CHAPTER VII

Crooked Work

“There!” exclaimed Phil, two days later straightening up, and wiping his hands on a piece of cotton waste. “If that engine doesn’t tick like a Swiss watch now, it won’t be our fault. It ought to make the run to Texas without a miss.”

“I’ve got a hunch it will,” said Dick, confidently. “Let’s see if we’ve done everything now,” and he proceeded to count off the operations on his fingers. “Scraped carbon out of cylinders; took up on main bearings and big end bearings, overhauled oil pump and strainer, cleaned spark plugs and timer points, put in new piston rings. Whew! Sounds like a lot when you say it slow, doesn’t it?”

“It seems to me it’s quite a lot no matter how you say it,” remarked Tom, “but with an aeroplane, it certainly pays to have everything right.”

“You can bet it does,” said Phil, emphatically. “When you’re a thousand or two feet up, it gives you a mighty comfortable feeling to know that everything is in fine condition.”

“And a mighty uncomfortable one if you think it isn’t,” supplemented Tom, with a laugh.

“I’ll say so!” agreed Phil. “But now that we’ve done so much work, let’s take a trial flight. If we find everything O. K., we can start for Texas early tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”

“Great! Fine!” exclaimed his friends.

“All right, then; hop in,” said Phil. “You spin her over, Dick, will you?”

“Sure thing,” acquiesced Dick. “Just say the word when you’re ready.”

Phil climbed into the pilot’s seat, and Tom clambered in beside him. Dick gave the big propeller a whirl, and the motor started with a roar. Phil quickly throttled it down, and Dick cast off the holding ropes and clambered to his seat.

“The old motor sounds pretty sweet,” he yelled.

Phil nodded his head, and after opening and closing the throttle a few times to warm up the engine and test its response, he “gave it the gas” and the plane glided forward over the green turf.

Phil was just about to move the elevating controls when his action was suddenly arrested by Dick’s voice in his ear.

“Don’t go up, Phil,” he yelled, excitedly. “Something is wrong with the guy wires. I saw one break just a second ago.”

Phil closed the throttle, and the plane slowed down and came to rest.

“You must be seeing things, Dick,” said Phil, twisting around in his seat. “I tested out every wire in the machine a couple of days ago, and they were all in fine condition.”

“Well, I saw one break, just the same,” said Dick, positively. “We’d better go over them all once more. It does seem queer, though.”

“Well, accidents will happen,” said Phil, removing his goggles and leather helmet. “Let’s have a look at the one that you saw snap, Dick. Which was it?”

“Just a second and I’ll show you,” replied Dick, leaping to the ground. “It was this one over here,” and he picked up a long wire that was trailing on the ground.

Phil took the wire from him, and rapidly followed up its length until he came to the loose end.

What he found there made him emit a long whistle.

“Say!” he exclaimed. “It’s no wonder this wire broke. It’s been filed half through!”

“Filed!” exclaimed Dick, seizing the wire from Phil, while Tom leaped to the ground and came running around to where they stood. “It can’t be, Phil. Who would have done such a thing as that?”

“I don’t know, but just take a look at it,” said Phil. “You can see the smooth part left by the file, and the rough surface where the wire actually parted.”

“Let’s see, Dick,” said Tom, and all three boys examined the broken wire carefully.

“You’re right, Phil; that was no accident,” was Dick’s verdict, and Tom agreed with him. “There’s only one man I know that would be capable of doing such a thing,” he added.

Phil nodded his head. “Rocks Gurney,” he said, briefly. “You know after that licking I gave him he swore to get even with me, and this is the method he has used.”

“Just like him, too,” exclaimed Dick, indignantly. “Why, if that stay had broken while we were in the air, we’d have been in serious trouble.”

“Luckily for us, he filed a bit too deep, and the stay broke sooner than he thought it would,” said Phil. “The chances are he didn’t stop at just that one, either. We’d better go over every bit of the machine, and see if he’s monkeyed with anything else.”

This they did, and it was not long before Tom discovered a deep nick in another wire. In all they found five wires in different parts of the machine that had been partially cut through, enough to have caused disaster had they given way while the machine was in the air.

“I’m going to make inquiries and find out if anybody around the house has seen anything of Gurney or any other suspicious person lately,” said Phil. “I don’t think the machine was tampered with during the night, because the hangar is securely locked, and I didn’t notice anything wrong when I opened up this morning.”

The Strongs employed an old negro gardener, and when questioned he remembered seeing somebody near the hangar the previous evening while the family was at supper, but he thought it was some friend of the boys, and had not paid much attention to him.

“But didn’t you recognize him?” asked Phil.

“Ah couldn’t rightly say Ah did,” said the old negro, doubtfully. “Ah cain’t see much widout mah specs, but come to think of it, he looked somethin’ like young Marse Gurney. It was gettin’ powerful dark, though, an’ Ah ain’t sure.”

“I guess your eyes didn’t fool you, Mose,” said Phil, grimly. “There’s no doubt in my mind that it was Gurney, all right, but I suppose there’s no way to prove it.”

“Let’s hunt him up and accuse him of it,” exclaimed Tom, hotly.

“Oh, what’s the use,” said Phil. “He’d only deny it, and we haven’t any time to waste on him, anyway. It won’t take us long to replace the wires, and we know everything else is all right, because we’ve just finished overhauling them.”

His friends reluctantly agreed to leave Gurney’s punishment to some future date, and returned to the aeroplane. It was no great task to renew the damaged wires and pull them taut with turnbuckles, and soon the machine was as good as ever. After this, they started once more for a trial flight, and this time nothing occurred to hinder them. The motor worked beautifully, and the boys were delighted with its performance.

“I told you those new piston rings would make a big improvement in the motor,” said Dick. “I put the same kind in our automobile, and it made a new car out of it.”

“Yes, unless you’ve got good compression, you can’t get power,” agreed Phil. “But I guess the machine is fit for anything, now. ‘Texas or bust tomorrow.’ How about it?”

“Bet your sweet life,” exclaimed Dick, and Tom was no less enthusiastic. After a few more sweeping circles, Dick brought the aeroplane gently to earth, and the boys proceeded to fill the gasoline and oil tanks, and pack their traveling equipment aboard.

The following morning they were up at daylight, and after a hearty breakfast went out to the hangar, accompanied by their families, who had all congregated at the Strong’s to see them off. The boys wheeled the aeroplane out, and made a last inspection, to make sure that it had not by any chance been tampered with during the night. Everything was just as they had left it, however, and after saying good-bye the boys climbed to their places.