Battling the Clouds Aeroplane Boys Series

"Stop!" cried Ernest. "Stop, Bill! What does this mean?"

AEROPLANE BOYS SERIES VOLUME 1

BATTLING THE CLOUDS

OR

FOR A COMRADE'S HONOR

BY

CAPTAIN FRANK COBB

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
Copyright, 1921, by
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

AEROPLANE BOYS 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

CONTENTS

BATTLING THE CLOUDS

CHAPTER I

The vast aviation field at Fort Sill quivered in the grilling heat of mid-July. The beautiful road stretching through the Post looked smooth as a white silk ribbon in the blazing sun. The row of tall hangars glistened with fresh white paint. On the screened porches of the officers' quarters, at the mess, and at the huts men in uniform talked and laughed as though their profession was the simplest and safest in the world.

Around the Post as far as the eye could reach the sun-baked prairies stretched, their sparse grasses burned to a cindery brown. From the distant ranges came the faint report of guns. The daily practice was going on. Once in a while against the sky a row of caissons showed up, small and clear cut.

Overhead sounded the continual droning of airplanes manœuvering, now rising, now circling, now reaching the field safely, where they turned and came gaily hopping along the ground toward the hangars, like huge dragonflies. And when they finally teetered to a standstill, what splendid young figures leaped over the sides and stretched their cramped legs, pushing off the goggles and leather headgear that disguised them! Laughing, talking, swapping experiences, listening in good-natured silence to the "balling out" that so often came from the harried and sweating instructors, splendid young gods were these airmen, super-heroes in an heroic age and time.

In the shade of one of the hangars sat two boys. They were blind and deaf to the sights and sounds around and over them. The planes were as commonplace as mealtime to them, and not nearly so thrilling. All their attention was centered on a small box on the ground before them. It was made of screen-wire roughly fastened to a wooden frame. One side was intended for a door, but it was securely wired shut. The box had an occupant. Furious, raging with anger, now crouching in the corner, now springing toward the boys, only to strike the wires, an immense tarantula faced his jailers with deadly menace in his whole bearing. One of the boys gently rested a stick against the cage. The great spider instantly hurled himself upon it.

Involuntarily both boys drew back.

"What you going to do with him now you have got him?" asked the taller of the two boys.

"Dunno," said the other, shrugging his shoulders. "No use expecting mother to let me keep him in quarters, and the C. O. won't have 'em around the hangars. I guess I will have to give him back to Lee and let him get rid of him."

"What does C. O. mean, and who is Lee?" asked the first boy.

"Gee, you are green!" scoffed the smaller of the two. "Tell you what I'll do, Bill; I will take a day off and teach you the ropes."

"I will learn them fast enough if I can get a question answered once in awhile," answered Bill, laughing pleasantly. "You can't expect to learn everything there is about the Army in a week."

"It is too bad you are in Artillery," said the other boy, whose name was Frank and whose father was Major Anderson, in the Air service. "There is a lot more doing over here, but of course as long as I am sort of your cousin, why, you can get in on things here whenever you want to."

"Much obliged," returned Bill. "And of course whenever you want, I will take you any place you want to go in my car."

"That car is the dandiest little affair I ever did see," said Frank half enviously. "Just big enough for two of us." He glanced over to the boy-size automobile standing in the shade. It was a long, racy looking toy, closer to the ground than a motorcycle, but evidently equipped with a good-sized engine. "Where did you get it, anyhow?"

"I have an uncle in the automobile business, and he had it made for me."

"Some uncle!" commented Frank. "How fast will she go?"

"A pretty good clip, I imagine," said Bill. "I have never tried her out."

"What's the matter with you? Scared?" asked Frank. "I say we speed her up some of these days."

"Can't do it," said Bill, shaking his head. "There is a speedometer on it, and I promised my mother I would never go over fifteen miles an hour until she gives me leave."

"Fifteen miles; why, that's crawling!" said Frank scornfully. "I tell you what. I can drive a little, and you can let me take the wheel, and see what she will do. That won't be breaking your word."

Bill shook his head. "It isn't my way of keeping a promise," he said. Then to change the conversation before it took a disagreeable turn, he asked, "You didn't tell me what C. O. means and who Lee is."

"C. O. means Commanding Officer; you had better keep that in your head. And Lee is the fellow who gave me this tarantula. He takes care of the quarters across from yours at the School of Fire. I go over there to play with the Perkins kids a lot. Lee fools with us all he can. He is a dandy. He is half Indian. His father was a Cherokee."

"I know whom you mean," said Bill. "He is awfully dark, and has squinty black eyes and coal black hair. He has been transferred to our quarters now. He is splendid—does everything for mother: brings her flowers and all that, and a young mocking bird in a cage he made himself."

"I didn't know he had been transferred," said Frank. "I bet he won't be let to stay long. The Perkins family like him themselves."

"Can they get him sent back?" asked Bill anxiously.

"Sure," said Frank. "Colonel Perkins can get anybody sent where he wants them. If he was your orderly he would stay with you, of course, but he isn't; he is working as janitor."

"What's an orderly?" asked Bill.

"You sure have a lot to learn!" sighed the learned Frank. "It is like this. That new dad of yours is a Major, isn't he? All right. He has the right to have a special man that he picks out work for him, and take care of his horse and fuss around the quarters and fix his things. But the man has to belong to his command, and Lee is attached to the School of Fire."

"I see," said Bill, thoughtfully. As a matter of fact he did not see so very clearly, but he knew that it would be clearer after awhile, and he had the good sense not to press the matter further. Bill had the great and valuable gift of silence. To say nothing at all, but to let the other fellow do the talking, Bill had discovered to be a short cut to knowledge of all sorts.

"Yes," said Frank, "you see now that you can't get Lee for orderly."

Frank was glad of it. He did not know it, but down in his heart, he was jealous of this Bill boy, who had appeared at the School of Fire with his quiet good manners and his polite way of speaking, his good clothes and, above all, his wonderful little automobile scarcely larger than a toy, yet capable of real work and speed.

