Then with a quick turn the eagle darted toward the plane,
meaning to sweep upon it.

AVIATOR SERIES VOLUME 2

AN AVIATOR’S LUCK

OR

THE CAMP KNOX PLOT

BY

CAPTAIN FRANK COBB

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

CHICAGO — AKRON, OHIO — NEW YORK

Copyright, MCMXXVII, by
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

AVIATOR SERIES

1 BATTLING THE CLOUDS,
Or, For a Comrade’s Honor

2 AN AVIATOR’S LUCK,
Or, The Camp Knox Plot

3 DANGEROUS DEEDS,
Or, The Flight in the Dirigible

Made in U. S. A.

AN AVIATOR’S LUCK

CHAPTER I

There was noise a-plenty in Triangle Park.

From one side of the beautiful little club house sounded the ear-splitting squeak of swing chains. All the swings were going back and forth as fast as they could be propelled by a score of pairs of active legs and arms. A patient procession toiled up the ladder of the toboggan slide and sailed gloriously down the other side. Eight small boys and girls dangled from the rings of the Maypole.

The sand piles at either side of the steps of the club house held bright little dabs of humanity all solemnly making sand pies.

Across the lawn, green as emerald and close as velvet, children in bathing suits ran to and from the bathing pool, a round, curbed fountain bed.

On the other side of the club house were the tennis courts, where, in spite of the July sun, a dozen enthusiastic players hopped lightly around the courts while as many more sat waiting their turn on the benches set against the shrubbery.

Drawn up on the grass just beyond the courts was a marking wheel, and beside it lay a boy flat on his back. His cap was tilted down over his twinkling brown eyes, showing only a brown cheek and a wide, smiling mouth. It was a good mouth and very, very rarely was it ever seen drawn down into the sullen lines that it could assume when the owner forgot. When Eddie Rowland was happy, he was way, way up; when he was gloomy, he went down, down to the very depths and stuck to the bottom like a sculpin! All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t drag him up until the cloud passed, and then pop, there was Eddie sailing around like a May morning, all happy and full of glee! He was only fourteen years old, and had a man’s job at the Park during vacation. He was in charge of the courts, and they reflected credit on their keeper. Never was there a time when the markings were not perfect; never did a grass blade dare show itself within the lines prescribed. The players learned there was not pull enough in the world to get them a place on the courts out of turn.

And through it all Eddie sang and joked and whistled his way along, good friends with everyone.

Another boy lay at his side. His knees were bent, his legs crossed, and he was apparently looking with a good deal of surprise at the foot that was wagging cheerfully at the end of the excessively long leg. It was really a good way off, that foot. A nice foot, in a well-blackened shoe. Bill Wolfe’s eyes were blue, and deep; his smile was quite the brightest and kindliest that a boy could have. Already, to Bill’s great annoyance, it had made the block he lived on a favorite after-supper walk for a number of girls. Bill had been quite forced into the habit of sitting with his back to the street or else pretending to read the paper.

Bill and Eddie were good chums. Like many people who are different in almost every respect, they seemed to get along with very little friction. Both boys were honorable, both scorned a lie, both were willing to do what they could for other people. The fact that they differed in the little they knew of politics, religion, and general history merely served to give them never-ending subjects for discussion.

Bill, wagging his foot, turned his head and squinted at Eddie under the limp visor of his cap.

“J’ever hear such a racket?” he asked and not expecting a reply, went on, “It does look to me, Rowland, as though the city ought to put in three or four more courts.”

“Three or four more courts,” echoed Eddie with a wail. “What you wishin’ off on me, Bill? Don’t I have enough to do now? Don’t I work here ’til eight o’clock at night? Don’t I get up at six to get the courts marked? Say, don’t I? Where would I be with more courts?”

“Why, you would have a helper, and that would be me,” said Bill, uncrossing his legs and elevating the other foot. “Of course you do all those things, but don’t you drag down a man’s pay for it? I say you do! Gosh! I don’t see why you don’t apply for a helper anyhow. How’s that, Rowland? I’ll help you for anything in reason. Say thirty a month.”

“Thirty a month!” cried Eddie, sitting up. “Thirty a ... say, Bill, what sort of a drag do you suppose I have with the Park Commissioners? Why, I only get forty-five myself.”

“Course you do,” said Bill, grinning. “Course you do, and you grudge me thirty! Tell you what, you are always yelling about how hard you work and all that. All right. I will do half your work for you, and you can split even with me.”

“No, you don’t, and no, I can’t!” said Eddie with the decision of the man who has his job clamped down tight. “Go find yourself a job, the way I did!”

“I would,” said Bill; “I would do it just to show you what a real fellow can do in the way of getting a real life-sized job, but it’s too late. It’s only a little while before school begins, and I have to study.”

“Only a little while!” repeated Eddie. “I say it is! Today is the sixth of July. Oh, man, you amuse me!” He flopped down again, and crossed his legs like Bill, but they did not stick up as high. They were short, stocky legs, those belonging to Eddie.

“Well, I don’t know what I shall do,” said Bill. “I do want a job, but mamma says I have got to go to Georgetown and visit my Aunts down there.”

“Yes, and how you do hate it!” sneered Eddie. “I do pity you! Three Aunts with slews of coin, and two automobiles, and horses, and dogs, and cows and cats, and more cake. I guess I don’t forget the time I went there with you.”

“All right, if you like it, come on with me this summer,” invited Bill.

“Here’s this old job,” said Eddie. “I started it and I am going to finish.”

“Hello, who’s this coming? You don’t suppose Fatty Bascom is going to take to playing tennis!”

Both boys propped their heads up and watched the approach of an excessively fat boy. He was so fat that his stockings looked stretched, his knicker-bockers were too tight to look like knickerbockers, and his sweater fitted like a glove. It was an old sweater and would have bagged on any other boy. A small cap perched on the extreme back of his head. A tennis racket was under one arm and a small paper bag was in that hand, while the free hand held an ice-cream cone on which he was nibbling. He did not eat as though he was hungry. Anyone could see that it was simply force of habit.

“What cher got in the bag?” demanded Eddie as soon as the fat boy came within earshot.

“Salted peanuts,” replied the boy and, approaching, stood looking down at the pair on the grass.

