But Elizabeth called them before Mr. Fulton was ready for their services. Heaping platters of beautifully browned perch testified both to her skill and that of the boys.

"Lunch time already?" exclaimed Mr. Fulton in surprise. "Where's the morning gone to?" But he showed that if he hadn't noted the pa.s.sage of time, his stomach had. As he watched the brown pile diminish under Mr.

Fulton's vigorous attack, Phil threatened to go back to the river and start fishing again. "You oughtn't to be eating fish," he joked. "Birds are more your style. Better let me go out and shoot you a duck--or a sparrow; they're more in season."

But Mr. Fulton was at last satisfied, as were all the boys. He sauntered back at once to the hangar. "Guess you chaps can give me a shoulder now, and we'll take her out to daylight. After that you keep out of the way till the show starts--about four o'clock. All but two of you, that is. There's a bearing to grind on the lathe, and a couple of sets of threads to recut."

Tod could not have been driven away, so Jerry volunteered to be the other helper. The whole troop made easy work of running out the _Skyrocket_. After standing about admiringly a while, they all scattered, some of them, Jerry learned from their conversation, to try to teach Elizabeth how to catch ba.s.s. Jerry grinned to himself at this; he had heard Tod tell of the exploits of this slip of a girl, and no boy in camp could do more with a four-ounce ba.s.s rod than she could.

Tod and Jerry went at once at their grinding, and by two o'clock all was in readiness. Every rod and strut and bolt and screw was in place, tight as a drum. The nickel and bra.s.s of the bearings flashed in the sun; the _Skyrocket_ looked fit as a fiddle. There was still a little gasoline in the gallon can that they had been using for testing the motor, and Tod let it gurgle into the gasoline tank that curved back on the framework just above the pilot's seat.

"Try her out, dad," he urged.

"I'll try the motor," agreed Mr. Fulton, "but I'm not going up until there's somebody around to watch her go through her paces. I've got my shoulder out of splints to-day, but I don't dare use it when there's any danger of strain. Think you're going to have the nerve to go up with me, son?"

Jerry opened his eyes wide. This was the first he had heard of any such plan as _that_.

"Think I'm going to let you go up alone, with a twisted wing that might give out?" demanded Tod scornfully. "Huh! I'll take her up alone if you'll let me."

"I'll let you fill her up with gas, if you're so ambitious as all that.

I see an automobile throwing up the dust on the last hill of the town road. I expect it's our friends. I'll let one of the boys row me across to meet them. Ask Billings, if you can't find the wrench to unscrew the cap of the gasoline reservoir."

Billings proved to be sound asleep, napping off the effects of over-indulgence in browned perch, so the boys decided to await the return of Mr. Fulton, a search of the workshop having failed to reveal the wrench, and none of the Stillsons being big enough to take the big nut that capped the fifty-gallon tank sunk in the ground on the shady north side of the hangar. So they sat down beside it and waited for Mr.

Fulton to come back with his visitors.

They finally appeared, Lewis and Harris standing about and listening in unenthusiastic silence as Mr. Fulton glowingly explained the whyness of the various devices and improvements that made the _Skyrocket_ a real invention. They did not even venture an occasional question, although it was easy to see that they were impressed.

"What are they made of? Wood?" exclaimed Jerry in fierce impatience.

"Do you know--if it wasn't that we've simply got to beat out those other fellows, I'd almost like to see these two sleepies get left. I don't like them a little bit!"

"Huh! Ask me if I do. They give me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. Never did like them, and ever since they acted so nasty about that accident I just plumb hate 'em. You'd think dad was trying to sandbag them or something like that. Just listen to them grouching around. I'd hate to be a woman and married to one of them and have dinner late."

Jerry had seated himself on the top of the reservoir, the cap between his legs. He caught hold of it with his two hands. "It's too blamed bad your dad couldn't hitch up with Uncle Sam!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, and if you believe what the papers say, we're going to need it, too. We might be mixed up in the big war any day."

