Silently and quickly he loosened the tucked-in sheets and blankets. He rolled up the sleeves of his pajama coat

"Now," he said, "let's take a look before we roll the bed away."

Clutching the dictionary in both hands, Frank slid to the floor where he crouched, shivering from excitement. Bill, on his knees, folded a handkerchief over the flashlight to dim it, then pressed the b.u.t.ton.

Slowly he turned it under the bed. The dim light rested on a tumbled shock of hair and a flushed face, pillowed uncomfortably on a cramped and doubled arm.

Snores rattled furiously from the open mouth. Sleeping the sleep of the weary, the thief lay completely at their mercy.

"Gosh!" said Bill as he looked.

"Gee-roosalem!" murmured Frank.

With a bang the big dictionary slipped from his hands and landed on the floor.

The intruder with a violent start opened his eyes and looked at them.

CHAPTER IX

Setting the flash so it would not go out, Bill laid it down on the floor, cried "Oh, you robber!" and beginning to laugh continued until he had to lie on the floor and roll around. Frank, laughing, too, carefully shoved back the bed. The intruder sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"I guess the joke is on me," he said.

It was Horace Jardin!

"This beats everything in my young life," said Bill as soon as he could speak. "What are you doing here anyhow, scaring the life out of two poor little boys on their very first night in boarding-school? Don't you know you are making us break rules the first shot?"

Horace laughed sheepishly.

"I was going to give you a good old scare," he said, "but I was so tired and it took you so long to get here that I went to sleep. But I bet you are surprised to see me here."

"Here at this school, or under our beds?" quizzed Bill.

"Both," said Horace.

"How did it happen?" asked Frank.

"It was the airplane," explained Horace. "This is the only school in the country where they let you fool with this air stuff, and so I told dad that it was no use bribing me with an airplane to stay in school all the year if I couldn't go where I could use it. I have learned to fly, by the way. Dad paid a dollar a minute to have me taught. I tell you I am a whiz! It cost him five hundred dollars for my tuition, and two thousand more to mend a plane I broke, but he was so pleased at the way I learned that he didn't mind the bills at all. So here I am, and when I heard you were coming--well, I was certainly tickled! So I sneaked in here as soon as the bell rang for lights out, and first I knew I was asleep."

"From the way you were snoring, I should say first thing you knew you were awake," laughed Frank.

"Guess I will beat it now," said Horace. "There is no school to-morrow--just the organization of cla.s.ses, and we can go down to the hangars and see my plane. You ought to see those d.i.n.ky little hangars!

Not much like the big government ones. There are only three planes. Mine and one belonging to the school, and one that belongs to a fellow from Toronto. It is a peach, and he thinks he can beat me in a race. We are going to try it out some day if we can ever get up without an instructor. They are awful strict here. I will have a deuce of a time if they catch me in here."

"I should think you had better fade away then," said Frank uneasily. "We don't any of us want to get in wrong."

"Well, I am glad you have come, fellows," whispered Jardin, tiptoeing to the door. "Put out that flash, Bill! You don't want to tell everybody what we are doing. See you in the morning. Goodnight!".

He slipped out, and the boys silently crept back into their beds.

"That beats all!" exclaimed Bill after a long pause when he decided by Frank's breathing that he was still awake. "I surely thought we were quit of that chap."

"You always have it in for him, haven't you?" said Frank. "You are a funny one. Always cracking up that Indian orderly of yours as such a peach and a straight fellow, and forever knocking a first-cla.s.s good sport like Jardin."

"I didn't mean to knock Horace," said Bill, "but he does seem--well, I don't know just what!"

"I guess that's about it," sneered Frank. "Just about it! You don't know _why_ you knock him or what about, because you have just made up your mind to do it. Well, suit yourself! I like Jardin and he is good enough for me, and that's all I have to say about it. You can do as you please; don't mind me."

"Don't get so sore," said Bill. "I told you back home that I was going to treat him decently, and I am."

He turned on his pillow and was silent, and both boys were asleep in about a minute. They were very tired.

Early in the morning Jardin introduced the Toronto boy, and they found him a very quiet, pleasant chap who made no pretensions of any sort.

Together they walked down to the hangars.

"How do you learn to fly in the civilian schools?" asked Bill of the Toronto boy, whose name was Ernest Breeze.

"It is about the same as the government schools," said the boy. "You know something about flying, don't you?"

"A little," replied Bill modestly. "I can control the machine on the field, but I have never been up. There are reasons that keep me from flying but I hope to some day."

"Well, we learned on an old style Bright," said Ernest. "With a dual control, you know. You take the same seat you will always occupy, you follow every movement of the instructor beside you, and you sort of feel that you are managing the levers all alone, until you sense the tricks of the machine and learn a few things like rising from the field, manoeuvering and landing. It is a good deal easier than it is to drive an automobile."

"That's the way you start at the aviation schools in the Army," said Frank. "But there you don't have to pay any of this dollar-a-minute business."

"No," said Ernest, "but in exchange for your tuition you have to join the Aviation Corps. And now that the war is over, I would rather do postal work, or ferry or excursion lines instead of hanging around an Army aviation camp. My aim is to be as perfect a flier as I possibly can, and then if there is ever any need of another Army Aviation Corps, why, I will enlist right off. You see your final test qualifies you for government service if you make good."

"What do you think is the quality a birdman should have most of?" asked Bill.

"Our instructor used to say a pilot should have courage, skill, knowledge, apt.i.tude and confidence; but he always went on to say that all these together amounted to very little unless you have a bushel of common sense. I think he was right. I had to earn part of my tuition in the Aviation school because I didn't want to ask my father to pay all that out for me and get me an airplane beside. That is why I am just entering school. As long as the war lasted, I thought I ought to be learning something that would help a bit if they needed me, but it ended before I got a chance to offer myself, and now I have got to work mighty hard to make up for the time I spent in the air. That's why I am here. I want to keep in practice and fly whenever I am not busy with school work."

He looked critically at the sky.

"It is going to be a wonderful day up there," he said. "Don't you want to come up, one of you?"

"Frank is going with me," said Jardin.

"Come on then," invited Ernest, smiling at Bill.

"I am sorry, but I can't go up," said Bill, flushing.

"Bill likes to stay on the ground pretty well," sneered Jardin, pushing open the door of the hangar. He disappeared within, followed by Frank.

"Well, that's all right," said Ernest, smiling pleasantly. "I don't see as it is anyone's business what you like to do. I think if you feel a bit uneasy you are very wise to stay right on the ground."

"It is not that at all," said Bill, acting on a sudden impulse to tell this pleasant young stranger the reason for his refusal. "It is not that, and the reason probably won't interest you. Frank and Horace are always kidding me about it, but I can't help it. You see, I promised my mother that I wouldn't go up. She has a bad heart, and a shock like my getting hurt would certainly kill her. I can't risk that, can I? And when you come down to it, it is just as you say. I don't see as it is anybody's business what I do."