The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service

"Let's give three cheers!" cried Herc.

"Better be careful about making a noise," counselled Ned. "No telling but some of those rascals may be hiding in the building somewhere."

"That's right," agreed Herc. "Another thing has occurred to me, too. All the windows of this delightful place are barred, and if the door has been locked and the place vacated, we're going to have a hard time to get out, even now."

"That's right. Well, we'd better start on our tour of exploration right away."

Guided by Ned, with his torch ready for instant darkening, the two lads began to thread the maze of corridors and passages. They had been doing this for several minutes, and were beginning to get rather bewildered, when Ned stopped suddenly just as they entered a long corridor pierced with doors, with the same monotonous regularity as the others. He extinguished the light in the wink of an eye, and drew Herc swiftly into the embrasure of a doorway as he did so.

Far down the corridor a footstep had sounded, and another light had flashed. As they crouched in the darkness, prepared for any emergency, a sudden voice sounded from the end of the corridor:

"Stop right where you are, or I'll fire!"

CHAPTER XIII

HARMLESS AS A RATTLESNAKE

"I beg your pardon, sir, but could I speak to you a moment?"

"Certainly; come in, Chance," rejoined Lieutenant De Frees, who was sitting in his quarters on the aviation testing ground the morning after the events narrated in our last chapter.

"It's – it's about Strong and Taylor, sir, that I wished to speak," said Chance, twisting his cap in his hands. His crafty face looked more fox-like and mean than ever. His manner was almost cringing.

Lieutenant De Frees jumped to his feet.

"You've got news of them?" he exclaimed. "Out with it, my lad. They are not the boys to be absent without good reasons, although I fear that if they have overstayed their leave without just cause they must be disciplined."

"That's just it, sir," said Chance. "I – I don't want to make trouble, sir, but I'm afraid that Strong and Taylor are not all that you think them, sir. I would have spoken at roll-call this morning when they were reported absent without leave, but I thought that maybe they would turn up."

"Well, what do you know about them? Come, out with it," urged the officer sharply.

He had never liked Chance, and the seaman's furtive manner irritated him.

"Why, you see, sir, Merritt and I happened to be in town last night, sir, and we saw Strong and Taylor associating with some disreputable characters, sir. We warned them, but they laughed at us, sir. We continued to urge them to come with us, however, but they only swore at us."

"What!" exclaimed the officer, startled out of his official calm, "you saw Strong and Taylor in undesirable surroundings and with disreputable characters, and you mean to say that that is the reason for their non-appearance this morning?"

"That's just it, sir," rejoined Chance. "The last we saw of them was as they were turning into a drinking resort. I fear that some harm must have come to them, sir."

"Why – why – confound it all, I'd almost rather cut off my right hand than hear such a report, Chance. You are certain that you are correct in your report?"

"Absolutely certain, sir," was the response; "there could be no mistake. I hope I am not doing wrong in reporting this, sir?"

"No, no, my man, you have done perfectly right," was the answer, although the officer's face was troubled. The news that his most trusted pupils should have misconducted themselves had shaken him a good deal.

"Good heavens, can one place no trust in human nature?" he thought. "I'd have staked my commission that those boys were absolutely clean-lived and upright."

"Is – is there anything else you'd like to know, sir?" Chance edged toward the door as he spoke.

"No, no. That's all, my man. You may go."

"Thank you, sir."

And Chance, his despicable errand performed, slid through the door in the same furtive way in which he had entered.

"If they haven't returned by eight bells, and there is no news of them in the meantime, I'll have to send out a picket to bring them in," mused the officer when Chance had departed. "Then disgrace and 'the brig' will follow, and two promising careers will be blasted. Strong and Taylor, of all people. I can't understand it. And yet there can be no other explanation of their absence."

Dismissing the matter from his mind for the time being, Lieutenant De Frees continued his official work. Outside on the field his subordinates attended to the morning practice of the flying squad. Half an hour must have passed thus, when a sudden knock at the door caused him to look up.

"Come in!" he said, in a sharper voice than usual. The news that his favorites had so fallen from grace had distressed him more than even he cared to own to himself.

In response to his words, the door swung open, and there, framed in the doorway, stood the two very individuals whose absence had so worried him.

Ned and Herc clicked their heels together sharply and gave the salute in a precise manner.

"We've reported on duty, sir," said Ned in a steady voice.

The officer looked at them blankly. Their clothes were torn, although an effort had seemingly been made to mend them and clean them of traces of mud and dirt. A bruise appeared on Ned's face, while Herc's hair was rumpled and standing up wildly. Their appearance bore out the story the officer had heard. Two more disreputable-looking beings it would have been hard to picture.

"So this is the way you men repay my trust in you?" said the officer in sharp, harsh tones, very unlike his usual ones. "You will both consider yourselves under arrest, pending an inquiry. Remain standing till I summon a guard."

The lads' absolutely dumfounded looks at this reception did not escape the officer's attention.

"Well, have you any explanation to offer?" he demanded. "Mind, don't attempt to lie to me. I know all of your proceedings, dating from the hour that you, Strong, left my quarters."

"You mean that you have heard we have been engaged in some discreditable prank, sir?" asked Ned firmly, but respectfully, and still standing – as did Herc – stiffly at attention.

"I mean just that," was the response. "Since when has it been the custom in the United States navy for men to disgrace the service and go unpunished?"

"And yet," said Ned, in the same well-disciplined tones, "it hasn't been the custom to condemn men unheard, sir."

"I have heard quite enough, already," was the sharp answer. "If you have anything to add to what Chance has told me, you may. But I warn you that any explanation you may offer will be investigated thoroughly, and if it is found you have been lying, it will go harder with you than otherwise."

"I think you will find it is Chance who has been lying, sir," said Ned calmly. "May I tell you our side of the story, dating from the hour you mentioned?"

"You may, but make it brief. My time is fully occupied," was the cold response.

But, as Ned struck into his story, telling it in a calm, even tone, the officer's expression changed from one of hard incredulity to blank astonishment, passing rapidly to deep indignation.

"We were startled soon after gaining our freedom," related Ned, going on with his narrative from the point where we left the lads, "by the sound of a voice calling on us to halt. A few minutes later we found that the man who had given the order was the local constable, Ezra Timmons. He is a farmer on the outskirts of the town, and had been driving home late from selling some produce, when he noticed lights in the old asylum. He decided to investigate, and did so. He found the door open, and, penetrating the place, soon encountered us. He took us home with him, and helped us clean up a bit, and then we hastened over here to report."

"And that's true, by gum, every dinged word uv it!" came a voice outside the open door. Farmer – and Constable – Timmons stepped into the room, dramatically throwing back his coat and exposing a big tin star, just as he had seen constables in rural dramas do.

"But they ain't told it all," he rushed on. "These two lads here saved my wife frum some ruffians what wanted ter rob her the t'other day. They sailed by in their sky-buggy jus' in time ter save ther spoons thet Gran'ma Timmons willed me on her dyin' bed, by heck! – and it's my idee that this same gang of roustabouts was consarned in thet, frum what I kin judge."

The officer pressed a button. An orderly responded, coming smartly to attention.

"Send for Merritt and Chance at once," he ordered.