He rejoiced that Bill at least was not going to have Lee for an orderly. He knew what it was to have a fine orderly, and Lee was almost too good to be true at all. Why, only the week before, Lee had offered to get Frank a wildcat cub for a pet. Frank's mother, Mrs. Anderson, and his father, the Major, had refused to have the savage little creature about and Frank had had to tell Lee so. He had kept teasing Lee for some sort of pet, however, and as a joke Lee had just presented him with the biggest tarantula he could capture.

The tarantula, taken as a pet, was not a great success. Frank poked the stick at the cage and watched the ferocious creature dart for it, and decided that the wisest thing was to get rid of it at once.

"I will give you this tarantula, Bill," he said with an air of bestowing a great benefit. "I bet your mother has never seen one, and you can take it home with you in your car and show it to her. If she has never seen one, she will be some surprised."

"I suppose she would," said Bill, "but for all I know it might frighten her, and I couldn't afford to risk that. Mother isn't so very strong, and dad says it is our best job to keep her well and happy. I don't believe it will help any to show her something that looks like a bad nightmare and acts like a demon, so I'm much obliged but I guess I won't take your little pet away from you, not to-day at any rate." He laughed, and jumped to his feet.

"Where you going?" demanded Frank.

"Home," said Bill. "It is nearly time for mess. Get that? I said mess and not dinner."

"Don't go yet," pleaded Frank. "What if you are a little late?"

"Mother likes me to be punctual, so I'll have to move along," said Bill.

Frank looked at him. "Say," he said, "aren't you just a little tied to your mother's apron strings?"

"I don't know," replied Bill good-naturedly. "I think it is a pretty good place to be tied to if anyone should ask me, and if I am, I hope I am tied so tight she will never lose me off."

He shook himself down and started toward his little car. "So long! Come see us!" he called over his shoulder.

Frank scrambled to his feet and followed. He stood watching while Bill settled himself in his seat and started the engine. He stood looking after him until the speedy little automobile swept out of sight across the prairie and down the rough road that led to the New Post and from there on to the School of Fire.

Frank gave a grin. "It's a dandy car, all right," he said, "and he may be able to swim and ride the way he says he does, but I can beat him out on one point. I can pilot a plane, and I have been up in an observation balloon. I wonder what he would look like up in the air. I bet he would be good and sick!"

Bill, guiding the car with a practiced hand, swept smoothly along, avoiding the ruts made by the great trucks belonging to the ammunition trains and the rough wheels of the caissons.

Bill was thinking hard. The years of his life came back to his thoughts one by one.

When his father died, he was only four years old, and his pretty young mother had been obliged to go out into the world and support herself and her little son. They had lived alone together, in the dainty bungalow that had been saved from the wreck of their fortunes, and had come to be more than mother and son; they were companions and pals.

So when Major Sherman appeared, and surprised Bill greatly by wanting to marry his mother, he was not surprised to hear her say that the Major would have to get the permission of her son before she could say yes.

Bill and his mother had many a long and confidential talk in those days and Bill learned, through her confidences, a great deal about the strange thing that grown people call love. Bill's mother talked to her son as she would have talked to a brother or a father, and the result was that one day young Bill had a long talk with Major Sherman, a talk that the Major at least never forgot. After it was over, Bill led the way to his mother, and taking her hand said gravely:

"Mother, we have been talking things over, and I think you ought to marry the Major. You are a good deal of a care sometimes, and I have his promise that he will help me."

Bil's mother laughed, and then she cried a little, while she asked Bill if he was trying to get rid of his troublesome parent. But Bill knew that she was trying to joke away the remembrance of her tears, so he kissed her and went out, wondering if he had lost his darling mother or had won a new and dandy father.

It proved that he had found a real father after so many years, a father who understood boys and who was soon as good and true a pal as his mother was. Bill commenced to whistle when he remembered up to this part, and then he laughed to himself when he recollected a couple of old lady aunts who had offered to take him to bring up, because they were sure that Major Sherman, being a soldier and no doubt unused to boys, might abuse him!

It was enough to make Bill chuckle. His mother said that the Major spoiled Bill. And in his secret heart Bill knew that there were times, off and on, say a few times every week, when the Major gave him treats that he would never have been able to coax from his mother. The little car for instance. His mother had declared that it was a crazy thing to give a boy twelve years old, no matter how tall and well grown he was, but the Major had prevailed, and she had at last given a reluctant consent. There had been an endless time of waiting, indeed a matter of several months while the small but perfect car was assembled, and Bill could never forget the day it arrived and the Major squeezed his big frame into the driver's seat and gave it a thorough trying out.

Pets, too. Mother was brought to see that pigeons and white rats and a tame coon and indeed everything that came his way, was a boy's right to have. The Major was educating Bill in the knowledge of how to care for dumb animals: he was learning the secret of self-discipline and self-control, without which no man or woman or boy or girl is fit to be the owner of any pet.

The Great War was ended when Bill's mother married the Major, just returned from foreign service, and immediately they packed their belongings, putting most of them in a storehouse for the happy day when the Major should retire and be able to have a home. This is the dream of every officer who gives his days and strength and brains to the service of his country. Then they packed the few articles that they felt most necessary to their comfort, gave away ten guinea pigs, eight white rats, four pigeons and a kitten, crated Bill's collie and the Major's Airdale, and started off for their first post, Fort Sill, where the Major was stationed at the School of Fire as instructor.

Fort Sill rambles all over the prairie. Not the least of its various branches is the Aviation School. And when the Major arrived with his wife and son, he found that his cousin, Major Anderson, who was in the Air service, was stationed at the Aviation School. Major Anderson had two children: a little girl, and a boy just the age of Bill. Frank Anderson liked his new cousin, but scorned him for his very natural ignorance on subjects referring to the Army. He did not stop to discover that in the way of general information Bill was vastly his superior. Major and Mrs. Anderson were quick to see a certain clear truthfulness and good sense in Bill that they knew Frank lacked and they were anxious to have the boys chum together for that reason.

