"Say," bolted out Silas, holding on with both hands as they crossed the railroad tracks and struck a winding country road due north, "isn't-isn't this going pretty fast?"

"Oh, this is just starting up," declared Andy.

"I never rode in one of these before," said Silas. "Those sneaks won't get much ahead of this, I'm thinking."

Andy thought this, too. There was not the least doubt in his mind that Dale Billings and Gus Talbot were already on the trail of the old leather pocketbook. All they could do, however, was to steal their way on some slow freight train. Still, they might induce someone to go for them or with them by faster travel. They might get an automobile, even if they had to steal one. Andy felt that it was pretty hopeless trying to make Dale or Gus respectable. He had intended, in the liberality of his heart, to put them on their feet. Here, the first thing, Dale was acting the part of a sneak and a thief.

It felt good to Andy to get back to his old business once more. Once out on a clear, level road, he made the machine fairly hum. Various e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns back of him told that his unexperienced pa.s.senger was having spasms. In considerably less than an hour the machine reached Wade. They were soon at the site of the Collins farmhouse.

"There's the old shed, see?" spoke Silas, as Andy directed the machine across the fields.

"Yes, I see," said Andy, "and it's a sight for sore eyes."

He halted the machine and jumped out as they reached the fence of a pasture lot containing several flocks of sheep. In one corner of it stood the old shed. Silas was worked up to quite as high a pitch of suspense and expectation as Andy himself.

"There's the shelf!" he cried, as Andy pa.s.sed through the doorway.

"Yes, but-my old clothes are not here."

"Oh, don't say that!" almost choked out Silas.

"It is true," said Andy, getting down from the keg he was standing on.

"Here's a lot of old truck, wagon hardware and hoops and a grindstone, but the clothes are gone."

Silas uttered a dismal groan.

"Oh, I'm a hoodoo!" he declared, banging his head first on one side and then on the other. "Here I've made you all this trouble, all for nothing. But, say," added the farmer eagerly, "some one must have taken those clothes. We may trace them down. And say, some one has been in this shed since I left it yesterday."

"Why do you think so?"

"Someone has slept here. See, the floor is covered with straw. Some tramp, I suppose. It rained last night, and he came in here for shelter.

Oh, whoop! whoopee!"

At first Andy thought his companion had taken leave of his senses. With a Comanche-like yell Silas had made a spring. Then a method to his apparent madness was disclosed.

Andy saw him pull a wadded ma.s.s out of a hole formerly used to admit a stove pipe. Andy gasped with gladness and hope.

"My clothes," he said, "sure enough!"

"Don't you see?" said the jubilant Silas, dancing a joyful hornpipe. "It rained. The tramp who stayed here stuffed up the hole to shut out the rain. Say, sure your clothes?"

"Yes," said Andy, searching them.

"And the pocketbook?"

"Here it is," cried our hero in a strained tone that trembled. "Yes, the pocketbook is here all right."

"Hurrah!" yelled Silas Pierce at the top of his voice.

CHAPTER XXV-GOOD-BY TO AIRSHIP ANDY

"A visitor for yo', Ma.r.s.e Andy," announced Scipio.

"It's only me," said Mr. Chase, stepping into the sitting room of the aerodrome at the Parks' camp.

"Well, no one is more welcome, Mr. Chase," declared Andy heartily. "Come in, sit down, and make yourself at home."

"Not till I ask a certain question," dissented the grizzled lockup-keeper of Princeville.

"Fire away," smiled Andy. "What's the question?"

"Can you get me a job?"

"Right off, and a good one," responded Andy promptly. "My employer, Mr.

Parks, is going into the airship line as a regular professional, and I don't know a better all-round handy man I would recommend sooner than you."

"All right," said Chase, with a sigh of relief, dropping into a chair and placing a bulging, ancient carpet bag on the floor. "I'm done with lockups."

"Is that so, Mr. Chase?"

"It is, and with that conscienceless old grafter, Talbot. You know I told you I was waiting for something when I last saw you."

"Yes," nodded Andy.

"It was Wandering d.i.c.k."

"So you told me."

"I sent that tramp after him. He found him. I got from d.i.c.k what I wanted, paid for it, resigned my position, and now I am here."

"Quick work."

"And here's what I got from Wandering d.i.c.k."

Chase extended to Andy a neatly folded paper.

"And what is this, Mr. Chase?" asked Andy.

"A confession and affidavit."

"How does that interest me?"

"Read and see."