m promise to connect him with the
shed; so in case any row happened to be pulled off here he'd know it.
Hard for him to understand he's out of the game with that crippled leg.
He's been doing things all his life. I think he's the most wonderful
old codger I ever knew."

"And that's where you're just about right, Larry. We must make him
tell us some of his travel yarns tonight while we sit around," Elephant
declared.

CHAPTER XIV

SOMETHING DOING

"I don't suppose any of you fellows have seen signs of the Chief and
his men returning with any prisoners?" Frank asked, a little later, as
he entered the shed to see how the arrangements for the evening spread
were progressing.

"Nary a sign," replied Larry, who was bending over the stove, very red
in the face, and yet grinning with pleasure; for he dearly loved to
handle the pots and pans on an occasion like this, and was really a
clever cook.

"Same here!" spoke up Elephant, who was fanning himself near by, and
sniffing at the odors that arose from the fire, as though he wished the
time would come when he might partake of the feast Larry had prepared.

"Then it looks as if the raid hasn't panned out a success so far,"
remarked Frank. "I'm sorry, too, because I believe I'd sleep sounder
if I only knew our friend Jules was caged once more."

"Then you really think he'd be mean enough to try and burn the shed
down, and destroy your aeroplanes?" asked Larry.

"Oh! from all I've heard about Jules, he'd never balk at a little thing
like that," Frank continued. "The scoundrel who could shoot at two
boys sailing hundreds of feet in the air, and take chances of sending
them down to a terrible death, wouldn't hold back at anything, in my
opinion."

"The Colonel says he'd just like to get in touch with him," remarked
Elephant, with a chuckle. "I can just see the old chap dancing around
with his war paint on, swinging that crutch of his to beat the band.
Wow! wouldn't he just make mincemeat out of Jules though, if ever they
met up?"

"Don't you forget it, Colonel Josiah still burns with the same spirit
that carried him through a bunch of tight places. He's promised to
tell us all about his ride with Gomez in Cuba during the war with
Spain. And mark me, it'll be worth listening to. He never yarns, and
has the proofs to show for every story he tells. That's the best part
of it, because you know all the time you're listening to real hard
facts, and not fictio