h where it belonged!
Kick me, won't you, please, cousin; I deserve it."

"Well, I guess not. Didn't I make just as bad a break last week? I guess
now, no boy's perfect. And I don't mind the walk home a bit. Fact is, it
ought to do us both good, because we don't stretch our legs enough, as
it is."

"You're the boss chum, Frank!"

"Then you're another. See what you get for calling me names. But when
you've fastened down that plane so it can't get into trouble, if the
wind should rise in the night, perhaps we'd better be hunting up this
Felix Boggs, and then start for home.

"Well, I'm glad we'll get there in the night-time, Frank, even if the
moon does happen to be nearly full."

"What makes you say that, Andy?"

"Because, when an aviator leaves his wounded machine in a field, and
walks home, it makes him feel like a dog with his tail between his legs,
sneaking along back of the fences."

Frank Bird laughed merrily at the picture drawn by his cousin and then
stooping again, with a few deft turns of a heavy cord, helped Andy
secure the broken plane so it would not get into trouble during the
coming night.

After which the two boys headed toward the barns belonging to the farm,
which just showed their tops above the adjacent rise.

While they are walking there it may be a good time for us to introduce
the pair of young aviators to such readers as have not had the good
fortune to meet them in previous volumes of this series of stories.

The cousins lived in the town of Bloomsbury, a thriving place situated
on the southern shore of Sunrise Lake, which was a magnificent body of
water, said to be nearly seventeen miles long by three wide, in places.

This lake having hilly shores that were heavily wooded in spots, and
with numerous fine coves, afforded grand sport to the young people of
Bloomsbury, both winter and summer.

The railroad skirted one shore and then passed through the town. Some
miles off arose a lofty peak known as Old Thundertop, which had a road
running part way up its side. The summit was believed to be utterly
inaccessible to mortal man until one day the Bird boys managed to
accomplish the wonderful feat by the aid of their aeroplane.

They had been spending all their spare time, when not in school, working
upon the line that seemed to have a strange fascination for them.
Frank's father was one of the best known doctors in town, a man of
considerable means, and with a firm faith in his boys, so