CHAPTER XII--TRACED DOWN

"Be careful, Mr. Parks!"

"Foh goodness sake, sah! Yo want to break dat arm ober again?"

Mr. Morse, the inventor, and Scipio, the cook, made a frantic rush for the aeronaut. They were grouped together in the center of the space occupied by their camp. The eyes of each had been fixed on an object floating about in the air over-head. All had been pleased and excited, but particularly Parks. Now as the object aloft made a skim that seemed to beat a mile a minute dash, John Parks lost all control of himself.

He forgot the fractured arm he had carried in a sling for three days, and actually tried to wave it, as he burst forth:

"Morse, you're a genius, and that boy, Andy Nelson, is the birdman of the century!"

Andy deserved the praise fully that was being bestowed upon him. That morning Mr. Morse had completed the _Racing Star_, his new airship. At the present moment it was making its initial flight.

The relieved, contented face of Morse showed his satisfaction over the fact that his work was done and done well. Scipio stared goggle-eyed. As to John Parks, expert sky sailor that he was, his practiced eye in one moment had discerned the fact that the _Racing Star_ was the latest and best thing out in aviation, and he went fairly wild over the masterly way in which Andy handled the machine.

Andy aloft, had eye, nerve and breath strained to test the splendid device to its complete capacity. He was himself amazed at the beauty the utility of the dainty creation just turned out from the workshop. What the Airship King had taught him Andy had not forgotten. After five minutes spent in exploiting every angle of skill he possessed, Andy brought the superb aeroplane down to the ground, graceful as a swan. John Parks ran up to him, chuckling with delight.

"You wonder! you daisy!" he roared, shaking Andy's hand with his well arm.

Andy was flushed with triumph and excitement.

"If there's any wonder to talk about," he said, "it's that glorious piece of work, the _Racing Star_, and the splendid man who made it."

Morse smiled, a rare thing for him. Then he said modestly:

"It will do the work, handled as you manage it, Andy."

"I feel like a caged lion, or an eagle with its wings clipped!" stormed Parks, with a glance at his bandaged arm. "Why did I go trying to show a bungling amateur how to run an old wreck of a monoplane, and get my arm broken for my pains, and lose that five-thousand-dollar prize!"

"There is time to enter a substitute, Mr. Parks," suggested the inventor.

"Who?" demanded the aeronaut scornfully. "Some amateur who will sell me out or bungle the race, and maybe smash up my last thousand dollars?"

"Mr. Parks," said Andy, in a quick breath, and colored up and paused suddenly. "I'd be glad to try it. Say the word, and I'll train day and night for the race."

"Andy, win it, and half of that five thousand dollars is yours."

From excitement and incoherency, the little group got down to a serious discussion of the situation during the next half hour.

"It's just one week from the race," said Andy. "What can't I do in learning to run the _Racing Star_ in that time?"

"Andy, you must make it," declared Parks energetically. "It just seems as if my heart would break if we lost this record."

Mr. Morse got out a chart he had drawn of the run to be made on the twenty-first of the month.

"The course is very nearly a straight one," explained Parks; "from the grounds here to Springfield, where the State fair is going on. Pace will be set by a Central Northern train, carrying assistants and repairs. The fleet will be directed by a large American flag floating from the rear of the train. It's almost a beeline, Andy, and the _Racing Star_ is built for speed."

They made another ascent the next morning. Air and breeze conditions were most favorable for the try-out. Seated amidships, wearing a leather jacket, cap and gloves, Andy had the motor keyed up to its highest speed. The quick sequence of its exhaust swelled like a rapid-fire gun.

The machine rolled forward, the propellers beat the air, and the _Racing Star_ rose on a smooth parabola. Andy attempted some volplane skits that were fairly hair-raising. He raced with real birds. He practiced with the wind checks. For half an hour he kept up a series of practice stunts of the most difficult character.

"Oh, but you're a crack scholar, Andy Nelson," declared the delighted Parks, as the _Racing Star_ came to moorings again, light as a feather.

"I think myself I am getting on to most of the curves," said Andy. "The only question is can I keep it up on a long stretch?"

"Practice makes perfect, you know," suggested Mr. Morse.

Andy felt that he had about reached the acme of his mechanical ambition. When he went to bed that night the thought of the coming race kept him awake till midnight. When he finally went to sleep, it was to dream of aerial flights that resolved themselves into a series of the most exciting nightmares.

No developments came from Andy's experience with the Duske crowd. Once in a while he worried some over the reference of Duske's companions to seeing his name in the newspapers.

"Either it was about my trouble at Princeville, or some of these reporters writing up the race got my name incidentally," decided Andy.

"Anyhow, I can't afford to trouble about it."

Andy rarely ventured away from the camp after dark. In fact, ever since entering the employment of Mr. Parks he had not mixed much with outsiders. He had his Princeville friends and the Duske crowd constantly in mind. But one hot evening he went forth for some ice cream for the crowd.