CHAPTER II

Bill, driving the little car which he had named the Swallow, reached the quarters at the School of Fire in a rising cloud of dust. The wind had risen suddenly and the fine sand whipped around the long board buildings, driving in through every crack and crevice. All the rest of the afternoon it blew, and at six o'clock, when the Major came in, he was coated with the fine yellow dust. By nine o'clock, when Bill went to bed, a small gale was singing around, and about one o'clock he was awakened by the scream of the wind. It shrieked and howled, and the quarters rattled and quivered.

Bill remembered the Swallow and his dad's car, both standing at the back door. He rose and went to his mother's room. He found her curled up in a little ball on her quartermaster's cot, looking out of the window.

"Come in, Billy," she said as she saw him at the door. "You are missing a great sight."

They cuddled close, their arms around each other, and pressed their faces close to the pane. The yellow sand was driven across the prairie like a sheet of rain. The Major's big car shuddered with each fresh blast, and the little Swallow seemed to cower close to the ground. Continuous sheets of lightning made the night as bright as day. Over the whine and whistle of the wind they could hear the distant rumble of the thunder. The room was full of dust, driven through the cracks of the window. Their throats were choked with it. The wind blew harder and harder; the lightning grew brighter, slashing the black sky with great gashes of blinding light.

Bill looked sober. "Gee, it is fierce!" he said in an awed tone. "Where is dad all this time?"

"In his room sound asleep," said Mrs. Sherman. "I suppose he is used to sights like this. Wasn't it nice of Oklahoma to stage such a wonderful sight for us? I wouldnt have missed it for anything."

"It is going to rain," said Bill, again looking out. "The thunder is growing louder and louder. Did you ever see anything like the glare the lightning makes?"

All at once Mrs. Sherman clutched Bill and pointed out.

"Oh, look, look!" she cried.

Bill followed the direction of her finger, and saw a small rabbit running before the blast. He was going at a rate that caused his pop eyes to pop worse than ever. As he skimmed along, he made the mistake of trying to turn. In a second he was being rushed along sidewise, hopping frantically up and down in order to keep on his feet, but unable to turn back again or to stop. Bill and his mother laughed until they cried as the little rabbit was hustled out of sight around the end of the students' quarters.

The lightning grew worse and occasionally balls of flame shot earthward. The thunder rolled in a deafening roar. Then suddenly the wind stopped—stopped so suddenly and completely that Bill jumped and his mother said, "Goodness me!" in a small, scared voice.

There was a long pause as though Nature was calling attention to her freaks, and then down came the rain. It came in rivers, sheets, floods. The roads ran yellow mud; the creek over the bluff commenced to boil. The sparse dwarfed trees that clung to the sides of the gullies bent under the weight of falling water.

It poured and poured and poured.

Bill had seen rain before, if not in such quantities. He found himself growing sleepy, and kissing his mother twice, once for luck and once for love, as he told her, he went to bed and to sleep, while the downpour continued until almost morning.

The roads were impassable, although a hot, steamy, sunshiny day did its best to dry things up. Bill spent most of the day putting the poor half-drowned Swallow in shape.

Frank telephoned, but could not get over. He was excited about the damage that had been done at the Aviation Field. One of the great hangars had collapsed, ruining the machines inside. No planes were allowed to fly.

Frank wanted Bill to walk over and Bill suggested the same pastime for Frank; consequently neither one would go. The roads continued to be a gummy, sticky mass of clay, and after four or five days Frank started to walk across the prairie to the School of Fire.

Just before he reached the bridge crossing the glen between the New Post and the School, he heard a joyful whoop and there was Bill running to meet him.

"Hey there!" called Bill, as soon as he could possibly make himself heard. "I was just starting over to see you."

"Come on back!" grinned Frank. "I am at home this morning."

"Not as much as I am," answered his friend. "Gee, it has been a long week! Did you ever see such a storm?"

"Oklahoma can beat that any time she wants to," boasted Frank. "That was just a little one. You ought to see a real blizzard or 'sly coon' as we call the cyclones. They are bad medicine, as the Indians say."

"This was big enough to start with," said Bill. "I thought the Swallow was going to fly away. And dad's big car reeled around. And you should have seen our bath tub! It was full of sand."

"Clear up to the top?" asked Frank teasingly.

"There was a good inch in it," retorted Bill, "and it looks to me as though that was a good deal of sand to trickle through the windows when they all have screens and were closed besides."

"It surely does get in," granted Frank. "Hello, there comes Lee! Where is he going, I wonder, without his fatigue suit on?"

"I suppose you mean those overall things he works in, don't you?" said Bill. "I know that much now. Lee doesn't wear them any more. He was so crazy over mother and so good to her and to me that dad got him transferred to his Battery, and now he is our orderly."

"How did he manage to do that?" said Frank.

"Why, there was some fellow who wanted to leave the guns and work around the quarters as janitor. They have an idea that it is an easy job. So dad let him make the exchange, and I can tell you we were all about as pleased as we could be."

"Good work!" commended Frank, but without enthusiasm. He did not want Bill to have the fun of having Lee for orderly. He had been trying to think up some scheme whereby the soldier would be sent over to fill that position with his own father.

"Lee is a peach," said Bill warmly. "Look what he made me."

He fished in his pocket and drew forth a length of chain. The small, delicate links were carved from a single piece of wood, and at the end, like an ornamentation, hung a carved cage in which rolled a little wooden ball. It was all very curious and delicate.

"My, but that's a peach," said Frank.

"You ought to see the one he did for mother," said Bill. "Small enough for a bracelet almost, and the little ball smaller than a pea. The links are all carved on the outside, and there is a sort of rose on the end of this cage thing, and Lee painted it all up pink and green where it ought to be like that.

