The Flying Machine Boys in the Wilds. Frank Walton

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СКАЧАТЬ their chums looked rather suspiciously at them as they all entered the elevator.

      “Now,” said Ben, “don’t you boys get into any mischief to-night. Quito isn’t a town for foreigners to explore during the dark hours!”

      “I’m too sleepy to think of any midnight adventures!” cried Jimmie with a wink and a yawn.

      “Me, too!” declared Carl. “I’ll be asleep in about two minutes!”

      It was about ten o’clock when the boys found themselves alone in a large room which faced one of the leading thoroughfares of the capital city. Quito is well lighted by electricity, and nearly all the conveniences of a city of the same size in the United States are there to be had.

      The street below the room occupied by the two boys was brilliantly lighted until midnight, and the lads sat at a window looking out on the strange and to them unusual scene. When the lights which flashed from business signs and private offices were extinguished, the thoroughfare grew darker, and then the boys began seriously to plan their proposed excursion.

      “What we want to do,” Jimmie suggested, “is to get out of the hotel without being discovered and make our way to a back street where a cab can be ordered. It is a mile to the field where the machines were left, and we don’t want to lose any time.”

      Before leaving the room the boys saw that their automatic revolvers and searchlights were in good order. They also made neat packages of the woolen blankets which they found on the bed and carried them away.

      “Now,” said Jimmie as they reached a side street and passed swiftly along in the shadow of a row of tall buildings, “we’ve got to get into a cab without attracting any attention, for we’ve stolen the hotel’s blankets, and we can’t talk Spanish, and if a cop should seize us we’d have a good many explanations to make.”

      “I don’t think it’s good sense to take the blankets,” Carl objected.

      “Aw, you’ll think so when we get a couple of thousand feet up in the air on the Louise!” laughed Jimmie.

      After walking perhaps ten minutes, the boys came upon a creaking old cab drawn by a couple of the sorriest-looking horses they had ever seen. The driver, who sat half asleep on the seat, jumped down to the pavement and eyed the boys suspiciously as they requested to be taken out to where the machines had been left.

      The lads were expecting a long tussle between the English and the Spanish languages, but the cabman surprised them by answering their request in excellent English.

      “So?” exclaimed Jimmie. “You talk United States, too, do you? Where did you come from?”

      “You want to go out to the machines, do you?” asked the cabman, without appearing to notice the question.

      “That’s where we want to go!” replied Carl.

      “What for?” asked the cabman.

      “None of your business!” replied Jimmie.

      “I’ve been out there once to-night!” said the cabman, “and the party I drew beat me out of my fare.”

      “That’s got nothing to do with us!” replied Carl.

      “It’ll cost you ten dollars!” growled the cabman.

      “Say, look here!” Jimmie exclaimed. “You’re a bigger robber than the New York cabmen! It’s only a mile to the field, and we’ll walk just to show you that we don’t have to use your rickety old cab.”

      With a snarl and a frown the cabman climbed back up on his seat and gave every appearance of dropping into sound slumber.

      “Now what do you think of that for a thief?” asked Carl, as the boys hastened away toward the field. “I’d walk ten miles before I’d give that fellow a quarter!”

      “We’ve got plenty of time,” Jimmie answered. “The moon won’t be up for an hour yet. Perhaps we’d better walk up anyway, for then we can enter the field quietly and see what’s going on.”

      On the way out the lads met several parties returning from the field, and when they reached the opening in the fence they saw that many curious persons were still present. There were at least half a dozen vehicles of different kinds gathered close about the roped-off circle.

      “Say,” Carl exclaimed as the boys passed into the field, “look at that old rattletrap on the right. Isn’t that the same vehicle the cabman pretended to go asleep on as we came away?”

      “Sure it is!” answered Jimmie. “I don’t remember the appearance of the cab so well, but I know just how the horses looked.”

      “He must have found a ten-dollar fare out here!” Carl suggested.

      “Yes, and he must have come out by a roundabout way in order to prevent our seeing him. Now what do you think he did that for? Why should he care whether we see him or not?”

      As the boy asked the question the rig which they had been discussing was driven slowly away, not in the direction of the road, but toward the back end of the field.

      “Something mighty funny going on here!” Jimmie declared. “I guess it’s a good thing we came out.”

      When the boys came up to where the machines were lying, Doran was the first one to approach.

      “Little nervous about your machines, eh?” he asked.

      “Rather,” replied Jimmie. “We came out with the idea of taking a short trip to see if they still are in working order.”

      “Well,” Doran said with a scowl, “of course you know that you can’t take the machines out without an order from Mr. Bixby!”

      CHAPTER V.

      A WAIF AND A STRAY

      “Bixby doesn’t own these machines!” exclaimed Carl angrily.

      “Who does own them?” demanded Doran.

      “We four boys own them!” was the reply.

      “Well, you’ve got to show me!” insisted Doran, insolently.

      “I’ll tell you what we’ll do!” Jimmie announced. “We’ll go right back to Bixby and put you off the job!”

      “Go as far as you like,” answered Doran. “I was put here to guard these machines and I intend to do it. You can’t bluff me!”

      While the boys stood talking with the impertinent guard they saw two figures moving stealthily about the aeroplanes. Jimmie hastened over to the Louise and saw a man fumbling in the tool-box.

      “What are you doing here?” demanded the boy.

      The intruder turned a startled face for an instant and then darted away, taking the direction the cab had taken.

      Carl and Doran now came running up and Jimmie turned to the latter.

      “Nice old guard you are!” he almost shouted. “Here you stand talking with us while men are sneaking around the machines!”

      “Was there СКАЧАТЬ