masks like cracksmen
use--say, tell me, Frank, what's coming over our quiet country up here
lately? There was the affair over in a neighboring town, when yeggmen
broke into the bank, and robbed it; and now here you tell me we've had a
little smash-up on our own account, with the burglars leaving cards
behind them. But what d'ye think now anybody would want to go poking
around in our shop for, Frank?"

His cousin was looking very grave.

"Well, you forget that we've been working overtime this winter on
several little inventions that, if we ever complete them, will make a
stir in the world of aviation."

"Jupiter, I had let that slip away from me, for a fact, Frank!"
exclaimed the other, looking rather startled.

"Of course, it sounds pretty big for us to even imagine that any party
could take enough interest in what the Bird boys are doing to come up
here, intending to break into the shop, and learn our secrets; but what
else can we think, tell me that, Andy?"

"But they wouldn't find out much, even if they had six hours to poke
around our shop in, would they, Frank?"

"I guess you're right, because we've made it a rule to be cautious
enough to hide our work and cover our tracks as we go along. But let's
get busy now, and put the plane into shape, so we can slip along home.
And as we work we can keep on talking as much as we want to," Frank went
on to say.

The farmer and Felix still loitered around, determined to see the
wonderful contrivance make a start, and expecting the greatest treat of
their lives, when that event occurred.

Such experienced workers as the two Bird boys had now become would find
little or no trouble about carrying out the work they had on hand. Every
steel wire guy was kept as taut as a fiddle string; and by the time they
were done handling the aeroplane it would be in apple-pie shape for
work.

"Did they smash much in the shop, Frank?" Andy asked after they had
been working some little time, and making fair progress.

"Why, no, it didn't seem to me that they took the time to do great
damage; and that's why I fancy they were scared off, somehow or other.
They went in a hurry, or else they would never have forgotten those
things. And when I looked around I made up my mind that they were just
mad because they didn't find our machine at home, and so tried to let us
know that fact."

"Perhaps it was a second detachment of the same crowd that came out
here?" suggested Andy, speculativel