"You're given to doing such things for nothing!" rejoined Parks sarcastically. "I recall some of your exploits in that line in the rural districts when you were with the circus."

"See here," broke out the other angrily, "what is it your business?"

"Just this," retorted Parks steadily; "we're trying to run a decent enterprise here, and such persons as you have got to give an account of themselves or vacate. What's your game, anyhow?"

"I'm up to no game that I know of," sullenly muttered the man called Gib Duske. "If you must know, I've entered my airship for the race."

"You!" exclaimed Parks; "'Your airship!' Where did you get an airship?"

"I suppose I have friends to back me like anybody else when they see a show for their money. I'm an old balloonist. A syndicate, knowing my professional skill, has put up the capital to give me a try."

"Oh, they have?" observed Parks incredulously. "I'd like to see your syndicate."

"And I've got my machine," declared Duske excitedly, "I'd have you know.

I've heard you're entered. Fair play, then, and I'm going to beat the field."

Parks eyed his companion in speculative silence for a minute or two.

Then he said:

"You talk about fair play. Good! You'll get it here, if you're square.

If you're not, you had best take my warning right now, and cut out for good. There will be no balloon slitting like there was at a certain race you were in two years ago out West. The first freak or false play you make to queer an honest go, I'll expose you to the field."

"I've got no such intentions," mumbled Duske, with a malicious glance at his challenger.

"See you don't, that's all," retorted Parks, and walked off. "You noticed that man?" he added, as he rejoined Andy, who had listened with interest to the conversation.

"Yes, particularly," answered Andy, really able to tell his employer more than he dared.

"Whenever you run across him," went on the Air King, "keep your eyes wide open. I'd like to know just how much truth there is in his talk about entering for the race."

"Is he a bad man, Mr. Parks?" inquired Andy.

"He was once a confidence man," explained the aeronaut. "When I knew him he was giving balloon ascensions at a circus. He had a hired crowd picking pockets while people were staring up into the air watching his trapeze acts. Once at a race he slyly slit the balloon of an antagonist, who was nearly killed by the fall."

"I'll find out just what he is doing," exclaimed Andy.

"You can manage, for he knows me," observed Parks.

Andy said no more. He was pretty sure from the name and description that the fellow whom his employer had just called down was the enemy that Mr.

Morse had told him about. He wished he could tell Mr. Parks all that he knew and surmised, but he could not break his promise to the inventor.

"h.e.l.lo, there, Ridley!" hailed Parks, as they came to where a lithe, undersized man was volubly boasting to an open-mouthed crowd about the superior merits of his machine. "Bragging again?"

"Go on, John Parks," called the little man good-naturedly. "I'm not in your cla.s.s, so what are you jumping on me for?"

"Oh, just to stir you up and keep you encouraged. I hear you've got a machine that will land just as steadily and balance on top of a telegraph-pole as on a prairie."

"That's pretty near the truth, John Parks," declared Ridley. "I can't make a mile in thirty seconds, but I can get to the ground on a straight dive ahead of your clumsy old _Eagle_, or any other racer on the field."

"Why, Ridley," retorted Parks, in a vaunting way, "I've got a boy here who can give you a handicap and double discount you."

"Is that him?" inquired Ridley, with a stare at Andy.

"That's him out of harness," laughed Parks. "Like to see him do something?"

"Just to show you're all bl.u.s.ter, I would," answered Ridley.

"Machine in order?"

"True as a trivet."

"Andy, give them a sample of a real bird diving, will you?"

"All right," said Andy.

He had not been tutored by his skillful employer vainly. Andy was in excellent practice. He got into the clear, started up the Ridley machine, and took a shoot on a straight slant up into the air about one hundred and fifty feet.

A cry of surprise went up from the watching group as Andy suddenly let the biplane slide on a sharp angle towards the ground, shutting off the power at the same time.

Again reaching a fair height, he tipped the biplane on an angle of five degrees and came down so fast that the spectators thought something was wrong. When the machine was within a yard of the ground, Andy brought it to the horizontal with ease and made a pretty landing.

"Well, Ridley," rallied John Parks, as the stupefied owner of the machine stared in open-mouthed wonder, "what do you say to that?"

"What do I say," repeated Ridley. "I say, look out for your laurels, John Parks. That boy is a wonder!"

CHAPTER XI-SPYING ON THE ENEMY

"There is that man again, Mr. Parks."

"Duske? Yes."

"Shall I follow him?"

"I'd like to know just what he is about."

"I would like to try and find out," declared Andy, with more eagerness than his employer suspected.

"All right, Andy; look him up a bit. Watch out for trouble, though, for he is a dangerous man."

It was late in the afternoon of the day succeeding Andy's sensational performance, and Parks and his young a.s.sistant were again on the aviation field.

Andy had made out the man whom Parks had called Duske carrying two cans of gasoline past a tent. He did not seem to have observed Parks, and Andy did not believe that he knew him. Andy left the side of his employer, and, circulating around kept Duske in sight from a distance.

The boy had not said anything to Mr. Morse about Duske. He felt certain that Duske was one of the enemies the inventor had described. Just at present, however, Andy considered it would be unwise to disturb Morse.

The latter had almost completed the new airship. His mind was absorbed in his task, and he was working day and night.