nd then, too, it's hard to get a good start from the street.
I'll leave it in some barn until I want to go back."

Tom sent his craft down, in order to pick out a safe place for a
landing. He was then over the suburbs of the city, and was following the
line of a straight country road.

"Looks like a good place there," he murmured. "I'll shut off the motor,
and vol-plane down."

Suiting the action to the word, Tom shut off his power. The little craft
dipped toward the ground, but the lad threw up the forward planes, and
caught a current of air that sent him skimming along horizontally.

As he got nearer to the ground, he saw the figure of a lad riding a
bicycle along the country highway. Something about the figure struck Tom
as being familiar, and he recognized the cyclist a moment later.

"It's Andy Foger!" said Tom, in a whisper. "I wondered where he had been
keeping himself since he damaged the Butterfly. Evidently he doesn't
dare venture back to Shopton. Well, here's where I give him a scare."

Tom's monoplane was making no more noise, now, than a soaring bird. He
was gliding swiftly toward the earth, and, with the plan in his mind of
administering some sort of punishment to the bully, he aimed the machine
directly at him.

Nearer and nearer shot the monoplane, as quietly as a sheet of paper
might fall. Andy pedaled on, never looking up nor behind him, A moment
later, as Tom threw up his headplanes, to make his landing more easy,
and just as he swooped down at one side of the cyclist, our hero let out
a most alarming yell, right into Andy's ear.

"Now I've got you!" he shouted. "I'll teach you to slash my aeroplane!
Come with me!"

Andy gave one look at the white bird-like apparatus that had flown up
beside him so noiselessly, and, being too frightened to recognize Tom's
voice, must have thought that he had been overtaken by some supernatural
visitor.

Andy gave a yell like an Indian, about to do a stage scalping act, and
fairly dived over the handlebars of his bicycle, sprawling in a heap on
the dusty road.

"I guess that will hold you for a while," observed Tom, grimly, as he
put on the ground-brake and brought his monoplane to a stop not far from
the fallen rider.

CHAPTER V--A MYSTERIOUS MAN

For several minutes Andy Foger did not arise. He remained prostrate in
the dust, and Tom, observing him, thought perhaps the bully might have
been seriously injured. But, a little later, Andy cautious