“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t you mean to offer us any?” asked Bill.

“No!” said Fatty Bascom, backing off a step. “Last time I passed around a bag of gumdrops and you didn’t leave any. There was ten cents’ worth, too. I ain’t going to offer things.”

“I’ve a mind to get up and fight you!” said Eddie. “I know just where I could land a knockout.”

“Don’t you dare!” exclaimed Fatty. “I can’t fight. Mamma says it might hurt my heart, because I am fat.”

“Then why don’t you quit stuffing?” demanded Bill.

“Things all taste so good,” said Fatty, turning the ice-cream cone around and biting on a fresh side.

“That looks like my brother’s racket,” remarked Bill.

“It is,” answered Fatty. “He will be right over. Him and Skinny Tweeters is looking over our outfit.”

“What outfit?” asked Eddie.

“Wireless,” said Fatty proudly. “Me and Skinny bought it together. We are going to stretch it between our two houses so we can talk together when it rains. I hate rain.”

“Yes, it is wet,” agreed Bill grimly. “Haven’t you both got the telephone?”

“Oh, yes!” said Fatty. “No fun talkin’ over the phone! Central gets mad or somebody wants the line or else you can’t think what to say. Besides, everybody can hear you.”

“That’s so,” said Eddie. “And you wouldn’t want anyone to hear what you have to say.”

“You bet!” said Fatty.

“How’d you get the receiver?” asked Bill.

“Earned it,” said Fatty proudly. “Skinny, he went down and delivered groceries, and I went without cocoa every morning for breakfast for a month. Mamma paid me for doing it.”

“Gee, you have certainly got a lot of backbone!” said Eddie admiringly.

Fatty finished the cone. “I never drank so much as a taste for a month,” he said proudly. “Here comes Skinny now.” He gave a shrill yell, which was answered by what seemed to be the framework, the mere shadow of a boy, who came skimming along with a package under his arm. There was no lack of bagginess in his knicker-bockers. They fell in generous folds everywhere. His thin shirt was full and floppy; his hat came well down over his ears. He had a jolly grin that disclosed numbers of large white teeth. The boys often wondered how he could stand Fatty Bascom for a pal, but they decided that Skinny liked to look at anything so fat, for Skinny was certainly thin.

Skinny threw himself down on the grass while his chum remained standing, braced on his broad feet. It was difficult for Fatty to let himself down to earth, and certainly it was uncomfortable to sit or lie down for a fellow built that way. He stood and watched Skinny as he carefully unwrapped the fascinating wireless receiver. A couple of cards printed with the Morse code fell out, and the boys pounced on them. As they pored over them, Francis Wolfe strolled up. Bill’s brother was built on lines similar to his own. He was thin and very tall and—well, boys and dogs and small kittens all liked Frank Wolfe and old ladies always asked him the way. And that about tells the sort he is.

With him came a solemn looking fellow in the uniform of an airman. They formed a group and looked the wireless receiver over, Bill and Eddie growing momentarily more excited.

“It’s a great thing for you kids to fool with,” Frank said finally, picking up his racket. “I don’t see why you don’t go into it, Bill, and you too, Eddie. Keep you both out of mischief and teach you something on the side.”

“That’s right,” said the airman. “It’s a good thing to know. I knew a fellow once, before they made the rules so strict, who went up and got some trouble with his engine. He was right in a bunch of other planes, and they all had wireless outfits on. He had one too, but he didn’t know how to use it. One chap thought he saw him sort of wigwagging with a handkerchief, but of course he didn’t pay any attention specially, and presently his engine went all to the bad, I reckon. At all events down he came.”

“Hurt him?” asked Fatty, feeling in the bag of peanuts.

“Not a bit!” declared Mr. Beezley, gazing mournfully at Fatty. “Not a bit! You see he only fell about six hundred feet or so.”

“Queer!” said Fatty. “I fell off the back stoop once, and ’most broke every bone I had. I didn’t really break any of them, but I ’most did.”

He popped a peanut into his mouth, and firmly closed the bag. Ernest Beezley glanced at him, then solemnly studied the sky.

“Looks like rain,” he said. “If it does, I won’t have to fly for a couple days. I hate to go back to the Aviation Field; so many accidents happening all the while. Funny one the other day. One of the best pilots out there. He had been eating stuff; ice-cream, I suspect. Anyway something cold and wet, and he followed it up with a bag of peanuts. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life!”

“What happened?” asked Fatty. He cast a suspicious look about but every face was grave.

“Oh, he died,” said Ernest regretfully. “Nice chap. Gosh, I never hope to see anyone pass out in such agony! It took ten fellows to hold him, and then they didn’t. Just from following ice-cream with peanuts! About ten cents’ worth, I should say.”

“Pooh, that never hurt me,” said Fatty stoutly. “I wouldn’t be afraid to eat a bushel.”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” agreed Ernest, nodding. “Of course there is always a first time.”

He strolled off toward the court, and the boys continued to study the wireless and the cards. But Fatty stood thoughtfully contemplating the bag of peanuts.

“I don’t believe that,” he said, looking at Frank, who lingered.

“Believe what?” asked Frank.

“About the fellow who died from eating ice-cream and peanuts.”

“Hey you, Ernest!” called Frank. Ernest turned and strolled back. “Fatty doesn’t believe what you told about the fellow who died from eating peanuts.”

“Well, he needn’t,” said Ernest. “Of course I can show him where the fellow (name was Peter Jenkins) tore up a lot of the sod when he was just commencing to feel bad. And two of the chaps who tried to hold him are in hospital yet. Why, they say you could hear him yell nearly to Louisville.”

“Just how did it take him worst?” asked Frank, frowning sympathetically.

“Oh, cramps, and pains, and convulsions, and delirium, and a deep green color suffusing the tissues around the eyes and nose. The doctor said he had sclerosis of the maltoidus, and there is no cure for that. Of course if you don’t believe me, I can prove it by a dozen of the fellows any time you are out there. I tell you it was awful!”

He turned and walked off once more, and as Frank went after him, Fatty thought he heard Frank say, “It sounded awful! Where did you get that maltoidus stuff?” What he did not hear was Ernest’s reply, “Off the dog biscuit boxes, you know. Maltoid.”

