Fulton and the man Billings had seemed to indicate that nothing out of the ordinary was to happen that day, but Mr. Fulton's parting words to Tod gave Jerry hope. "This is the day!" he had said.

At any rate, he slipped out of camp and scouted about for a comfortable spot in which to keep an eye on Lost Island. But after he had sat there a half hour, he began to have twinges of the same disease that afflicted Budge and he saw that it would be necessary for him to move about a bit in order to stay awake. He regretted having left the camp without a fishing pole; that would at least give him something to do to pa.s.s the time away. With something like that in mind he started back toward the shady place where he had left Budge snoozing.

But as the walk started his blood circulating again, and his brain became active once more, he had a new idea. "Old Tod's a sly fox," he said to himself. "He's not going to be among the missing when the fun is on. He's going to take them down to his ba.s.s lake, and then he's going to slip away. He'll have to come back by land, so he'll probably take them to Last Shot Lake. It'll take them an hour to get there, but he can come back afoot in half that time if he's in a hurry--and I guess he is. He most likely will hang around half an hour before he thinks it's safe to make his getaway. That's two hours all told. In some fifteen or twenty minutes he ought to come skulking along through the woods.

"There's that hill yonder--it ought to make a good spy-post. Little Jerry bids these parts a fond adieu."

Something like a strong quarter of a mile down the river, and perhaps that much inland, stood a lonesome hill, almost bare of trees save a clump of perhaps a dozen on the very summit. It was an ideal hiding place. Leaving the road after cutting through the river timber and following it a few hundred yards, he plunged into a dense growth of scrub oak and hazel brush that extended almost to the base of his hill.

He came to one bare spot, perhaps an acre in extent, and was about to leave the shelter of the brush for the comparatively easy going of the weedy gra.s.s, when, almost opposite him, he saw a figure emerge from the trees.

At first he thought it was Tod, and he chuckled to himself as he thought how quickly his guess had been proved true. But when a second stepped out close behind the first, Jerry realized that neither one was his friend, even before he noticed that both were carrying rifles.

A pair of hunters, no doubt, Jerry surmised, although he wondered idly what they would be hunting at this season of the year. Rabbits were "wormy" and the law prohibited the shooting of almost everything else.

But "City hunters," Jerry derided, "from their clothes. They think bluejays and crows are good sport."

That the hunters were looking for birds was evident, for they kept their eyes turned toward the tree-tops. Thus it was that they did not see Jerry crouching in the brush a scant dozen feet from where they broke into the woods again. He was near enough to overhear them perfectly, but not a word could he understand, for they were talking very earnestly together in some outlandish tongue that, as Jerry said, made him seasick to try to follow. But as they talked they pointed excitedly, first toward the sky and then straight ahead, and that part of their conversation was perfectly understandable to the boy.

A sudden wild thought entered his mind. Here were two hunters out in the woods at a time when no real sportsmen carried anything but rods and landing nets. The mystery of their purpose reminded him of another mystery, and immediately his mind connected the two, even before he noticed the constant recurrence of a word that sounded much as a foreigner would p.r.o.nounce "Lost Island." Jerry realized, even as the thought pa.s.sed through his mind, that it was the wildest kind of guess, but it was enough to set him stealthily picking his way through the brush in the wake of the two.

He saw, just in time to avoid running smack into them, that just before they reached the road, although now out of the heavier woods, they had stopped and were talking together more excitedly than ever. Something had happened, Jerry realized at once, but he could not puzzle out what it was, although he looked and listened as intently as they seemed to be doing. He was about to give it up in disgust, when he became conscious of a queer droning noise, as of a swarm of bees, or a distant threshing machine. Strangely, the sound did not seem to be coming from the woods or fields about him, but from the blank sky itself.

Then he remembered how Tod had acted at breakfast--how he too, like these men, had been apparently staring into s.p.a.ce. Jerry read the newspapers; he was an eager student of one of the scientific magazines; he had sat in Mr. Fulton's bas.e.m.e.nt workshop and listened to many a discussion of the latest wonders of invention. But even then he did not at once realize that the sound he had been hearing really came from the sky, and that the purring noise was the whir of the propellers of an aeroplane.

