“Well,” the farmer went on, “the other fellow said he left New York about dark, and he didn’t get here until something like an hour ago. He lit right about where you are now.”
“Why, he went on just as soon as he tinkered up his machine.”
The boys glanced at each other significantly, and then Ben asked:
“He looked like a pickpocket!” burst out the farmer, “with his little black face, and big ears, and hunched up shoulders. And he was, I guess,” he continued, “for we heard him sneaking around the barn before we came out of the house.”
“What did he say for himself?” asked Ben, now satisfied that the man described was the one who had pursued the _Louise_ on the previous afternoon.
The two farmers looked at each other a moment and broke into hearty laughter. The boys regarded them in wonder.
“He said,” one of the men explained, in a moment, “that he was a messenger of the government, taking despatches to the Pacific coast. If he didn’t say almost the same thing you said, you may have my head for a pumpkin.”
“And that,” added the other man, “is what makes us suspect that you chaps are in cahoots. Mighty funny about you fellows both landing down here by our barn, and both telling the same story! I’m a constable,” he went on, “and I’ve a good mind to arrest you all and take you before the squire as suspicious persons. I really ought to.”
“What are we doing that looks suspicious?” demanded Jimmie.
“You’re wandering about in the night time in them consarned contraptions!” declared the other. “That looks suspicious!”
Daylight was now showing in the east, and the sun would be up in a little more than an hour. The boys were positive, from information received from the farmer, that the aviator who had made his appearance on New York bay the previous afternoon was only an hour or so in advance of them. By following on at once they might be able to pass him.
It was their intention now to wheel farther to the south, and so keep out of the path taken by the other. It was their idea to reach the coast, if possible, without the man who was winging his way toward the murderers knowing anything about it.
Of course the fellow would suspect. There was no doubt that he fully understood that the _Louise_ and the _Bertha_ were to be used in a race to the Pacific. Had he been entirely ignorant regarding the plans of the boys, he would never have found it necessary to follow the _Louise_ over New York bay and Manhattan island for the purpose of ascertaining her capability as a flier.