"He knows all about a car too. This week he has been going over dad's car and the Swallow, and they run like grease."

Frank fiddled with the chain. He had nothing to say. On account of his Indian blood, his silent ways and mischievous nature, Lee had always filled him with interest. He could tell wonderful stories too of his own times and the times that lay long behind him, as he heard of them from his father and grandfather.

Lee's grandfather knew a great many things that he never did tell, but once in awhile he was willing to open his close-set old mouth and talk. He wore black broadcloth clothes, a long coat, and a white shirt, but never a collar. A wide black, soft-brimmed hat was set squarely on his coal black hair. Under the hat, smooth as a piece of satin, his hair hung in two tight braids close to each ear. They were always wound with bright colored worsted. Grandfather Lee, the old chieftain, liked bright colors, so he usually had red and yellow on his braids. They hung nearly to his waist, down in front, over each coat lapel. Small gold rings hung in his ears, and under his eyes and across each cheek bone was a faint streak of yellow paint.

His Indian name was Bird that Flies by Night, and he lived about a hundred miles away, on a farm given him by the Government. He had lived there quite contentedly for many years, tilling the ground when he had to. But now everything was changed. Oklahoma had given up her treasure, the hidden millions that lay under her sandy stretches. Oil derricks rose thickly everywhere, and Bird that Flies by Night found that all he had to do was to sit on his back porch and look at the derrick that had been raised over the well dug where his three pigs used to root. Two hundred dollars a day that well was bringing to the old Bird and, as Lee said, was "still going strong."

"And here I am," said Lee grimly, "enlisted for three years!"

Lee's father was an Indian of a later day. He had gone through an eastern college and had been in business in a small town when the oil excitement broke out. He went into oil at once, and was far down in the oil fields, Lee did not know where.

As a boy, Lee himself had refused to accept the schooling urged by his mother and college-bred father, and had led a restless, roaming life, filled with hairbreadth escapes, until the beginning of the war, when he had enlisted in the hope of being sent across where the danger lay. But like many another man as brave and as willing, he had been caught in one of the war's backwaters, and had been stationed at Fort Sill.

Sauntering up to the quarters, the boys found Lee staring moodily at the small and racy Swallow, now standing clean and glistening in the bright sunlight.

"She knocks," he said, knitting his fierce black brows. "All morning I have been working over that car, and I can't find that knock."

The boys came close and listened.

"I don't hear any knock," said Frank.

They all listened.

"Don't you hear it now?" said Lee, speeding the engine.

"Seems as though I hear something," said Bill, partly to please Lee.

They all listened closely.

Lee commenced to pry about in the engine. "I have it, I think," he exclaimed triumphantly as he took out a small piece of the machinery. Frank motioned Bill one side, and they wandered around the end of the building.

"Don't you feel sort of afraid to let Lee tinker with your car?" he asked with a show of carelessness.

"Not a bit! Dad says he is a born mechanic and he trusts him with all the care of his car. If dad thinks he can fix that, why, I guess it is safe to let him do anything he wants to do with the Swallow."

"Do you ever let anybody else drive the Swallow?" asked Frank. "I wouldn't mind taking it some day if you don't care."

Bill looked embarrassed.

"I would let you take her in a minute," He said, "but dad made me promise that I would never loan the Swallow to anyone. It is not that he wants me to be selfish, but he says if anything should happen, if the car should be broken, or if there should be an accident and some other boy hurt, I would sort of feel that it was my fault."

"I don't see it that way at all," said Frank, who was crazy to get hold of the pretty car and show it off to some boys and girls he knew in Lawton. He didn't want to drive with Bill. He was the sort of a boy who always wants all the glory for himself. That car was quite the most perfect thing; the sort a fellow sees in his dreams. Frank knew that he could never hope to own such a car, and the fact that Bill was always willing to take him wherever he wanted to go was not enough. Bill had never driven to Lawton, the town nearest the Post. He had told Frank that he would take him with him the first time. Frank had thought it would be pretty fine to go humming up the main street past all the people from the Post and the ranches, and the old Indians and the crowds of Indian boys his own age who always came in on Saturday from the Indian school near by. He had been anticipating that trip ever since Bill had appeared with the Swallow; but now he felt that it would be far nicer if Bill would or could be made to loan him the car. Of course he couldn't run it, but he could run an airplane engine, and he was perfectly willing to try running the little Swallow.

Frank had a great trick of getting his own way about things, and he reflected with satisfaction that as long as the roads to Lawton were almost impossible for traffic after the rainfall, there would be a few days in which to scheme for his plan. Nothing of this, however, appeared in his face. He turned and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, if you and your dad think Lee can handle a car all right, it's all the same to me," he laughed. "My father says you never can trust an Indian anyhow."

"Well, we would trust Lee with anything in the world," reiterated Bill.

"That's all right, too, if you think so," said Frank, trying slyly to breed distrust in Bill's heart. "I guess you never heard my father tell some of his Indian stories. You would feel different if you had."

"But anybody would just have to trust Lee," said Bill. "Why, he is as good as gold! And he hates a lie, and he has such nice people—two of the prettiest little sisters. One of them plays the harp. It's one of those big gold ones, and she is so little that Lee says she has to trot clear round the harp to play some of the notes, because her arms are too short to reach."

"He's half Indian just the same," insisted Frank. He warmed to the subject as he went on. He couldn't forgive Lee, quite the most thrilling and amusing soldier he knew, for letting himself be made Major Sherman's orderly.

"Well, I am for Lee every time," said Bill, "and I would wager anything I have that he is just as true blue as—as—well, as my dad!" Bill could pay no greater compliment, and the words rang out clear and honest. The boys stood beside the quarters, staring idly across the bluff as they talked. They were so interested in their conversation that they were not aware of a listener. Lee, with a part of the Swallow in his hand to show Bill, had followed them in time to overhear the conversation concerning himself, but he quickly drew back and returned to the automobile.