He looked for a full minute at the soaring speck against the blue sky before he exclaimed aloud. "I'll be darned--an airship!"

Fortunately, the two men were too engaged to pay any attention to sounds right beside them. But Jerry glanced hastily in their direction as he dropped back into the shelter of a big clump of elderberry. Then he looked again. There could be no doubt the two were following the flight of the aeroplane. They stepped off a few feet to the right and Jerry could see only their shoulders and heads above the bushes. He was curious to see better what they were doing, but he dared not cross the open ground between. So instead he turned his attention again to the soaring man-bird.

It was coming closer. It swung down lower and circled in over Lost Island, barely a hundred feet above the tree-tops. A sudden cry from the two men drew his eager eyes away from the approaching aircraft, but he looked back just in time to witness a wonderful sight.

Motionless, poised like a soaring hawk, the aeroplane, its propeller flashing in the sunlight, hung over Lost Island. For fully six seconds it remained there, not moving an inch. Suddenly it lurched, dropped half the distance to the trees, the yellow planes snapping like gun-shots. It looked as if it would be wrecked, and Jerry started forward as if to go to the rescue. In the half instant he had looked away, the machine had righted and purring like an elephant-size p.u.s.s.y, was darting out over the water. A cheer sounded faintly from Lost Island; Jerry wanted to cheer himself.

Now he heard another kind of sound, but this time there was no doubt in his mind as to its source. There could be no mistaking the put-put-put of a single cylinder motor boat. It was coming up Plum Run, probably from the "city"--Chester. He could see it swinging around into the channel from behind Lost Island. It crept close along sh.o.r.e, and with a final "put!" came to a stop just where the boat had landed the night before with Mr. Fulton. Three men crowded forward and jumped to sh.o.r.e; one of them, Jerry could have sworn, was Mr. Fulton himself.

As if the pilot of the aeroplane had been waiting for their coming he circled back toward the island. He had climbed far into the blue, but came down a steep slant that brought him within two hundred feet of earth almost before one could gather his wits to measure the terrific drop. Out across Plum Run he swept in a wide circle, and Jerry saw that the aeroplane would pa.s.s almost directly overhead.

He had forgotten all about the two men by this time, so keen was his interest in the daring aviator. He certainly had nerve, to go on with his flight after the accident that had so nearly ended his career only a minute back.

And then Jerry was treated to a sight that made him rub his eyes in amazement. The accident was repeated--it had been no accident. Now only a hundred feet up, directly above him, the big machine seemed to quiver with a sudden increase or change of power. A rasping, ear-racking sound--a spurt of blue vapor--and the aeroplane did what no other flying machine had ever done before; it stopped stock-still in mid-air.

Jerry could see every detail of the big machine, its glistening canvas, its polished aluminum motor and taut wires and braces. He could even see the pilot, leaning far over to one side, a smile of satisfaction on his face. Jerry could hardly resist shouting a word of greeting to the bold aeronaut.

He did shout, but it was a cry of horror, for all in a moment, a streak of flame seemed to leap out of the motor, there was a fearful hiss of escaping gas, a report that fairly shook the tree-tops, and with planes crumpling under the tremendous pressure of the air rushing past as it fell, the aeroplane plunged to earth. Yet, even in his intense excitement, Jerry, as he raced to where the flaming machine had fallen, caught at a fleeting impression: There had been two explosions, and the first seemed to come from close beside him.

The aeroplane had come to earth a good hundred yards away, and Jerry made all speed in that direction. He pa.s.sed the spot where the two men had been standing--they were still there, and seemed in no hurry to go to the rescue. One of them, Jerry noticed as he rushed by, shouting "Quick!" had just thrown his gun under his arm, but the action did not impress the boy at the time as having any significance.

He raced on, the flaming wreck now in sight. He fairly flew through the last dense thicket and jumped out, just in time to collide with another hurrying figure. When the two picked themselves up, Jerry saw that it was Tod.