Fatty did not hear, and he stood thinking deeply. No one but Fatty knew how Fatty hated to be sick, or how he shunned pain. But he looked with fond longing at the peanuts. The boys were still busy over the wireless. Looking down, he saw the close green grass. How awful to tear it up by handfuls in his agony! He had had three ice-cream cones since breakfast!

He stepped nearer to the boys. He opened the bag of peanuts.

“Hey, fellows,” he said in an offhand tone of voice, “help yourselves to some of these!”

CHAPTER II

The weeks passed during which the boys went their several ways. Day after day of clear weather, not too hot, made the tennis courts all too attractive for Eddie’s peace of mind. Bill went his way to the three Aunts, who petted and pampered him in a fashion that would have utterly spoiled anyone but sweet-tempered Bill.

What Fatty Bascom and Skinny Tweeters did they kept to themselves, partly because no one else was interested and partly because they themselves were too interested to mix with the other boys. Also Fatty felt the hot weather and was kept about home, where he could partake of plenty of cooling drinks. The two were slowly learning the Morse code, and were able to send halting and disconnected messages to each other.

Then came the rain. It rained Monday and Tuesday; it continued on Wednesday, speeded up on Thursday, and seeming to strike its gait on Friday, settled down to a steady drizzle.

Eddie rejoiced at first, and went over to the courts in rubber boots and slicker to gloat over the deepening mud. But by Thursday he pined for Bill, for work, for anything, and his sister Virginia found him hard to live with. When, on Saturday morning, Eddie heard Bill’s loud whistle he upset two chairs and his small brother in a mad attempt to reach the door.

Bill looked well and happy. There was a sort of sleek, prosperous look about him, although he wore the same clothes and necktie that Eddie remembered. It puzzled Eddie. Also Bill treated Virginia almost like an equal and forbore to ask her to run any errands, although she openly hung around.

The sleek look bothered Eddie. Bill was certainly holding something back. Finally Eddie remembered some wood he had to pile in the cellar, and conducted his guest down into a region too damp for the admiring Virginia to follow.

Then he sat down on the edge of a laundry tub.

“Now get it out of your system!” he commanded.

“Get what?” asked Bill innocently.

“Aw, you know what! Whatever it is you are holding back. Come on; I know you have something to tell.”

Bill was unable to resist. “Well,” he said, “reckon you will be mighty well pleased your own self when I tell you. It was like this. Come time for me to come home, my Aunts wanted to make me a present. Something that I could keep to remember my visit with. Usually they get me something but every other time they have selected it to suit themselves and not me at all. But this time they told me I was growing to be a big boy, and they wanted me to have a choice in the matter. Gee, but I was glad, because usually they get me something about five years too young.

“Well, Rowland, I had an awful time trying to decide what to pick out, and by and by I happened to think of that softy, Fat Bascom and his wireless, and I thought what larks you and I could have with an outfit. We could have it so we could talk at any time, and take messages out of the air for miles and miles. The more I thought of it the more I wanted it.”

“Well,” cried Eddie, “don’t waste time telling how you wanted it. What did you do?”

“I told them that there was one thing I wanted awfully, but I hated to tell them because I was afraid they would think it was foolish and besides, it cost a lot of money; at least to get a good one, and they all said, 'What is it?’ real quick, and I hummed and hawed, and said, 'Well, I’m crazy for a wireless outfit,’ and then I stopped because I thought they would think I was an awful grafter but, Rowland, you never can tell about women. They all cried, 'That’s perfectly fine!’ and 'We are so proud of you, my boy!’ and 'Dearie, how did you come to think up anything so sensible?’”

“So they liked it?” inquired Eddie.

“Liked it? Well, I will say they did! And what do you think? They wrote to Frank, and he is to go down town and buy the best outfit they have down there.”

“When is he going?” asked Eddie breathlessly.

“This afternoon,” answered Bill. “He was busy this morning; had to shine his shoes or something. But we are going down right after luncheon.”

“Well, I’m going too. Can’t I go too?” Eddie demanded, standing up and rolling down his sleeves. “Come on upstairs while I dress!”

“I thought you would like to come,” said Bill. “Get fixed and come along to the house for lunch. Gee, it is a pity we live so close to each other. If you lived in the Highlands, now, or out on the River road, or out at West Point, we could have some fun. I tell you what we can do, we can pick up Ernest Beezley at the Aviation Field at Camp Knox. Won’t he be surprised?”

“Aw, Frank will give it away first time they meet,” said Eddie in a disgusted tone. “Frank doesn’t have any sense of the importance of things. But we will get a lot of fun out of it. Wouldn’t it be great if we could overhear some plots against the government or something of the sort, and break them up, and get in all the papers? 'Wonderful detective work done by two of our Louisville boys.’ That sort of thing, you know.”

“It will more likely be 'Arrest of two of our Louisville boys who have been balling things up with their wireless plant,’” said Bill. “All I want out of this thing is some fun.”

“Of course!” said Eddie hastily. “That’s all. Well, let’s get out of this.” He went up the stairs two steps at a time, brushed his hair, hastily gave his countenance what he called a wash, threw his slicker over his shoulders, and was ready.

Luncheon at the Wolfes’ was a technical affair. Frank, who knew a lot about a great many things, was asked countless questions about wireless and patiently explained all he knew.

The trip down town was all too long. Frank’s little flivver coughed and sputtered and had as many symptoms as it knew, just to be contrary, Bill declared.

But at last they were there, and a little later they were on their way home with everything needed to install a first-class medium-radius wireless. They had everything.

In the rear of Bill’s house was a shed, so-called. It was a two-story affair that had evidently been built for servants’ quarters. There was a second floor, and there, Frank decided, was the place for their receivers.

The two boys went to cleaning with a will. Eddie, with a weather-eye on the clouds, hoped fervently for more rain as he scrubbed and sloshed water over the floor, while Bill cleaned windows. Frank, promising to help them whenever they were ready, went into the house.

As they worked, an idea suddenly occurred to Bill.

“Say, Eddie,” he said, “wouldn’t this be a dandy room for a club room?”

“I should say yes!” he cried. “Oh, man, what a room! No one to be bothered if we made a noise. Gee! Wish we could have a Wireless Club.”

“Why couldn’t we?” asked Bill. “I could be the president.”