"Good boy, Billy!" he said softly to himself. Then with a dark look coming into his face, "So you can't trust an Indian, can you? Ha ha! I wonder what we had better do about that?"

CHAPTER III

Frank Anderson found no time to invent a scheme that would put the Swallow into his hands because two days later on a bright Saturday morning, Frank heard a silvery little siren tooting under his window, and looked out to see the Swallow below and Bill in businesslike goggles.

"Hey!" called Bill joyfully. "Want to come along and show me Lawton? Dad and mother are coming in for dinner to-night, and we can stay in all day and see the sights, then meet them and have dinner with them. Dad sets up a dandy dinner, I will say. Hurry up!" He tooted the siren again gaily, and Frank bolted in search of his mother.

He found her getting ready for a bridge luncheon, and she scarcely listened when he told her the plan for the day. She managed to say yes, however, when she understood the part Major Sherman was going to play, and drifted out of the room leaving Frank to yell down from the window that he was coming and to embark on a more or less thorough toilet. He looked very smooth and clean, however, ten minutes later, when he hopped into the Swallow and settled himself beside Bill.

Frank pointed out the various places of interest as they went along, and before they knew that the miles had been passed, they were entering the outskirts of the village. It was a typical Western village: low, squat, unpainted sheds of houses, with sandy front yards, and heaps of refuse lying about.

As the boys picked their way along, they turned a corner into a better part of the town. Here the houses were better; but on the whole very shabby. The influence of the oil boom was being felt, however, and here and there immense and showy residences were being built.

They then turned into the main street, a very wide, splendidly paved thoroughfare crowded with automobiles, carriages, mule teams, saddle horses, and indeed every possible kind of conveyance.

Frank noted with pride that wherever they went the little Swallow created a great commotion. People stopped to stare and exclaim. Bill, who was busy guiding his little beauty among the larger vehicles, did not seem to notice but it was meat and drink to Frank.

Down by Southerland's drug store they parked the Swallow, locking it carefully, and walked off, leaving the Swallow literally swallowed up by a crowd of admiring people. Frank hated to go and when they had wandered half a block away made an excuse for going back. Bill said he would look at some sweaters in a sporting goods window until he returned.

Frank found the crowd larger than ever. A policeman had attached himself to the circle and a couple of old Indians stood looking solemnly down. Someone was talking and when Frank pressed through the crowd he found a boy about his own age leaning on the fender and addressing everybody in general. Frank listened and studied the boy as he did so. He was a slim, pale chap with a shock of light, wavy hair which was shaved close to his head everywhere except on top where a thick brush waved. He was continually smoothing it back or shaking his head to get it out of his eyes. He seemed to consider it a very fascinating motion. Frank liked his man-of-the-world air and did not see the grins on the faces of many of the listeners.

"Rather nice little machine," said the boy. "I wonder who owns it. I would like to tell him a few things he ought to have changed about it. Some of the lines are all wrong, and anyone can see the engine couldn't hold up under any strain. I bet he has trouble with the hills. All the cars of this make have trouble. His tires are wrong too. He ought to use a heavier tire if he expects to get any speed out of it. It ought to go at a pretty good clip if the chap knows how to drive. There is everything in the driving. I have taken my eight-cylinder at one hundred and ten miles easily a good many times, but my dad and the chauffeurs never get over eighty-five out of it."

Frank felt his head swim. Here was talk that was talk! He completely forgot Bill, looking at sweaters. He edged up to the car and fumbled under the seat.

"Hello!" said the boy. "This your car?"

"It belongs to another fellow and me," said Frank, unable to keep himself from establishing some sort of a claim on the Swallow. "Why?"

"Quite a nice little toy," said the boy, nodding condescendingly. "I never cared much for toys myself but some chaps like 'em. I have an eight-cylinder machine and a six-cylinder runabout, and that's enough to keep me going for the present. I want a racing car built for me pretty soon."

"You don't live here, do you?" asked Frank, sure he would have heard somehow of this remarkable youth who talked so glibly of owning a string of cars.

"I should hope not!" said the boy scornfully. "Not in this dead little hole! I guess you don't know me. I am Jardin, Horace Jardin. My father is the automobile man."

"I have heard of him," said Frank.

"I guess you have!" chuckled young Jardin. "You couldn't go anywhere on the globe without seeing the Jardin cars. Dad puts out more cars than any other two concerns on earth." He assumed a very bored look. "Gee, sometimes I wish I could change my name! Makes a fellow so conspicuous, you know."

"Well, I didn't know who you were until you told me," said Frank, grinning.

Jardin flushed. Evidently he could not take a joke that was levelled at himself.

"No, I suppose there are a few rube places like this where the people have never heard of the Jardin car."

Frank hastened to smooth things over. He had no desire to quarrel with this young prince who talked so easily. Frank had to admit that a good deal of it sounded like ordinary boasting, but he assured himself that it must all be true, and proceeded to make things square again.

"You are wrong there," he said. "It would be a good deal smaller place than Lawton before the people had to be told about the Jardin car. Of course I didn't know that you were Jardin, but I couldn't be blamed for that."

"Sure not!" granted the boy. He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket and lighted one, then as an after-thought offered it to Frank who refused, but with a feeling of disgust that he was unable to take one and smoke it coolly as young Jardin was doing.

"The little fool!" a man in the group was saying, but Jardin either did not hear or care.

"Where is the other boy who owns the car?" he asked.

"Down the street," said Frank. "I forgot all about him. We are in town for the day. His father is an instructor at the School of Fire at Sill, and mine is stationed at the Aviation School."

"That's what I am crazy over," said Jardin. "If I consent to go to school and stay all through the winter, I am to have a little plane this fall. I have been taking lessons down at Garden City, and my plane is to be a real long distance one. Dad will give me anything if I will go to school. Gee, I hate it!"

