CHAPTER IV.
THIEVES IN THE NIGHT

The other occupants of the auto were a man with a heavy red beard and a nervous, alert little man whom Billy said was an aviator named Slade.

“That’s queer to see Reade over here. I wonder what he can be doing,” said Billy, as the two autos left the shed and emerged into the street.

Neither of the boys could, of course, hazard a guess, but had they known it the mission of the reporter who had betrayed the Planet was more nearly concerned with them than they imagined. The car in which Reade was seated seemed a more powerful machine than the one the boys occupied and it soon left them behind. They thought no more of the chance encounter and soon arrived at the home of Eben Joyce, a comfortable cottage on the heights overlooking the “meadows” on one side and the North river on the other.

They were greeted by the inventor’s daughter, who seemed much disturbed.

“Oh, I am so glad you have come!” she exclaimed, after she had invited the little party in.

“Why, what has happened?” asked Frank.

“I will tell you,” she said, while they all leaned forward deeply interested. “This afternoon I was called to the door by a man in ragged clothes who begged me for something to eat. My father has told me never to let anyone go away hungry, so I told the servant to give the man some food. I thought no more of the matter till, on looking out of the window, I saw the man who had asked for charity going toward the old barn out there that my father used as a workshop.”

Old Mr. Joyce became greatly excited. It was evident he feared some harm had come to his collection of scientific instruments and plans for inventions which he housed there for lack of room in the house.

“Yes, yes, go on,” he exclaimed, quivering with agitation.

“He was fumbling with the lock when I looked up and saw him. I shouted to him to know what he was doing. His reply was to instantly stop what he was at and run toward the front of the house. I opened the door just in time to see him leap into an automobile in which were two other men, and they drove off.”

“A tramp in an automobile; that’s funny,” commented Frank.

“Indeed it is. In fact, I recollect thinking at the time that he asked me for food that his manner was too refined to be that of a genuine tramp.”

“What did he look like?” asked Harry.

“He was tall and had a big red beard. That is all I am able to recollect of him.”

“Sounds like the man we saw in Reade’s auto,” exclaimed Harry.

“Can Fred Reade have anything to do with this mysterious happening?” asked Billy.

“Eh, say that name again, young man,” demanded the inventor, who was, besides being often preoccupied, somewhat deaf and so had not heard Billy mention the other’s name when they were in the auto.

“I said Fred Reade,” rejoined Billy. “Why, do you know him?”

“I do, and I know no good of him,” was the reply. “It was he that first approached me in connection with the sale of the Buzzard to Luther Barr and – ”

“Luther Barr again. We seem to cross his trail all the time,” exclaimed Frank.

“Eh?” questioned the old man, his hand at his ear, trumpet-wise.

“I said we have heard of Luther Barr before, as you know,” said Frank, “but you never mentioned the fact that Reade had acted for him.”

“It must have slipped my mind in the excitement,” explained the old man. “Yes, Fred Reade has acted for Barr in many matters that I know of.”

“A sort of agent of his,” said Billy.

“More than that,” rejoined old Eben Joyce; “there is some mysterious tie between them. I think Reade knows something about Luther Barr that the other is afraid will come out.”

“How is that?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know, but such is my impression. At the time of the negotiation for the Buzzard Reade treated Barr as an equal more than if he were employed by him.”

It had grown dusk by this time and Eben Joyce’s daughter lit the lamp and set it down on the cottage table. As she did so there came a loud roar of an approaching motor car down the quiet street and the next moment through the gathering gloom a big auto approached the cottage. As it neared it it slowed down. They all went out on the porch to see who could be driving a car down that little frequented street. It was not very light, but as the car drew nearer Frank recognized it.

“That’s Fred Reade’s auto,” he cried.

But if the boys imagined that they were to get any solution of the car’s mysterious appearance they were mistaken. As it neared the house, and the group on the porch must have been plainly visible to its occupants, the big car suddenly leaped forward and shot away into the darkness.

“What did they do that for?” asked Billy.

“I guess they saw so many if us here that they thought it would be more prudent to stay away,” suggested Frank.

“What can they be after?” wondered Harry.