The distance to a town restaurant was not great. Andy hurried across the freight tracks. Just as he passed a switchman's shanty, he fancied he heard some one utter a slight cry of surprise. Two persons dodged back out of the light of a switch lantern. Andy, however, paid little attention to the episode. He reached the restaurant, got the ice cream in a pasteboard box, and started back for the camp without any mishap or adventure.

Just as Andy crossed a patch of ground covered with high rank weeds, he became aware that somebody was following him. A swift backward glance revealed two slouching figures. They pressed forward as Andy momentarily halted.

"Now then!" spoke one of them suddenly.

Andy dodged as something was thrown towards him, but not in time to avoid a looped rope. It was handled deftly, for before he knew it his hands were bound tightly to his side.

One of the twain ran at him and tripped him up. The other twined the loose line about Andy's ankles.

"Got him!" sounded a triumphant voice.

"Good business," chirped his companion, and then Andy thrilled in some dismay, as he recognized his captors as Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.

"Hello, Andy Nelson," said Gus Talbot.

Gus's voice was sneering and offensive as he hailed the captive. His companion looked satisfied and triumphant as he stood over Andy, as if he expected their victim to applaud him for doing something particularly smart.

"See here, Gus," observed Dale, "I'd better get, hey?"

"Right off, too," responded Gus. "If there's the ready cash in it, all right. If there isn't we'll get him on the way to Princeville ourselves some way."

"Can you manage him alone?"

"I'll try to," observed Gus vauntingly, "I'll just have a pleasant little chat with him for the sake of old times, while I sample this ice cream of his--um-um--it ought to be prime."

Dale sped away on some mysterious errand. Gus picked up the box of ice cream that Andy had dropped and opened it. He tore off one of its pasteboard flaps, fashioned it into an impromptu spoon, and proceeded to fill his mouth with the cream.

"Don't you get up," he warned Andy. "If you do, I'll knock you down again."

"Big Injun, aren't you!" flared out Andy, provoked and indignant--"especially where you've got a fellow whipsawed?"

"Betcher life," sneered Gus maliciously. "Things worked to a charm. Got a hint from some airship fellows that you was somewhere around these diggings. Watched out for you and caught you just right, hey?"

The speaker sat down among the weeds in front of Andy. The latter noticed that his face was grimed and his hands stained with dirt. His clothes were wrinkled and disordered as if he had been sleeping in them. From what he observed, Andy decided that the son of the Princeville garage owner and his companion were on a tramp. They looked like runaways, and did not appear to be at all prosperous.

"Say," blurted out Gus, digging down into the ice cream, as if he was hungry, "you might better have turned up that two hundred dollars for dad."

"Why had I?" demanded Andy.

"It would have saved you a good deal of trouble. It's a stroke of luck, running across you just as we'd spent our last dime. How will you like to go back to Princeville and face the music?"

"What music?"

"Oh, yes, you don't know! Haven't read the papers, I suppose? Didn't know you was wanted?"

"Who wants me?"

"Nor that a reward was out for you?"

"Why?"

"Say, are you so innocent as all that, or just plain slick?" drawled Gus, with a crafty grin.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Farmer Jones' barn."

"Oh----" Andy gave a start. He began to understand now. "What about Farmer Jones' barn?"

"You know, I guess. It was set on fire and burned down. They have been looking everywhere for the firebug, and offer a fifty-dollar reward."

"Is that the reason why you and Dale have left Princeville?" demanded Andy coolly.

"Eh, well, I guess not," cried Gus. "Huh! Everybody knows how you did it out of spite against Jones because he hindered you running away from dad. Why, they found your cap right near the barn ruins."

"Is that so?" said Andy quietly. "How did it get there?"

"How did it get there? You dropped it there, of course."

"Purposely to get blamed for it, I suppose?" commented Andy. "That's pretty thin, Gus Talbot, seeing that you know and your father knows that my cap was taken away from me when he locked me up at the garage, and I had no chance to get it later. You left the cap near the burned barn, Gus Talbot, and you know it."

"Me? Rot!" ejaculated Gus, but he stopped eating the ice cream and acted restless.

"In fact," continued Andy definitely, "I can prove that both you and Dale were sneaking about the Jones' place a short time before the fire broke out."

"Bosh!" mumbled Gus.

"Further than that, I can tell you word for word what passed between you two. Listen."

Andy remembered clearly every incident of his flight from the haystack in Farmer Jones' field. He recited graphically the appearance of Gus and Dale, and the remark he had overheard. Gus sat staring at him in an uneasy way. He acted bored, and seemed at a loss to answer.

It was more than half an hour before Dale returned. He acted glum and mad.

"Is it all right?" inquired Gus eagerly.

"Right nothing!"

"Get the money?"

"No."

"What's the trouble?"

"I saw a constable and told him I could give him a chance to make a fifty-dollar reward, us to get ten. He heard me through and said it wouldn't do."

"Why wouldn't it?" demanded Gus.

"Because this is in another county, and he'd have to get the warrant. Said it was too much trouble to bother with it."

"Humph! what will we do now?" muttered Gus in a disgusted way.

"That's easy. Get Andy over the county line, and find someone else to take the job off our hands," replied Dale Billings.