“Presidents are elected,” said Eddie with scorn. “They don’t just elect themselves.”

“That’s all right too,” said Bill, laughing. “But it is my shed and my wireless, and if I wasn’t president some other fellow would have the say-so, and play the dickens with everything perhaps.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “all right; you be president and I will be vice-president.”

“That’s fair enough,” agreed Bill, rubbing away on the window. “But I say we keep it small.”

“Oh, yes; let’s only have five or six fellows in it. That’s the sort of a club to have especially when it is something as unusual as this. Whom will we ask? Shall we have Fat and Skinny? They have a sort of wireless of their own.”

“That’s all right,” said Bill. “That’s dandy! We could use them for practice. I say we have Fat and Skinny, and you and me; that’s four, and Ned Harper is five, and who is nice enough for number six?”

“How about the new fellow down at the corner, in the Cleveland house?” asked Eddie.

“The new folks who bought the Cleveland house?” asked Bill.

“Yes, that’s the one,” said Eddie. “I don’t know him so very well, but he lives right here, and he seems to be a dandy fellow. Plays good tennis and talks like a nice clean boy. His father is blind, I guess. He wears black glasses with little wings-like at the side, so the light won’t get in or so you won’t see his eyes, and he always takes somebody’s arm when he walks around the park. Marion De Lorme is the boy’s name.”

“Marion! That’s a girl’s name,” objected Bill.

“Not when it is spelled with an O,” explained Eddie. “I don’t guess he likes it so very well himself. He asked me to call him Dee.”

“Well, let’s ask him,” said Bill. “Anyhow, let’s see what I think about him.”

“You will like him,” said Eddie with conviction. “Why don’t we get Ernest Beezley to show us how to run the thing? What do we care if he does know about it?”

“Good idea!” said Bill. “Great idea! Let’s go tell Frank.”

They hurried over to the house and told Frank their plan.

“Good plan!” said that young man, nodding. “I thought it was what you would want, so I just telephoned for him. He is on a three days’ leave from camp. His sister is going to be married, or some foolishness like that. He will be along in half an hour or so. What you fellows been doing? You have been long enough to clean a whole house.”

“It was awful dirty,” explained Bill, “and now it is clean as wax. I wish mamma would let us have some of those old chairs up in the garret and a table, so it would look like a real club room.”

“How will these do?” asked Frank, strolling to the foot of the attic stairs.

A pile of furniture was there, and the boys gave a yell of joy. It did not take long, with three pairs of willing hands and feet, to take their club furniture and place it in the now clean and shining room. Then Eddie raced off home, returning after a half hour with a large, worn but not unattractive rug and a couple of pictures. The pictures, it is true, did not seem to have any direct bearing on the club, one being an old woodcut of the Infant Samuel, and the other a brightly colored lithograph of Masonic emblems with a rather accusing eye staring out of the center, but Eddie had found them in the attic, and both were in gold frames and certainly did brighten up the walls.

With a calendar and a large card of the Morse alphabet, the boys felt that the room could not be more complete.

“We will have just one expense, and we will have to make everybody chip in for that,” said Eddie. “We must have shades at the windows. We wouldn’t want any spies to see what we were doing.”

“Better get that spy stuff out of your head, Eddie,” said Frank. “There is no war on hand now, and spying has gone out of business.”

“How about the Bolsheviks and the Reds and all those?” demanded Bill.

“I don’t think they will bother you if there are any left,” said Frank. “Better use your wireless for commercial purposes, or for news items.”

“Well, we will take whatever comes along,” said Eddie.

“That’s the stuff!” said a new voice at the door. It was Ernest. “Take whatever comes. Like a fellow I knew. Heard something he thought was a coon in the brush, and set his hound after it. Said he’d take whatever came along, but he didn’t. He turned and ran; and even then he was sort of sorry he couldn’t run faster. And the dog, my, that dog was perfectly despised for months by everyone who knew him. It’s a queer world! Did you know that your friend, the plump one who eats peanuts, is sitting on the front porch, and the thin one too?”

“How did they come there?” demanded Bill in surprise.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you I telephoned for them when I went home for the rug,” explained Eddie.

Bill went after the two boys and they were as greatly impressed by the club room as anyone could wish.

“I will install your wireless for you if you think you can manage to live until tomorrow,” said Ernest.

“That is simply fine of you,” said Bill heartily. “Perhaps we will be able to wait.”

“It will be a long time,” replied Eddie, “but we can study the code.”

“We don’t need to,” said Fatty Bascom, “but mamma told me to tell you to come down to our house tonight, and she will make us some molasses candy.”

“Does your mother look good in black?” asked Ernest suddenly.

“Black? What sort of black?” asked Fatty.

“Why, black; just black; veil and bonnet, and those things, you know.”

“I dunno,” said Fatty suspiciously. “Never saw her in them.”

“I don’t suppose you will,” said Ernest. “See you tomorrow—some of you, anyway,” he added, looking strangely at Fatty; and followed by Frank, he went away.

“I think he’s nutty,” said Fat, taking a cake of sweet chocolate out of his pocket and breaking it in two. He laid half of it on the table. “Have a piece,” he offered and rapidly ate the remaining half.

Alone with Frank, Ernest’s manner changed.

“Have you seen the noon edition of the paper?” he demanded. “The postal authorities have held up three more packages of bombs, and they think they are being sent either from this city or Cincinnati. The Mayor of Boston, who received the infernal machine yesterday, may possibly live and his wife is out of danger. Nice state of affairs, isn’t it? Do you know what? If I wasn’t under government contract as instructor out there at Knox, I would be a detective. I bet I could run some of these snakes to cover!”

“It is awful, all right,” agreed Frank, “but what did you mean by telling those boys to take whatever came along?”

“I don’t know. Honest, I don’t,” said Ernest, “but I had the queerest feeling when I saw that dinky club room. Something sort of came over me. I don’t know what.”

“Mercy, mercy!” said Frank. “You are getting malaria out there at Knox; that’s what ails you. Come on in. I’ll ask mother for the quinine.”

“All right, let’s have the quinine. I hope it is malaria that ails me, because I feel just as though something was going to happen. I don’t know what.”

