ame thing
anyhow. Let's find a place to stack our wheels, and get around. The
Chief will let us go inside the lines, for he knows we belong to
Frank's crowd, and are needed in the push-off."

Just as Larry had said the big police head met them with a warm smile
of welcome. His sympathies were positively with the Bird boys, though
he would do his duty impartially as he saw it. But Larry and his
friends had brought him a piece of rare good luck in the capture of the
escaped convict, and for this alone the Chief had a warm feeling in his
big heart for them all.

Presently a cry went up.

"They're coming! The Bird boys are headed this way, fellows! Get back
everybody, and give 'em plenty of room to land! Move back! Make way
there!"

The police assisted in driving the dense crowds still farther away from
the open campus, where the aeroplane would be likely to drop under
Frank's clever manipulation of the levers.

It happened that the big campus of the high school was entirely
destitute of trees, being in reality a wide field, on which many of the
town sports took place from time to time. In this way it offered a
very good starting point for an affair of this sort.

Every sound was hushed as the biplane circled the field, like a bird
seeking a favorable spot on which to alight. Then Frank headed
straight for the vacant place, left on purpose for the second aeroplane.

When he landed and, after running a short distance on the green, came
to a full stop, a storm of cheers broke out. Evidently the Bird boys
had a host of warm adherents among the attendant crowds.

Frank did not allow himself to pay the least attention to the shouting
lookers-on. They would never see him bowing and scraping before the
race had even been started, like Percy had done. Time enough for all
that later on.

"Look at him, would you?" said Larry, indignantly, as he joined the
young aviators. "Percy thinks all that shouting was for him. See him
waving his hand and laughing! Why, he's being crowned with the wreath
of victor already, in imagination! Bah! he makes me tired, that's
what!"

"Don't pay any attention to him, Larry," smiled Frank. "I think he
does that on purpose to make some of us mad. Percy generally has a
reason in everything he does. He's a sly one. It seems to give him a
heap of pleasure, and I'm sure it doesn't hurt us one little bit. Let
him have his fun."

"Well, perhaps he's smart enough to know this