them into his pocket and took charge of the wheel.
“Say,” began Hiram, as they left the aero grounds and started down a lonely country road; “tell me are you going on a hunt for the Comet?”
“Yes,” replied the young airman. “I don’t know that there is much chance of running down the people who stole the biplane, but they can’t sail far without being reported.”
“What is their object in stealing it, anyhow?” asked Hiram.
“If you want my honest opinion, I think they are trying to keep us out of the race,” replied Dave.
“Oh!” exclaimed his companion, “then you think it’s professionals who are at the bottom of this mischief?”
“It was certainly an expert airman who piloted the Comet away so snugly,” declared Dave. “I believe, though, that he was hired by others.”
“Why, Dave, what do you mean?” inquired the puzzled Hiram.
“I can’t explain everything to you just now,” replied Dave. “I am not trying to throw any air of mystery about this strange disappearance of the Comet, but you remember telling me about seeing that schemer, Vernon, come out of the Hampton Flats in the city?”
“Why, yes,” assented Hiram, with a start of enlightenment.
“Well, I have reason to believe that he is mixed up with this affair.”
“You don’t say so! Bound to bother the Bracketts to the last limit, is he?”
“No, I believe his motives lead in an entirely different direction this time,” replied Dave, but he would say no more on the topic just then. He resumed: “Of course, we must find the Comet by this time to-morrow, or start in the race with another machine.”
“Oh, then we’ll go anyway?” asked Hiram, brightening up. “Say, that’s great!” and he uttered an immense sigh of relief.
“Mr. Brackett has telegraphed for the Zephyr, which is at Baltimore,” explained Dave. “It will be on the grounds before night.”
“Have you any clue as to what has become of the Comet?” asked Hiram.
“I have a very strong theory,” replied the young aviator. “Whoever made away with the Comet did not venture to fly north – too many machines were on their way to the meet, and they would be seen. The manager wired in every direction. An unknown airship was sighted twice, early this morning, both times about fifty miles from Washington, going southwest and making for the mountain districts.”
“What do you guess from that, Dave?” inquired Hiram, eagerly.
“I think they are trying to hide or lose the Comet until it is too late to start in the race. Of course, hopeless as it may seem, we must try and recover the machine.”
“Yes, the Zephyr cannot begin to compare with our special machine,” said Hiram.
“Besides that,” added Dave, “I hope to find out who ran away with the biplane. If Vernon is indeed back of it, that discovery would throw a good deal of light on a certain subject in which I am greatly interested at the present time.”
Hiram was prudently silent. He wondered to himself, however, if the subject at which his companion hinted had anything to do with the young lady in the automobile and Dave’s visit to the Hampton Flats.
It was about eleven o’clock when the young airman stopped at a town named Wayne. He made a second stop at a little settlement ten miles beyond. The automobile had now gotten well in among the hills, and the scenery had grown wilder and wilder.
“Some airship passed over here just before daylight this morning,” Dave finally reported to Hiram.
“Do you know the direction it went in?” asked the latter.
“Yes. We will keep on and make Tarryford. If we get no information there, I guess we will have to give up the hunt.”
It was shortly after noon when they passed an old farmhouse. As they whizzed by, Hiram remarked some sheds in ruins, and smoking yet as if recently consumed by fire. He called the attention of his comrade to the fact. They sped on. Less than half a mile accomplished, they saw ahead a steep, high hill. By the side of the road, seated on a level rock, was a man holding a rifle between his knees.
Something about the grim, watchful manner of the farmer attracted the curious attention of both of the boys. Dave brought the machine to a halt at the side of the road.
“Say, my man,” he called out, pleasantly, “have you seen or heard of an airship anywhere around here this morning?”
It was quite startling the way the farmer came to his feet. His eyes flashed and he handled his weapon in a menacing way.
“Have I?” he cried, fiercely. “I reckon so, and I’m ready to riddle the troublesome old contraption the minute she shows herself again!”
CHAPTER VII
FOUND
“We’re going to find out something sure,” declared Hiram. “Say, Dave, that man knows something about our machine.”
The young airman leaped from the auto and approached the farmer. The latter stood viewing the newcomers in a surly, suspicious way.
“You say you have seen an airship,” observed Dave. “Where? when?”
The farmer eyed our hero and his companion shrewdly.
“What do you want to know for?” he questioned.
“Well,” answered Dave, bluntly, “someone stole a biplane from the aero field, near Washington, last night, and we are looking for it.”
“Oh, you are?” muttered the man. “Belongs to you, maybe?”
“To a company which we represent.”
“Responsible for damages?” insinuated the farmer, with a shrewd glint in his calculating eyes.
“Is there some damage to account for?” inquired Dave.
“I reckon,” pronounced the man seriously. “Did you happen to notice the last farm down the road?”
“We saw it, mister,” nodded Hiram, impatient to hurry up the man with his disclosures.
“I suppose you saw them smoking ruins. Them was a shed, a pigsty and a stack of hay. I don’t reckon fifty dollars would replace them.”
“What has an airship to do with them?” inquired Hiram.
“Everything. See here, just at daylight this morning I came to the back door. I heard a whir and a ping overhead, and I saw an airship going licketty-switch. Just as it passed over the house, some one in it must have thrown a lighted cigar overboard. I didn’t see it fall, but after I had gone into the house and finished dressing and came out again, I saw the airship dropping into the basin on top of Pike Hill up yonder. Then I smelled smoke. I ran around towards the sheds. The stack was blazing. I know it was a cigar that started it, for I found one on the ground where the fire started, and we smoke nothing but corncob pipes around these diggings.”
“And you say the airship landed on top of Pike Hill, as you call it?” inquired Dave. “How do you know that?”
“Say, get up on this rock with me. That’s it. Now then, take a squint past the spur of rock way up near the crest of the hill. See it?”
“Hello!” instantly exclaimed Hiram, in a state of great excitement.
“Why, sure as you live it’s the end of a wing,” declared Dave. “Have you seen anything of the persons running it, mister?”
“No, I haven’t. The way I figure it out is that they ran out of steam. Mebbe they thought no one saw them when they flew over the farm. Mebbe they’re hiding. Mebbe, when they saw me start on guard down here with my rifle, after we’d tried to put the fire out, they were afraid to budge.”
“It is very likely they alighted