“I reckon you don’t,” said Frank, laughing. “Of all the chronic glooms, you are the gloomiest! For goodness’ sake, let the kids fool with their wireless in peace. All they will scoop in will be somebody’s love letter to somebody else. Everything is all right.”

Ernest laughed. “I am silly,” he acknowledged. “Perhaps it was the sad sight of that innocent child Bascom committing slow suicide.”

CHAPTER III

When Marion De Lorme first moved into the big, forbidding house facing the monument at Confederate Circle, he was no doubt the loneliest and most friendless boy in all of Louisville. He had no remembrance of his mother other than a little snapshot of a small and frightened looking woman with a bouncing baby in her arms. As for his father, silent, stooped and almost blind, he knew little of and seemed to care less for the stalwart, handsome lad whom he occasionally used as a staff but more frequently sent out of his presence. One thing Mr. De Lorme required of the boy, and that was regularity in his school attendance and good rating in his studies. Marion was the star student wherever he went, but with all his application he knew that he could not offer a report to his father that would wholly meet with his approval.

When Marion heard him railing over a percentage of ninety-eight and declaring that the boys of the present day were no good, and Marion the worst of the lot, his son was sometimes tempted to bring him a percentage of about sixty, just to see the result.

Mr. De Lorme was a chemist. He had long since explained his business or profession to his son. He was an analytical chemist, and his work was all done in his private laboratory, for big firms, corporations, and sometimes even for nations. It was a strange business. Marion had long ceased feeling any curiosity concerning the queer looking, whiskered persons who came to the house, usually during the evening, any more than he hoped to have any acquaintance with the suave, perfectly-dressed gentlemen who drove up in taxis during the day.

All these visitors, clients or customers called but rarely. All day long Mr. De Lorme, shut up in his laboratory, worked away with his strange and delicate instruments, leaving Marion to his own devices, with two ironclad rules: the first, that he should stand always at the head of his classes; the second, that no other boys should ever be permitted to enter the house.

Every morning, early, before school time, leaning heavily on his son’s arm, Mr. De Lorme made the round of the park three times. Every night after dark he repeated the journey. Marion dreaded these walks. His father, stumbling and nearly blind, attracted a good deal of sympathetic attention.

One thing puzzled Marion a great deal, and that was how his father, handicapped by his blindness, could put through laboratory tests that called for the most exquisite accuracy of sight as well as touch and judgment. He decided that the young assistant who worked always with his father must supply in himself the needed vision.

Marion hated the assistant, a greasy, dark-browed, long-haired fellow named Zipousky, but who answered cheerfully enough to Zip. Zip was a strange mixture of youth and age. Marion doubted if there was much of anything that he did not know, yet the fellow showed an almost pathetic eagerness to be with Marion.

When the De Lormes moved to Louisville from Chicago, Marion determined to make some friends. He spent many evenings walking up and down the block, his eyes seeking the uncurtained windows where he could catch glimpses of the family life he so longed for. But the silence of the De Lorme household seemed to throw a spell over the boy. Other boys felt it and made few advances. And Marion did not know how to come half way.

Eddie Rowland did not mind that at all. He was willing to go half way, and able to go the rest of the way if necessary. A stranger to Eddie meant a territory to explore, a new country to travel. So he proceeded to explore Marion, to that young man’s great surprise. He liked it. He liked the way Eddie scorned the name Marion and called him Dee, introducing him as such to the other fellows in the neighborhood. He liked the incidental way in which Eddie treated Marion’s halting excuses for not asking any of the boys to his great gloomy house.

“I should worry!” said Eddie airily. “Beats the deuce how a fellow’s folks cut up sometimes! Wish you could have seen my father once when I brought home a goat. Dandy little one, just a baby. I was going to feed it with a bottle. I only paid a quarter for it, and a dime for the bottle. I got the bottle cheap off Skinny Tweeters. It was one their baby had, but Skinny said she had two, three other ones, so he let me have it cheap. Well, say, Dee, you would have thought I had brought an elephant the way dad cut up! I had to give it away, and lost the quarter, and Skinny wouldn’t take the bottle back either. Said their baby wouldn’t eat after a goat. Such airs! What would she know about it? Huh? Gee, I think you are lucky, myself, to get out all you want to except being home to take your dad out for a walk. Just you come along with me, and you will get to know all the fellows in two shakes. It’s a dandy crowd up here on Confederate Place. Why, trouble is the boys think you are proud.”

“Proud!” said Dee with a groan. “Why, Rowland, I am crazy to know the fellows.”

“Then that’s all there is about it,” said Eddie. “Can you play tennis?”

Dee could and would play tennis, and showed himself such a general good sort that Eddie sang his praises loudly.

It was nearly supper time on the great day of the founding of the Wireless Club before Eddie had time to go down to Dee’s house and whistle. Dee came out immediately, cap and slicker in hand.

“That’s right!” Eddie sang out. “Got something important to tell you.” He hurried him up the street to Bill’s and they went running up to the club room, looking better than ever in the fading light. Dee was crazy over the idea.

“What are you going to do for lights?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” said Bill. “I suppose we will have to meet in the house at night, because I don’t think dad will like the idea of a coal oil lamp.”

“Well, here is where I come in,” said Dee with a sigh of genuine pleasure. “If there is one thing I can do, it is wire for electricity. In Chicago I had a license.”

“Well, if this isn’t falling on the soft side of the fence!” chortled Eddie. “What will it cost us?”

“I don’t think it will cost us anything,” said Dee. “I think I brought enough wire and fittings along with me.”

“Let’s go get ’em now,” said Bill, beaming.

“All right,” said Dee. “They are pretty bulky.”

The boys went down the street, Skinny and Fat trailing along behind. When they reached the house, the boys, at Eddie’s suggestion, sat in a row on the step, while Dee went in to find his wires. Eddie took the opportunity to tell the boys about Dee’s peculiar father. They were not particularly interested because as Eddie had said, you never can tell what a fellow’s folks are apt to do.

Fatty Bascom was on the end of the line and as he sat there he became conscious of an odor that filled him with a great longing. He was minded to hurry off to his own home and call for supper, but the fragrance that trailed around the corner of the house was too good to leave. It seemed to be a mixed smell. Perhaps fried chicken and tarts, and fruit cake, and prune soufflé and plum pudding could make it, but there was a palate-tickling tang besides that Fatty had never known. He hitched himself over, and lifted a keen nose in the air. It was a hot smell, too. Something for Dee’s supper put out on the pantry window to cool; that was it.

