e."

Tom well knew the uselessness of the latter plan. He and Mr. Damon had
tried several times to get a glimpse of the craft Andy had made, but
without success. As to the other alternative--that of waiting until the
last moment--Tom feared that, too, would be futile.

"For," he reasoned, "just before the race there will be a lot of
confusion, officials will be here and there, scattered over the ground,
they will be hard to find, and it will be almost useless to protest
then. Andy will enter the race, and there is a possibility that he may
win. Almost any one could with a machine like the Humming-Bird. It's
the machine almost as much as the operator, in a case like this."

"But you can protest after the race," suggested Mr. Damon.

"That would be little good, in case Andy beat me. The public would say
I was a sorehead, and jealous. No, I've either got to stop Andy before
the race, or not at all. I will try to think of a plan."

Tom did think of several, but abandoned them one after the other. He
tried to get a glimpse inside the tent where the Foger aeroplane Was
housed, but it was too closely guarded. Andy himself was not much in
evidence, and Tom only had fleeting glimpses of the bully.

Meanwhile he and Mr. Damon, together with their machinist, were kept
busy. As Tom's craft was fully protected by patents now, he had no
hesitation in taking it out, and it was given several severe tests
around the aerial course. It did even better than Tom expected of it,
and he had great hopes.

Always, though, there were two things that worried him. One was his
father's illness, and the other the uneasiness he felt as to what Andy
Foger might do. As to the former, the wireless reports indicated that
Mr. Swift was doing as well as could be expected, but his improvement
was not rapid. Regarding the latter worry, Tom saw no way of getting
rid of it.

"I've just got to wait, that's all," he thought.

The day before the opening of the meet, Tom and Mr. Damon had given the
Humming-Bird a grueling tryout. They had taken her high up--so high
that no prying eyes could time them, and there Tom had opened the motor
for all the power in it. They had flashed through space at the rate of
one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

"If we can only do that in the race, the ten thousand dollars is mine!"
exulted Tom, as he slanted the nose of the aeroplane toward the earth.

The day of the race dawned clear and beautiful. Tom was up early, fo