e officer
and a squad. _Lee going to prison!_ Bill could not believe it. And Lee
had told Mrs. Sherman that he would never be taken to Leavenworth alive.
Bill shuddered.

Stunned by his emotions, Bill lay motionless in the cramped quarters he
had chosen. Presently he heard a light footstep. It stopped close beside
him and Bill, raising himself on his arm, peered over the edge of his
small quarters at the back of Frank Anderson, who was bending over the
engine of Horace Jardin's plane. No one else was in the hangar. Bill
heard the scrape of steel on steel and saw Frank slip a small
screwdriver into his pocket. Then Bill dropped out of sight, and soon he
heard Frank retreating to the small door of the hangar where he stood
for a moment looking out before he went out.

Five minutes later he returned with Horace Jardin.

Horace as usual was sputtering.

"I tell you, Andy," he said with his usual bluster, "this is the _last_
day I will fool with that plane. Absolutely the last! If she doesn't go
before night, she needn't go at all. I will get rid of her. Dad wrote me
this morning that he had had a letter from the chief mechanician here,
and what the fellow says about the plane looks as though the company
had put one over on us. Dad won't stand for that. He is going to make
them replace the car. But they can't have this one back. I will sell it
sure as shooting! I need money."

"What's your price?" asked Frank.

Jardin registered deep thought. "I need five hundred," he said.

"I will buy it," replied Frank. "I can make a little on it if I sell it
for junk, and you can't afford to dicker around like that. It would be
out of place for a Jardin to be dealing in second-hand stuff. Everyone
knows I have nothing."

"How do you come to have the five hundred then?" asked Horace
suspiciously.

Frank flushed but did not hesitate.

"A present from my grandmother," he said, trusting to luck that Jardin
would not know that the lady had been dead for many years.

"Well, if she doesn't go by to-night, she is yours for the five
hundred," promised Jardin. "I wonder where those mechanicians are. Let's
go look them up."

Together the boys went out, and Bill, feeling it was high time to
escape, leaped out of the plane and dodged out the door.

Across the field, Ernest, the two mechanicians, Frank and Horace were
talking excitedly.

Bill joined the group.

CHAPTER XI

"No use talkin' Mr. Jardin," one of the men blurt