Fatty could not endure it. He felt that he owed it to himself to see what it was. He knew if he could tell his mother about it, she would make him one. Quietly, without ostentation, he slid down and followed his nose around toward the back of the house. Passing through a high trellised gate, he gained the back yard and the bricked porch outside the kitchen. Something was steaming on the sill of the window—a window just too high for Fatty to reach. He was all honest boy. He would not have taken a crumb, he would not have touched the edge even of the mysterious dish, but he could not resist a look. The light from the kitchen streamed out, making the porch quite light. From within, Fatty heard an old voice singing something in a strange, guttural tongue. It made Fatty feel very queer. He looked around for something to stand on. There were three small boxes, quite new, standing on end against the house. Fatty noiselessly piled them under the window, then regardless of his muddy feet, mounted and received the shock of his life. While he had stooped to fix the boxes, someone had removed the dish! It was gone! Fatty ground a heel into the soft pine box in his rage, then sulkily betook himself back to his mates.

No one had seen him; no one had missed him. He resumed his seat, and soon Dee appeared, piled high with all sorts of things for wiring the club room. He made three trips before he was ready to take the things up to Bill’s and, each one accepting a share of the load, they carried their treasure and put it carefully in Bill’s attic.

Then Dee had to hurry home to supper, and Fatty thought with anguish of the mysterious dish. He signalled to Skinny Tweeters, and they walked down with Dee.

“Got a good cook?” asked Fatty.

“I suppose so,” said Dee. “I never thought much about it. She gives us plenty.”

“I thought I smelt something cooking when we were down there tonight,” remarked Fatty. “Made me wonder if she was a good cook.”

“I guess she is all right,” said Dee.

Fatty held his breath, but nothing more was said. No offer to find out what it was, no suggestion that Dee would go get a piece for Fatty. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to do but say good-night and go home; which Fatty did, marvelling at the stupidity of Marion De Lorme.

Dee found his father waiting for him, and as they walked slowly around the little park, Mr. De Lorme asked Dee what he had been doing with himself. Dee told him briefly and then, growing enthusiastic, told his father that six of the neighborhood boys were starting a club. He was about to add that it was a wireless club, but his father interrupted.

“A club, eh?” he snarled disagreeably. “Um! Well, you are about the age to take that disease. All boys want to form a club. Go ahead; but see that you don’t get into mischief.”

“I do not intend to get into any scrapes,” said Dee. “I never have, have I?”

“Not yet,” said Mr. De Lorme. “I just warned you. I am a busy man, an important man and I must not be disturbed.”

“I should think some of the cut-throat looking people who come to the house would disturb you,” said Dee. “A lot of them look like Bolsheviki, and a lot of them like plain tramps.”

Mr. De Lorme was silent for a moment. “You can’t judge a man by his looks, young man. Some day you may be glad to be included in the circle with just such men. The efforts of those very men will be felt as long as the nation stands.”

“I should think they might shave,” objected Dee.

“Stop criticizing!” ordered his father, bringing his cane down with a stroke as though it was a sword. “But there! What does it matter? If you are worthy of knowledge, some day we will see. In the meantime, amuse yourself. What do the boys think of your father?”

Dee sensed that this apparently trivial question was really an important one.

“They think you are about like most everybody’s father, only they are sorry you can’t see better.”

Mr. De Lorme nodded and sighed. “That’s so,” he said. “I am glad they are so sympathetic. Tell them that your poor old father is almost blind; almost blind, Marion.”

“I have,” said Marion, wondering at his father’s whining tone. “And tell them I must have peace, peace and quiet for my studies: that is why you cannot entertain them.” He shuddered. “Why, Marion, a jar in that house, a heavy fall sometimes, well, it would upset some of my finest and most difficult calculations.”

“I know, father,” said Dee gently. “You have always told me that. I would not injure your work for the world. I am sure it is important. I don’t see, though, why you never let me come into the laboratory. What harm could I do?”

Mr. De Lorme shook his head.

“Not yet!” he said. “Get your schooling, get through your play, and then you will be ready for what I have in mind for you.”

They had made the third round of the Park and as they approached the house Zip ran out and bought an extra from a passing, yelling newsie. He glanced at the headlines, smiled and as Mr. De Lorme made his way up the steps, spoke to him rapidly in Russian.

“Good, good!” said Mr. De Lorme. “Sooner than I expected!”

“And so neatly; with such power!” said Zip, breaking into English. “I congratulate you, sir.”

“It is nothing, Zip; nothing!” said Mr. De Lorme, looking pleased however.

He dropped Dee’s arm, and placing his hand affectionately on Zip’s shoulder walked upstairs. Zip had dropped the paper. Dee picked it up and carefully looked it over. He could not find a single word about chemistry or anything else that might have a bearing on his father’s work.

He refolded the paper, and for the first time noticed running across the front page, in enormous letters:

ANOTHER BOMB DELIVERED
TO MAYOR SCUDDER OF CHICAGO
SAVED BY THE QUICK WIT OF HIS SECRETARY

Dee threw the paper on the floor.

“Every one of those fellows mixed up in these bomb plots ought to be hanged!” he said to himself.

CHAPTER IV

July ended, and somehow August dragged away. Half the houses on Third Street were shuttered up and the families off somewhere in search of cooling breezes. September arrived, still hot with breathless nights, relieved by thunderstorms.

The strain of the heat had left its mark on the boys, each in a different way. Bill was still sunny, but lacked his old-time bounce. He was nearly always to be found in the room of the Wireless Club, studying the code or testing the wires. Dee haunted the club room too, and brought his books and boned up on math and a couple of subjects that he wanted to pass in as soon as school opened.

Dozens and scores made their way to the courts each day, and languidly batted the balls. Eddie showed the strain. He was thinner, and dark circles showed under the once dancing eyes. His sister Virginia went to Atlantic City. Bill’s mother took her beautiful self down to visit the three Aunts, and Mr. Wolfe and Frank and Bill kept bachelors’ hall, protected by a couple of black and tan dogs weighing about a pound apiece.

