mberton?" exclaimed the other.

"Just him and no one else. Why, he was that anxious to let the police
know he had seen an aeroplane steering away straight into the southwest
early this morning, that as soon as he warped his boat to the wharf,
Todd, like a public-spirited citizen, hiked away for Headquarters as
fast as he could run, hardly waiting long enough to understand about the
bank being robbed, and Percy's biplane being used by the thieves as a
means of making a quick get-away."

Andy turned his head and looked in his cousin's face.

"Public-spirited citizen go hang!" he said, contemptuously. "After what
we saw, Frank, it's easy for us to understand just what it was made Todd
want the police to do all their hunting away off in the southwest."

"Yes, what do you think was his object?" asked Frank, as he held the
aeroplane just about five hundred feet above the level ground, covered
by forests, as in most places around to the north of Bloomsbury, though
occasionally they ran across farms that looked like oases in the
dessert.

"Why, that's as plain as the nose on my face," replied Andy, "and nobody
ever had any trouble about seeing that, I guess. Todd wanted to get in a
little bit of assistance for his friends, the hoboes who looted the bank;
and he could do them the best thing ever by turning suspicion in nearly
the opposite quarter. If Chief Waller could be assured that the last
seen of the biplane before it vanished in the distance it was heading
into the southwest, of course he'd take all his men off in that
direction; and the bank robbers, hiding perhaps around the northern end
of Lake Sunrise, would be free to do whatever they wanted. Do I hit
about the same guess that you do, Frank?"

"You've just echoed what I had in mind," returned his cousin, "only
I've had more time to think it over, and perhaps gone a little further
than you could."

"As how?" demanded the other, promptly, just as Frank knew he would.

"Why, you know, it struck us as queer that these fellows should want to
hang out within twenty miles of the town where they'd just made a
successful raid on the bank. It would stand to reason that they'd be
only too glad to cut for it, after getting possession of Percy's fine
new aeroplane, and by keeping on north, reach Lake Ontario, and perhaps
fly across to Canada, where they'd be safe."

"Yes, sure; we talked that over before, Frank, and came to the
conclusion that either they'd met with some