“The blue prints of my gyroscopic attachment and possibly my experimental machine itself,” declared the inventor, “though if they had the blue prints they could easily manufacture them themselves. Reade has been after me to sell them.”

“That is so,” mused Frank; “undoubtedly such prints would be of great value to them.”

“Will you do something for me?” inquired old Eben Joyce, suddenly.

“Of course,” rejoined Frank; “what is it?”

“Will you take charge of my blue prints for me. It is lonely here and I am old and my daughter unprotected. In case they attacked us in the night we should have little opportunity to keep the prints from them. I would feel quite secure if you had them in your possession, however.”

Frank readily agreed to this, adding that he would place them in a safe deposit vault.

“I shall rest much easier if you would,” said the old inventor. “Bad as they are, I don’t think the men would hurt us; all they are after is the plans and I really dare not have them about here another night.”

It was an hour later when, with the plans safely tucked away in an inside pocket of Frank’s coat, the boys started back for town.

“If you feel at all nervous we will telephone home and stay here with you,” Frank offered before they left.

“Oh, not at all,” exclaimed old Joyce, who was already busy figuring a new problem. “I have a revolver and I will communicate with the police about my fears. I shall be all right.”

With hearty good nights the boys’ car swung off, its headlights glowing brightly. They sped along through the outskirts of Jersey City and were about to leave the lonely, badly-lighted section through which they had been passing when suddenly a figure stepped full into the path of light cast ahead of them.

The sudden apparition of the night was waving a red lantern.

“Stop! there’s danger ahead!” it shouted.

“Danger, what sort of danger?” asked Frank, nevertheless bringing the car to a stop.

“Why, there’s an excavation ahead. Ah! that’s right, you’ve stopped. Now then, young gentlemen, just step out of the petroleum phaeton and fork over the contents of your pockets.”

“What, you rascal, are you holding us up?” cried Billy indignantly, as the man pointed a revolver at them.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” grinned the other. “Come on now, shell out and hurry up.”

As 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 of the experience. Why, we would fly over a dozen states.”

“A dozen – fifty, at least,” cried Billy, with a fine disregard for geography.

“But how would you go? How long would it take you?” demanded their father.

“I haven’t figured out just the time we would consume,” said Frank, “but I have a rough idea of our route. The object, of course, would be to avoid any big mountain chains, although if we have our Joyce automatic adjuster I think we could manage even those cross currents with ease. But this is to be a race and we want to get there first. The newspaper route is from here to Pittsburg, from there to Nashville, crossing the Ohio and Cumberland rivers, thence, due west almost, across the northern part of Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico, Arizona and then across California to San Francisco.”

“Hurrah,” cried Billy, his eyes shining. “Indians, cowboys, gold mines and oranges.”

When the laugh at the jumbled series of images the mention of the different states Frank had enumerated aroused in Billy’s mind had died down Mr. Chester wanted to know how the boys were going to carry their supplies.

“Well,” said Frank, “as you are going to California and leaving the car behind we thought that perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting us use it. We will be very careful – ”

“Oh, very,” repeated Harry.

“Most,” supplemented Billy.

Mr. Chester laughed.

“I never saw such boys,” he said, “but even supposing you had the automobile – I say supposing you had it, could you carry enough supplies in it for the aeroplane?”

“I am sure we could,” Frank asserted. “You see, automobiles are in such general use nowadays that it would only be in the desolate parts of the western states that we should have to carry a large supply of gasolene. Almost every village nowadays has it in stock.”

“You seem to have the whole thing thought out,” laughed Mr. Chester.

“It will be the trip of a lifetime,” shouted Harry.

“Well, I shall have to consult with your mother,” was Mr. Chester’s dictum.

Mrs. Chester objected very much at first to her sons’ plan.

“You are always going off on dangerous trips. I do wish you’d spend a little time at home,” she said.

But the boys assured her they would be very careful and would keep constantly in touch with their parents by telegraph and not take any unwarranted risks.

“Well, I suppose I shall have to yield,” said Mrs. Chester at length.

“Hurrah!” cried the boys.

And thus it came about that one week before the big race across the continent was due to start the names of the Chester Boys were enrolled on the Planet’s lists as contestants.