Dee saw less of his father than ever. Night and day he spent in the laboratory and occasionally Dee could hear the tinkle of glass when a retort broke. But he had ceased to care what was in the making in that mysterious room. Several times he had asked his father if he might come in and help him, only to be told that it was impossible. Zip was with him; Zip helped him. Quite often Mr. De Lorme preferred Zip as a staff on his three-lap walk around the Park. Dee found that he had reached the dangerous place where it was possible for him to analyze his feeling for his father, and to his lasting grief he found that no love existed between them. A strange new feeling oppressed him. He felt as though in some queer way he was being used as a tool. All through the vacation Dee had been made to attend lectures at the Y.M.C.A.; he had been urged to go to church, and to call at the houses of the various boys he knew. It seemed as though Mr. De Lorme was showing him off. Yet no one came to the De Lorme house except the same ill-favored night-birds and the suave gentlemen of the daylight visits. And now, with a great many new interests and pastimes, Dee missed most of these. Indeed he made it a point to be away all he could, while the feeling of distrust and dislike for his father grew until he could scarcely bear the touch of the half blind man or guide him around the Park.

Anna, the old cook, noticed his lack of appetite, and tried with all her art and skill to prepare good things to tempt his palate.

Dee caught her watching him through narrowed lids at every meal. It might have annoyed him had he had less on his mind. One day, as he was eating a hasty meal all by himself, Anna came and rested her old hands on the table before him. He looked up, and she nodded.

“I was in Siberia,” she said. “The mines. Cold. The keepers are cruel. See?” She rolled up her sleeves and showed lines of white welts on her arms. “I hate and hate, but I like you. There is trouble brewing. Here! Perhaps your fodder get tired of you. Suppose?

“Here is a key. Unlock the trunk it fits. It was your mother’s, just as she left it when you were three. Anna never looked, and your fodder don’t know it here. He always leave moving to Anna. Better see what is in that trunk. Your mother said letters for you. Don’t tell. Go late, dark night.”

She turned and went noiselessly from the room, leaving Dee clutching the key in a hand that shook a little.

Well, there could be no better “late, dark night” than the one just closing down.

Dee went to his room and examined his flashlight. The attic where the trunks were stored was electrically lighted, but he was afraid to use so large a light. Zip was always prowling around and some deep sense told him to use all the precautions possible, although he could see no reason why he should not have the letters or anything else belonging to his mother.

He went up to the Wireless Club as usual, and came home at about a quarter before ten. As he went whistling up to his room, his father stepped through the double door of the laboratory and stood in his way.

“I have had my walk,” he said. “I shall work all night possibly. I expect some men here. Lock your door, so they will not enter it by mistake. You know you do not like my honest friends.”

“They are all right, sir, I only thought they might shave,” said Dee. Mr. De Lorme turned away, and Dee closed the door of his room. He wondered why his father had suggested his locking his door. He wondered if it was to keep others out or to keep him in. In either case it looked very mysterious. More than ever he felt the necessity of getting whatever might be in that trunk for him. If his father wanted to keep him in, someone had tampered with the lock so that an alarm would not find Dee tearing out into the hall. Dee determined to find out. He remembered the balcony outside his window. He stepped out and found that the corner just reached the window of the next room—an empty room half full of rubbish. The night was densely dark. Dee tried the window and found it unlocked. It slid up noiselessly and, satisfied, the boy returned to his own room and noisily turned the key in his door. With a sick feeling that the house was full of intrigue Dee dropped his shoes noisily and hopped into bed, thanking his lucky stars for the squeaky springs, off which he instantly rolled on the floor. Creeping across the room to the door, he listened intently and presently made out the sound of breathing on the other side of the panel. Someone was listening. Dee’s own breath was nothing but a light flutter as he strained his ears.

At last there was the sound of unshod feet retreating. Dee crept back to the window, where he waited for the hour of his own adventure.

Dee made no move until the luminous dials of his wrist watch showed the hour to be one; then he cautiously pushed up the screen and stepped through his window. Getting into the next room was the work of a moment. Fortunately the floor did not squeak, and he made his way with the most infinite care to the attic door.

Up there in the dust a dozen trunks and packing boxes stood about, and Dee found his mother’s little trunk without difficulty. Opening it he saw piles of clothing; things that had been hers. He lifted them out carefully. Down at the very bottom was what he sought, three packets of letters tied with pink string. They were thin little packets, and Dee hastily shoved them into his pockets and continued his search. But there was nothing more, nothing of the least value. So he repacked the clothing with hands that trembled a little. When he re-entered his own room, it did not seem as though he had been out of it at all, but the letters pressed his pockets and there was attic dust on his shirt and trousers.

Creeping noiselessly to the door, he turned the knob and smiled to himself in the dark. It was as he had thought; the lock was caught, and he could not get out! He wondered who had been clever enough to fix it so it would stick. He wondered why it had been necessary to keep him prisoner.

Arranging his electric reading lamp under a sort of tent made of his blanket, he settled himself to read the letters.

It seemed a prying thing to open and peruse all the closely written pages that had belonged to his mother. He only hoped they were not love letters.

They proved to be letters from his mother’s sister and mother. At first the letters were ordinary accounts of the immaterial happenings about home that would interest a member of the family who was far away. Then the tone of the letters changed to a veiled pity, and there were many suggestions that she should come home for a visit, and at last Dee opened a letter that had evidently been many times read. And it was spotted as though by tears.

“Dear Sister:

“Your last letter, although not wholly unexpected, was such a shock to me that I have delayed answering it until I could believe myself in a calmer frame of mind.

“Oh, Mary, my dear, dear sister, to think that you should be in such trouble! Yet your letter is very vague. You say, 'I have discovered that my husband is a fiend; a fiend in human guise,’ yet you do not tell me what has led you to this opinion. And you continue by assuring me that I must not worry over your welfare as Mr. De Lorme always treats you with the greatest respect and affection. What can you mean, my dear sister?

“Come home, Mary, and let me hear all. If for any reason you feel that you must be guarded in expressing yourself in a letter, you know I will keep your secret with my life.

“Come home, and bring Marion. If this thing is as dreadful as it appears to you, I cannot be too glad that Marion is not Mr. De Lorme’s son.