"Well, I expect we'd better not sit here ga.s.sing any longer. Tod, chase over and ask your dad where that wrench is--unless you've got a notion I can twist this thing off with my hands." He gave a playful tug as if to carry out his boast.

"Say!" he cried, "what do you know about this!"

"About what?" asked Tod lazily, a dozen feet away on the way to his father.

"This," answered Jerry, giving the big cap a twirl with his forefinger.

"Some careful of your gasoline you people are!" The cap was loose.

"Something funny about that," declared Tod, coming back. "I saw Billings screw that on last time myself--with the wrench."

There _was_ something decidedly funny about it, as it turned out. At Tod's alarmed call Mr. Fulton came on the run. "It's been tampered with," was his immediate decision. "Screw on the pump, boys, and force up a gallon or so, If there isn't water in that gas we're the luckiest folks alive. I might have known those crooks had a final shot in their locker!"

"What's the idea?" asked Mr. Harris, with the first interest he had showed.

"Somebody's trying to block the game, that's what!" sputtered Mr.

Fulton. "Here, boys, take the canfull in and put it in the shop engine.

If she can take it I guess we're worrying for nothing."

For a moment or so it looked as if that were the case; the engine chugged away in its usual steady manner. But once the gasoline was gone that the boys had been unable to empty out of its tank, it began to kick a little. Within another minute it had stopped dead.

"Show's over," announced Mr. Fulton grimly. "It's way after three o'clock now, and we can't hope to get a new supply from town this side of dark. If we just hadn't sent your auto back!"

"You mean to tell us that you cannot go up--that there will be no flight!" cried Mr. Lewis, making up for all his previous lack of excitement in one burst of protest. "But, man--it's the last day of the option."

"It's worse than that," countered Mr. Fulton. "It's the day before the beginning of a new option, held by the people who watered that gas--and at least a dozen other sneaking tricks."

"But you told us that you would--why, you guaranteed us a trial flight."

"I said you didn't have to buy till you'd seen it work, yes. I'm in your hands, gentlemen. After midnight to-night I'm in other hands--and you're going to lose the chance of your lifetime to secure for your government something that may prove the deciding factor in that terrific war you're carrying on over there. I'm sure you don't doubt my good faith."

"Faith! It's performances we want."

"Give me gas and I'll give you a demonstration that can't help but convince you. I can't use my motor on water. I was willing to risk my neck--and my boy's--by going up and trying this contraption with my left hand--but I can't accomplish the impossible."

"But surely you don't expect us to buy a pig in a poke----"

"This is no pig--it's a hawk. Will you do this? Will you buy the machine and the idea on approval? I'm pledged. If it isn't sold by night to you, to-morrow those other people will come with cash in hand----"

"Harris, you know," drawled Mr. Lewis, "I half believe the fellow's trying to flimflam us, you know. How do we know?"

"How do you know!" Mr. Fulton's eyes flashed fire. "I'll have you know I'm a man of honor."

"Sure--sure," agreed Mr. Harris conciliatingly. "But that's not the idea, old chap. We don't buy this for ourselves, you understand. We're merely agents, and responsible to our chief. What'd we say if we came back with a bag of pot metal for our money?"

"What will you say to your conscience when your enemy drops destruction onto your brave countrymen in the trenches from the Fulton Aeroplane?

That's what you'd better be asking yourselves."

"But we've got to be cautious."

"Cautious! If you saw the goose that laid the golden egg getting off the nest, you'd hold the egg up to a candle to see if it was fresh!"

"Well, now, Mr. Fulton----" began Mr. Harris, when he was interrupted by Jerry, who had been holding himself in as long as was humanly possible.

"Don't let's waste any more time talking, Mr. Fulton. Tod and I have got a scheme that will pull us out on top yet--even if it does mean helping these doubters against their will!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE BIG PLAY