Frank swallowed hard. Two automobiles and an airplane! He commenced to feel sorry for Bill. "Bill and I are going east to school this fall," he said. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know yet," said Jardin. "I have got to talk it over with dad."

"Let's go find Bill," said Frank. "That is, if you haven't anything better to do."

They detached themselves from the crowd and walked down to the sporting house, where they found Bill just tucking a bulky bundle under his arm. He had bought his sweater and stopped to count his change before he turned to greet the boys.

"Gee, what an old woman's trick," said Frank, who wanted to let Jardin know that he was not afraid to spend.

"You mean to count the change?" Bill inquired.

"Yes," said Frank.

"You are right," Jardin cut in. "I never have time. My time is more valuable than a few cents the fellow may swipe from me."

"Suppose it is the other way around," said Bill. "Suppose the fellow has made the mistake. When the checks are made up, his shows the loss and he has to make it up. Not much fun for him. Perhaps he has a family and he can't afford it. I never used to bother either, but once I was taking dinner in New York with a friend of mother's who has oodles of money, and when he came to pay the check he looked every item over and counted the change and it was thirty cents overcharged. I suppose I looked funny, because he said to me when the waiter went off to get it straightened out, 'Bill, it is no special credit to let these fellows do you. If you want to give money away, there are plenty of beggars on the streets, or you can buy millions of shoe laces and pencils. But never let anybody think they can put it over you.'

"And then to show the other side, that is, when the other fellow makes an honest mistake, he told me a story that made me remember. Then the waiter brought the right change, got a tip, and we left. But I always count change now."

"I'd like to see anybody do that in the Biltway Hotel!" laughed Jardin.

"This was in the Biltway Cascades," said Bill.

"Come down here," said Frank. "Here is where the Indians come most." Young Jardin and his father had only reached town late the night before so he was as ready as Bill to see the sights.

On a corner by a drug store two very old Indians stood gesturing at each other. The boys stopped a little way off and watched them. Their wrinkled old mouths were tight closed but their hands flew in short, quick motions that were perfectly impossible for the boys to understand. It was evident, however, that the two old men understood each other with perfect ease because at intervals they would laugh as though at an excellent joke.

"That beats all!" exclaimed Jardin, actually interested for once. "Both those old fellows are deaf and dumb."

"Wait," said Frank.

The gestures went on, and presently another old Indian approached. He was even older than the other two. His face was a network of wrinkles and his braided hair hung in two thin, scant little tails scarcely reaching his shoulders. It was gayly wound, however, and his cheeks were carefully painted. The two other old men seized him by the arms and to the amazement of Bill and Horace both commenced to talk at once.

"Now what on earth did they do that for?" demanded Bill of no one in particular. "If they can talk, why did they go through all that crazy motion business?"

"I don't know," said Frank. "They do it all the time. Only the old ones, though."

"I bet Lee will know," said Bill. "We will ask him."

"Who is Lee?" asked Horace

"My dad's orderly," said Bill. "He will drive father and mother in to-night when they come. Who are all these boys in blue suits? Look like bell boys."

"They are from the Indian school we passed on the way out," explained Frank.

"Lee knows a lot of the boys in that school," said Bill. "He is going to go over with me some day."

"How does he happen to know them?" asked Jardin.

"He is part Indian himself," explained Frank.

"A half-breed?" said Jardin. "They are awfully treacherous. Don't you feel afraid to have him around?"

Bill laughed. "I should say not! Why, Lee is the finest and best fellow I ever knew! He wouldn't lie to save his life. Dad says he can trust him with anything anywhere. Afraid? Well, you just don't know what you are talking about! Frank has got that afraid bee in his bonnet. It makes me sort of tired because I know what Lee is, and I am going to be for him every time and all the time."

"You always act as though it was a personal slam if anyone says the least thing about Lee," complained Frank.

"That's the surest thing you know!" said Bill fervently. "I do take it as a personal slam always if anyone says things against a friend. And a friend Lee certainly is. I think he is as true and clean as any man I know, and he is—well, he is a dandy! Anybody who says he is different will have to prove it!"

A spirit of malicious meanness rose in Frank. He assumed an air of good nature.

"All right," he said. "It is really not worth talking about, but some day I may be able to make you see things differently."

"I will believe you when you can prove it," retorted Bill.

"Aw, let's drop it," said Jardin, taking each boy by an arm and turning into a doorway. "Let's look in this pawnshop. Did you ever see anything like that white buckskin Indian suit?"

"The Sioux Indians work those, little gentlemen," said the owner of the pawnshop, seeing them pause before the soft, snowy leather garment. "They are the only Indians who can cure the hides and tan them like that, and the squaws do the bead work."

"I have a notion to buy that for my sister," said Jardin, feeling of the delicate fringes. "She could wear it to a fancy dress ball. I suppose this feather headdress goes with it."

"It is worn with it," said the man. "I will let you have them cheap. Dress and headdress for fifty dollars."

"All right," said Jardin as coolly as though the man had said fifty cents. "Send them over to the hotel C. O. D. May will have a fit over those."

"I reckon you are sort of all right to get a present like that for your sister," said Frank, as they strolled out. "You must like her a whole lot."

"I don't," said Jardin. "I just have to keep squaring her all the time. She is an awful tattler, and if I don't keep her squared, she peaches on me. Sisters are an awful nuisance!"

"You are right," said Frank. He had never thought so before but if this wonderful young man thought so, why, it must be true.

Bill said nothing.

Jardin glanced at his wrist watch.

"Lunch time," he announced. "Come on back to the hotel and have something to eat with me."

"That suits me," said Frank.

"Sorry, but I can't accept," from Bill. "I have a couple of errands to attend to for mother and I have been fooling around so long that I will have to be pretty spry. You all go on, and I will get a bite later."

"Well, of course I will stay with you if you think you can't put your errands off for an hour or so," said Frank sulkily.

"I have put it off too long anyhow," said Bill, "but I certainly won't mind if you go."