“Poor little boy! It is a sorry fate for him, losing his own father before he was born, and the second marriage which you fondly thought would be such a great benefit to the child turning out badly and so soon! I hope that your husband is not unkind to Marion.

“Well, my dear, you have a home with me as long as I live, and afterwards you know this farm is yours. Three hundred acres all under cultivation in the best part of the state. It is a goodly inheritance. It will help the boy.”

With many tender assurances of love, the letter closed.

There were seven letters in all that touched on the terrible knowledge that had come to Dee’s mother, but not a hint of the nature of the disgrace, if disgrace it was.

Dee, stifling under the blanket and unaware that streams of perspiration were running down his pale face, was wholly puzzled. He knew his father, as he always thought him, was a queer sort, wrapped up in his experiments, handicapped by his blindness, caring nothing for the world or its movements. But Dee had never seen anything that would call forth the letters that lay scattered around him. Certainly he had never seen his father in a rage. All his temper was expressed in a cold and biting sarcasm. He did not drink anything but the distilled water that came every week. There was but one thing to think. His father must be a drug fiend. Although Dee had never seen anything peculiar, he determined to watch.

Then his thoughts raced back to the one great sentence, “I cannot be too glad that Marion is not Mr. De Lorme’s son.”

Marion drew a long, deep breath. He was not Mr. De Lorme’s son! That was why he felt so little affection, so small a sense of duty. But there must be a reason why the chemist always claimed him as his own.

The boy determined to keep silence, and watch. He skimmed rapidly through the third packet, mostly clippings. At last he found it. A notice of the wedding of Mrs. Mary Seaton Clay to Dr. Oscar De Lorme. And the town was a well-known village near Lexington.

The last paper read, Dee packed them up, slipped them under his mattress and extinguished the light, emerged from the stifling blanket and got into bed. The time had flown, for the east was commencing to show streaks of red. As Dee lay thinking, he heard footsteps. Several people seemed to be walking with the greatest care down the long hall from the room at the back that had been fitted up for the laboratory. There was one squeaky board half way down the stairs. Dee heard it squeak seven times. The front door opened, and presently closed, but there was no sound of feet on the asphalt sidewalk. Dee decided that the visitors had gone around the house. He listened intently and soon the throb of a high-powered engine came from the garage in the rear. The De Lormes did not own a car.

Dee did not move and before long the tell-tale board squeaked again. Someone came upstairs, and directly to his door. Then Dee heard a slight click as though someone was tampering with the lock, and all was still.

Dee did not get up to see what had happened. He knew he would find out in the morning. He was dead tired and sleepy. The night had been a hard one.

It was eight o’clock before he woke, and the house was silent and empty. Mr. De Lorme had breakfasted early and had returned to his workroom. Zip had gone out.

Dee ate his breakfast, took his precious letters (which he had done up in a parcel and sealed) and went off to find Mr. Wolfe. He asked him to keep the package for him, then went out with Bill to find Eddie.

Eddie was not waiting to be found. He was sprinting down the street, having detached himself from a group standing near the railroad.

“Say! I bet you can’t guess what!” he called. Then as they met, “We have had the excitement up our end of the block! Fellow killed by the midnight express, and the night watchman found him just a little while ago, as he was coming home.”

“Who was he?” asked Bill.

“No one knows,” said Eddie. “I got there in time to see him. You couldn’t tell. He was scattered all around. Tore his coat all to pieces.”

“Let’s go to see the place,” suggested Bill hopefully.

They walked back, and studied the non-committal ground. Dee walked along the polished rail, and at a frog stooped and picked up a small book.

It was full of small, queer characters that Eddie declared must be Chinese or Turkish.

“Anyhow it belonged to the man,” said Eddie. “See the blood on the edge of the pages?”

“When have I seen writing like that?” mused Dee, turning the book over and over.

“Wish you could read it,” said Bill.

Dee’s face lighted. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “Anna, our cook, gets letters written like that.”

“Perhaps he was her beau,” said Eddie mournfully.

Dee chuckled. “You never saw Anna, did you? I thought not. But before we give this up, I am going down to show this to Anna and find out what it all means.”

“Perhaps he was a spy,” offered Eddie.

“You will never get over that spy stuff, will you, kid?” said Bill.

Dee, hurrying to Anna with the notebook, found himself baffled again.

“That is nothing,” she said. “Some foolish one has written nonsense. What does it say? Nothing but something about young shivering maples and eyebrows and a nose and mouth and the swift running river. A child’s book. Throw it away!”

“It is not mine,” replied Dee. “I shall have to return it. I wish you would tell me just exactly what it says.”

For answer Anna shrugged her shoulders and laughed. But after Dee had gone back to the boys, Anna frowned and shook her head.

“I wonder what they meant, those words,” she whispered to herself in a strange tongue. She shook her old head, and shivered. “Danger; danger! God grant it does not touch the boy!”

CHAPTER V

The following Monday all the men working on the city street car lines walked out. Not a car was taken from the barns, and a strange quiet filled the city streets. Comparatively few persons walked as far as the shopping district, and by late afternoon a footsore and weary procession wended their way homeward.

The weather was much cooler and the boys, braced up by the breezes, spent hours over the wireless.

During the preceding week some peculiar messages had been picked up. The boys pored over them but could make nothing of them. On every porch after dinner everybody talked of the dynamiting that was taking place.

“It looks just like when a package of firecrackers commence to go off in the grass,” said Eddie, who had been reading and listening to the after-dinner discussions. “Dad says no one knows who is accountable for the outrages. Gosh, I would hate to be a mayor, or ’most anything except a boy! But one day pop! off will go a bomb in front of some big building in San Francisco, and next it will be in New York, and next in Dallas. Pop, pop, pop! all over, and not a single man arrested.”

“It is funny,” Bill agreed. “My dad says somewhere a master chemist is making oodles of bombs and infernal machines, and there must be a storehouse somewhere. But he don’t see how they communicate with each other. He says he don’t believe a letter is ever written.”

“Dad says he don’t believe they ever use anything but word of mouth.”

“Not quick enough,” answered Eddie.

Dee suddenly leaned close to the two boys and whispered a single word.

“Wireless!” he said. Then as the two turned and stared, their thoughts whirling,—“Wireless, and we have been getting some of their messages! They are right here in the city, I will be bound!”