The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Goldfrap John Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ other boats were so far away that there’s no telling what might not have happened.”

      “We’re getting close in now, and, Rob, there’s somebody waving to us from the dock. Why, it looks like our inventor chum and fellow scout, Hiram Nelson, the queerest fellow in the Eagle Patrol. He must want us to stop and take him out for a ride on the bay. You didn’t promise him anything like that, did you, Rob?”

      “Why, no, not that I remember,” replied the other slowly; “but now that you mention him acting as though he wanted to see us so badly, I remember that Hiram has been talking to me several times lately about some wonderful secret he was carrying around with him. He said he hoped to be in a position soon to open up and take me into his confidence; and that he might have a proposition to make that would give me a great, though a pleasant shock.”

      “You don’t say?” chuckled the happy Andy. “Well, seems to me the shoe is on the other foot just now, and that we’ve got something to tell Hiram that will take his breath away for a minute. Look at him dancing around, Rob! I suppose now he’s gone and invented some sort of contraption that never can be made to work, and he wants to tell you he’s saved up enough hard cash to get a patent on the same. But chances are it’ll be money wasted, because, so far as I know, nothing Hiram has done so far has proved much of a success.”

      “I’m a little afraid it’s as you say,” added Rob, in a low tone, for they were now fast nearing the dock where the other boy waited for them, his face wreathed in such broad smiles that they could easily see his news was of a pleasant nature. “Three times Hiram has tried to go up in that aëroplane of his and failed. I hope he’s switched his genius off on some safer track than this sky traveling. But we’ll soon know, for here we are at the dock.”

      Andy stood by with the boathook to fend off, and old Captain Jerry got in readiness to take charge of his launch and pole it along the border of the bay to the mouth of the creek, up which he had his mooring place.

      When Rob had made the motorboat fast to a cleat on the dock, he joined his chum, and the two of them advanced toward the spot where Hiram awaited their coming, his face still betraying the great excitement under which he seemed to be laboring.

      CHAPTER IV

      A STUNNING SURPRISE

      “He certainly looks all worked up, doesn’t he, Rob?” Andy remarked, as he and his companion found themselves drawing closer to the other scout.

      “Hiram is a queer stick, you remember,” the patrol leader told him, speaking in a soft tone, as he did not wish the other to catch what he said. “Everybody just knows that he’s gone daffy over this craze to invent something worth while. But unless I miss my guess we’re going to hear some news shortly.”

      There was no chance to exchange further remarks, because they had reached a point close to Hiram. The latter was a rangy sort of chap. He could talk as well as the next one when he felt disposed that way, but it had always been a sort of fad with Hiram Nelson to pretend that he was a real countryman, and many a time had he amused his chums with his broad accent and his wondering stare, as of a “yahoo” seeing city sights for the first time.

      Now, however, Hiram apparently was not bothering his head about having any fun with his fellow scouts. There was an eager expression on his face, as though he were bursting with the desire to communicate his great secret to a chosen few of his chums, especially to the patrol leader, Rob Blake.

      “Been alookin’ for you all over town, Rob,” he started in to say, as they joined him. “Took me an awful long time to get track of where you’d gone. Then just by accident I ran across Walter Lonsdale, who told me he believed from what Sim Jeffords said, that Joe Digby had seen you and Andy here hitting it up for the dock, and so he reckoned you must have gone off on your little Tramp. And say, Walter was right that time, wasn’t he?”

      “He certainly was,” replied Rob, while Andy Bowles chuckled at the roundabout way the other admitted he had received his information.

      “Well, Rob,” continued Hiram mysteriously, “’course you remember my telling you that sooner or later I might have somethin’ of vast importance to tell you, something that would give you one of the greatest thrills ever?”

      “Sure, I remember that,” asserted the other, “what about it, Hi?”

      The other leaned closer to the scout leader, and in a hoarse whisper exclaimed:

      “The time has come now, Rob!”

      “Good enough,” said Rob. “Fire away then, Hiram!”

      Hiram cast a rather dubious glance in the direction of Andy.

      “Oh, don’t mind me one little bit, Hi!” sang out that worthy cheerfully. “I’ll promise to seal my lips if you give the word, and even being burned at the stake couldn’t force me to squeal a syllable. Say on, Hiram; you’ve got Rob and me worked up to top-notch with curiosity, and I know I’ll burst pretty soon if you don’t take pity on me.”

      “Oh! well, I guess it’s all right,” the other observed slowly. “Everybody’ll be knowing it sooner or later. You just can’t hide a light under a bushel, anyhow. So I might as well take you at your word, Andy.”

      “My word’s as good as my bond, Hiram,” said the bugler of the troop, with some show of pride; whereat Hiram laughed softly, as though possibly he had no reason to doubt that same fact, since Andy would find it difficult work to get anybody to accept the latter.

      “Let’s sit down here on this pile of lumber,” Hiram went on to say, “while I tell you what wonderful things happened. The greatest chance I’ve ever struck so far, and you can understand that I’m nigh about tickled to death over it.”

      “Huh! bet you’ve gone and spent every red cent you could scrape up paying a patent lawyer to put some wildcat scheme through; and that you’ve got the papers in your pocket showing that you’ve parted from your hard cash?”

      When Andy recklessly said this Hiram turned and looked reproachfully at him, and then with his accustomed drawl remarked:

      “Everything we tackle in this world is a chance and a hazard, don’t you know, Andy Bowles? And if inventors, people who have the big brains, and get up all the wonderful labor-saving devices you read about, didn’t choose to accept risks, why whatever would become of all you ordinary folks, tell me?”

      Andy shook his head.

      “Give it up, Hiram,” he said blankly. “But please go right along and tell us what you’ve been and gone and done now. Never mind me. My bark is a whole lot worse than my bite, anyhow.”

      “That’s so,” Hiram assured him cheerfully. “Well, you guessed right in one way, Andy, for I have secured the advance notice that a patent is pending on a clever invention of mine, which is as good as saying it’s secured. But that’s only the beginning, the foundation, or, as you might say, the advance agent of prosperity. The best is yet to come.”

      “You’re exciting us a heap, Hiram, I admit,” muttered Andy, “but I hope it isn’t all going to turn out a big smoke. There’s some fire back of this talk, isn’t there?”

      “Wait!” the other told him grimly. “Get ready to soak in this information, boys. The invention for which I have applied for patent rights is, as p’raps you’ve already guessed, in connection with airships!”

      He waited at that point, as if expecting СКАЧАТЬ