"No, I will go with you," decided Frank.

"All right then," said Jardin, shrugging his shoulders. "Suit yourself, of course! Perhaps we will meet later." He turned and started back toward the hotel, leaving the boys looking after him.

CHAPTER IV

"Well, I will say he's a peach!" said Frank.

Bill made no reply.

"Don't you say so?" pressed Frank. "Don't you think he is a peach?"

Bill, forced to answer the question, made a frank but reluctant reply.

"No," he said. "I think he is a pill." He shook his head.

"You are a queer one!" said Frank. "It don't look as though you had any sporting blood in you. I suppose because he smokes naughty cigarettes—"

"It isn't that," said Bill, frowning. "He is just plain foolish to smoke. Why, he is undersized and underweight now for his age, and every time he smokes he checks his growth. It is up to him. I bet he has had it explained to him a million times by each teacher and tutor he has ever had just how smoking will harm him and dope up his brain, so if he wants to miss out on athletics and all that, and look like a boiled mosquito in the bargain, let him go to it. I don't care. It's not that I don't like about him. It is the way he thinks and talks. Where does he live when he is at home?"

"Detroit," said Frank.

"You would think he owned the whole world!" grumbled Bill. "And squaring his sister!"

"Oh, well," said Frank, "you have a queer way of looking at things. I don't think you are giving the fellow a fair deal. Perhaps he does talk pretty big, but on the other hand he has a lot to talk about. Think of it: a fellow only the age of us and he has a couple of automobiles of his own and is going to have an airplane. Gee, I am glad I can manage a plane! I have got him there."

"It's all right, I suppose, for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs they have at his house."

"You are sore," said Frank loftily.

"What at, for goodness' sake?" demanded Bill. "I wouldn't swap the little Swallow for all the cars he ever had or will have. We have more fun in our little cooped-up quarters over at the School than he ever thought of with his scraps with his sister. I guess I am sore a little, Frank. I am sore because he came butting in and spoiled our whole morning. Let's forget him for awhile. I want to take mother's watch to a jeweller and then we will hunt up a good restaurant and have lunch. It is on me."

Frank followed in silence. He knew Bill was right, but the stranger had dazzled him. He wished bitterly that his father was a rich manufacturer instead of a poor army officer. The traveling they had had, the wonderful sights they had seen all over the world seemed poor in comparison with all the glories Jardin had told and hinted at.

Poor Frank, did not know it, but slowly, ever so slowly, he was making the wrong turn; the turn that led away from the right.

"The trouble with you, Bill," he said, as they loitered over their ice-cream at luncheon, "the trouble is that you are narrow."

Bill groaned. "There you go on Jardin again, I do believe," he said. "All right; I will tell you what I will do. I will really try to like him, and if he comes around where we are I will be as decent to him as I can be. Perhaps he has a lot of good in him, as you say. I don't want to be unjust."

Frank looked pleased. "I think that is the square thing for you to do," he said. "Jardin may turn out to be a good scout in every way. Perhaps he saw the Swallow and was so impressed with it that he wanted to make a big impression to get even. You can't tell the first time you see anybody what they will be like when you get to know them well."

"Well, I gathered that Jardin was here with his father on some oil business, and probably we won't see him anyhow after this afternoon. He won't be apt to come to the Post. Anyway, let's not spoil our whole afternoon. I want to see some more of those Indians, and I would like to go to that pawnshop without someone tagging along who can buy the place out. I want to buy a little bead bag I saw in the window if it does not cost too much. I think mother would like it to carry with a blue dress of hers.

"Say, you are just like a girl, aren't you?" exclaimed Frank. "I would never know what sort of a dress my mother had on, and she would never get a bag if she depended on my getting it for her."

"I suppose there is a difference in folks," said Bill. "There was a man visiting my uncle back home one time. He broke his leg while he was with us, and mother helped take care of him and amuse him, and say, he could embroider and crochet! He taught mother a lot of stitches."

"A regular sissy!" sneered Frank.

"I thought so," said Bill; laughing at the recollection. "One night when he felt sort of bad I rubbed his back, and his shoulders were all covered with scars. Well, what do you think? A tiger did it. A Royal Bengal tiger like you read about! And I found out that he had hunted every kind of big game there is, and the fiercer, the better. He simply didn't care what he did in the way of hunting. Oh, my; that was a snap for me! When he found out that I was simply crazy to hear his yarns, he used to tell me thrills, I can tell you.

"I didn't think he was such a sissy then. That crochet work looked all right. But it was sort of funny to see him lying there showing my mother how to make a new kind of muffler or table mat and remember how he came by a great white scar that showed on his wrist when he stuck his arm out."

"How did he get it?" asked Frank, all attention.

"He got that one in Africa," said Bill, taking a taste of his ice-cream. "He and another chap had penetrated away into the jungle. They were after a splendid specimen of—"

Bill stopped, looked at the door and attacked his ice-cream.

"Here is little Percy again," he groaned. "Frank, if I don't treat him according to agreement, you are to kick me."

Frank turned. The African jungle faded away. There was Jardin!

He came smiling across the room and joined them.

"Hello, everybody!" he said gaily. "Getting some grub? It didn't take me very long to get through, so I thought I would wander down the street and see if I could run across you. Thought you might like to go to see a movie."

"That is mighty nice of you," said Bill heartily, "but I sort of wanted to see a little of the town this afternoon."

"I think that is a good idea," said Jardin. "We can go to see the movies any old time. I saw my dad at the hotel and have some good news to tell you. We are going to stay here for a couple of weeks. Dad thought that I would make an awful kick about it, and I would if I hadn't met you fellows, but between us we ought to be able to start something going. If I had one of my cars here I could give you a good time, but we will have to take a fall out of your little steamer."

"Say, that's fine!" said Frank with enthusiasm enough for two. "I will have a chance to show you the Aviation Field, and Bill can show you the School of Fire, and there are some dandy fellows over at New Post and up at Old Post too."

