Slade was almost certain to win the Despatch’s race – that the $50,000 was as good as won with the class of contestants he had against him before the two offers were massed?” asked Frank.
Billy nodded. “And that now, for all they know, the Planet may have some dark horse who will beat Slade and get the combined prize?”
“Precisely, as Ben Stubbs would say,” laughed Billy.
“It would serve them right for the mean trick they tried to play on us by attempting to steal the gyroscope plans if we were to enter in the race at the last moment and be the Planet’s dark horses.” mused Frank.
“Oh, Frank, do you mean that?” shouted Billy.
“I haven’t said I mean anything, you wild man,” laughed Frank, “but inasmuch as my father was talking of going to Los Angeles – you know he has some orange groves out there – I’ve been thinking that we might combine business with pleasure and take a trip to California by aeroplane.”
“Then you’ll do it,” eagerly demanded Billy. As for Harry, he was so entranced at the idea that he was capering about the room like an Indian.
“I think that it is almost certain that we will not,” teased Frank.
“Not what?” groaned Billy.
“Not be able to resist the temptation of going.”
At this point a maid entered the room with a telegram.
“This is for you,” she said, holding it out to Frank.
Frank tore it open and his face flushed angrily as he read its contents. He handed it to the others. The message was not signed, but even so the boys all guessed who it was from.
“You got away from us by a neat trick last night,” it read, “but puppies like you cannot balk us. Men are in this race, not boys, so keep your hands off it.”
“I suppose he means by that, as we are not contestants, we have no right to interfere with their attempts to steal the gyroscope attachment for themselves,” exclaimed Frank. “That’s a fine line of reasoning.”
“That telegram ought to decide us,” burst out Harry.
“It certainly ought to,” chimed in Billy.
At that minute the Chester boys’ father entered the room.
“What are you boys all so excited about?” he asked.
“What would you say if we joined you in Los Angeles?” asked Frank.
“What do you mean? I don’t quite understand,” said Mr. Chester, puzzled in spite of himself, though he knew the boys’ sudden determination to have adventures and suspected that something of the kind was in the wind now.
“If we flew to California, for instance,” said Frank.
“Flew there,” repeated Mr. Chester. “My dear boy, how could you do that?”
“In the Golden Eagle, of course,” exclaimed Harry.
“But – but what for?” questioned the amazed Mr. Chester.
“For a hundred thousand dollars,” put in Billy.
“You mean for that newspaper prize?”
The boys nodded.
“I don’t like the idea of your entering a contest of that character,” said Mr. Chester; “there is a great deal of danger, too.”
“No more than we have been through,” remonstrated Frank; “besides, think