"Hurry, Jerry," he cried. "I'm afraid that poor Billings is killed!"

CHAPTER XII

AN EMPTY RIFLE Sh.e.l.l

In that few steps till they reached the smoking ma.s.s of wreckage, many things became clear to Jerry. He realized that Lost Island had been merely a building ground for Mr. Fulton's experiments in aeronautics, that this sorry looking ruin was his invention. He remembered the long, low shed on the island--that was the workshop.

Then they were at the verge of the twisted and wrecked machine, frantically tugging at rods and splintered wood in an effort to get at the unconscious form covered by the debris. Fortunately there was no great weight to lift, and there was really no fire once the smoke of the explosion had cleared away. In a very few seconds they had dragged the man clear and laid him out flat on his back in a gra.s.sy spot, where Tod remained to fan the man's face while Jerry hurried toward camp for water. Blackened and bleeding as the man was, Jerry readily recognized him as Billings.

He found Budge startled by the explosion and hesitating about leaving the camp unguarded to go to the rescue. Jerry's shouted command brought him galloping across the field with a pail of water, and the two boys made good speed on the way back. They found the man still unconscious but beginning to writhe about in pain.

"I think his leg's broken," cried Tod, his face white with the strain of helpless waiting. "From the way he doubles up every little bit I think he must be hurt inside. The cuts that are bleeding don't seem to be very bad. Let me have the water."

"Do you suppose we really ought to----" began Jerry, but paused, for Budge had answered his question effectually.

Without a word he stooped over the moaning man. Outer clothes were taken off in a trice. Without jarring the man about, almost without moving him, garment by garment Budge gradually removed, replaced, examined, until every part of the man's anatomy had been looked over.

Finally he straightened up, and for the first time the other two, who had stood helplessly by, saw how set and white the young Scout's face was.

"Leg's broken all right," he said slowly. "So's his arm--and at least two ribs. Maybe more. Side's pretty badly torn and I think he's bleeding internally. We've got to get a doctor without a second's loss of time. Tod, you chase along like a good fellow and see how quick you can get to a telephone. Jerry, lend a hand here and we'll fix a splint for his leg--lucky it's fractured below the knee or we'd have a time. I don't know whether I can do anything for his ribs or not. Hustle up, Tod--what you standing there gaping for?"

"Where--where'd you learn to do things like that?" blurted Tod, as he started away.

"What? This?" in surprise. "Every Scout knows how to do simple things like this." And he turned back to his bandaging, for he had brought along the camp kit, with its gauze and cotton. Out came his big jackknife and he cut a thumb-sized willow wand, which he split and trimmed. In less than no time he had snapped the bone back into place and wound a professional looking bandage about the home-made splint. He was just about to turn his attention to the injured side when a great crackling in the brush caused both boys to turn.

Three men came bounding across the open s.p.a.ce, the foremost, Mr. Fulton.

"Is he alive?" he exclaimed before he recognized the two boys.

"Yes," answered Jerry, "but he's hurt pretty bad--inside, Budge says.

Tod just----"

"Tod! He here? Did he go after a doctor?"

"Here he comes now. Did you get the doctor?" shouted Budge and Jerry together.

"I got his office. It's our own Doctor Burgess. I got Mrs. Burgess and she says the doctor is out this way, and she'll get him by telephone--she can locate him better than I could. He ought to be here most any minute. I'm to watch for him along the road." Tod darted back toward the line of bushes that marked the highway.

But it was a good half hour before a shout proclaimed the coming of the doctor, and in that time Budge had had a chance to show more evidences of his Scout training. After a hurried trip back to camp he fashioned bandages that held the broken ribs in place; he bound the scalp wound neatly, and stopped the flow of blood from an ugly scratch on the man's thigh. The others stood about, helping only as he directed. It was with a wholesome respect that they eyed him when the job was finished.

But it took the doctor to sum their admiration up in one crisp "Bully--couldn't have done it better myself."

He felt about gently and at last straightened up and remarked:

"He's good enough to move, but not very far. Where's the nearest farmhouse?"

"Half a mile, nearly," answered Tod.