"I would like to see them, especially the Aviation part," said Jardin. "I might get some pointers about flying my plane. It will be done before long,—in a couple of months anyway. I worked hard enough for that car," he chuckled. "I thought up every kind of mischief you ever heard of and then some, and tried 'em all out, and all the time I kept hollering for an airplane. I just wore dad out. He offered me everything you ever heard of if I would stop cutting up, and at last he hit on this airplane which was what I had been after from the start. So we made an agreement, regular business affair you know, and we both signed it. I am to stop smoking the day school opens and also agree to go to whatever school he picks out and to keep the rules and remain for the three terms of the school year. He has got to give me plenty of money, though. You can't have a decent time in school without your pocket full of money."

"I don't see why you need much," said Bill thoughtfully.

"Take it from me, you do," replied Jardin. "I have been in about every high-class school around our part of the country and I know."

"I am going to boarding-school this fall, and I don't believe I will have much of an allowance. My folks won't think it is wise, I know."

"A lot of people are like that," said Jardin. "Are you going away to school too, Frank?"

"I expect I am," said Frank. "I don't know where yet; the folks have not decided for either of us, but we hope we will go together; don't we, Bill?"

"Sure!" agreed Bill.

"Wish you knew where you were going," said Jardin. "I would make dad send me where you were. That would be a lark. The Big Three: how would that go for a name, eh?"

"Great!" said Bill absently. He finished the last spoonful of his ice-cream. "Let's go out and see the town," he suggested. "There is a shooting gallery around the corner that has the cutest moving targets I ever saw."

"That's the ticket!" said Jardin. "I can shoot almost better than I can do anything else."

They wandered out, and turned down to the shooting gallery. A soldier was leaning idly against the door frame. Bill looked twice, grabbed the young man in a bear hug.

"Lee, you old scamp!" he cried. "How did you happen to get here?"

The dark face of the handsome young half-breed lighted up. "I drove the car in," he answered. "Your mother is shopping and your father will come in with Colonel Spratt in time for dinner. I have been watching these people shoot. Are you boys going to try it?" He glanced at Jardin with a keen eye, then looked away instantly.

"I can't shoot for sour apples and you know it. I suppose you want to have a good laugh at me," said Bill. "All right, here goes!" He laid down his money and received the little rifle.

"No moving targets for me," he said to the man in charge. "And I want the biggest target you have, at that."

"Here is one we let the ladies shoot at," the gallery man laughed. He put up a brilliant affair of different colored rings encircling a large black spot.

"That is the thing for me," said Bill.

"Us ladies!" jeered Frank, laughing.

"Shoot!" commanded Lee.

Bill aimed, breathed hard, blinked and pulled the trigger violently.

There was a black hole in the outside ring.

"Good boy!" said Bill, patting himself. "Good boy! 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' I have just three tries, I believe."

The next shot was a trifle closer. Bill held a little steadier. The last shot he took his time about and pulled carefully, using his finger instead of his whole side. A bell clanged. He had actually hit the bull's eye! Bill fell against Lee in a make-believe faint.

Frank tried next, Jardin refusing to make an attempt. At last however, after Frank had repeated Bill's performance, Jardin selected a rifle and asked for the moving targets to be set in motion.

He aimed quickly at the head of the smallest duck, and it disappeared behind the painted waves. Again and again he repeated this while the boys stood spellbound.

"That's easy!" said Jardin, laying the rifle down on the counter. "I can beat that easily."

"Do it," said Lee, handing him a rifle.

"Put up your hardest target," instructed Jardin. "I want something worth while."

The target popped into place. It was a pretty little figure of a dancing girl with a tiny tambourine in her uplifted hand. She whirled and turned and the little tambourine gleamed and sparkled. Jardin took careful aim at the tambourine and missed. Three times he missed, the boys exclaiming that no one could hit anything so delicate. Finally he gave it up, giving a number of explanations why he did not hit it.

Then, quite idly, Lee picked up a rifle and with a half smile at the gallery man he shot without raising the rifle to his shoulder. A shower of tiny flashes burst from the uplifted tambourine. Then three times, as fast as he could lift a rifle, Lee hit the little tambourine and the bright flashes leaped up. It was evident that Lee had been there before because without a word the man removed the little dancer and placed a row of small and lively dolphins in view. They curved in and out of sight and looked very funny indeed. But Lee shook his head. The man removed the target, and feeling under his lapel drew out a pin, a common white pin which he stuck carefully in the middle of the black cloth at the end of the gallery. Lee's bullet drove the pin into the cloth as neatly as though it had been done with a mallet.

"Want to try?" he asked Jardin.

Jardin smiled sourly. "I am no professional," he said.

He and Frank sauntered out, followed by Bill and Lee.

"Who is that soldier?" asked Jardin. "Isn't he just an enlisted man?"

"That's all," said Frank. "He is the Major's orderly."

"I don't like his looks," said Jardin.

"Neither do I," agreed Frank. "But you had better not tell Bill that. He is crazy over Lee."

"Every man to his taste!" Jardin said with a sneer.

CHAPTER V

About a week later, Bill, accompanied by Lee, drove the Swallow over to the Aviation Field. They found Horace Jardin staying there at Frank's quarters, as the houses are called on all army posts. Mr. Jardin had gone down into the Burkburnett Oil Fields and Frank had invited the boy to come and stay with him. Mrs. Anderson, a weak and idle person, was flattered to have the young millionaire as her guest and revelled as Frank did in his glowing yarns of everything concerning the Jardins. Horace treated Mrs. Anderson and the Major with all the politeness he could muster.

It was always his policy to be agreeable to other fellows' parents. It made things easier all around to have what he privately and rudely called "the old folks" think he was a fine boy, and he found that they always "fell for it" when he paid them a little attention.

So he cleverly kept silence whenever the Major was around, only asking questions that he knew would please him to answer and enlarge upon.