CHAPTER XII

LARSON SEES UNCLE EZRA

d.i.c.k Hamilton had not been very friendly with Lieutenant Larson during the aviation instruction at Kentfield. In fact the young millionaire did not like the army officer. Added to this the suspicion that Larson might have had some hand in tampering with the stabilizer of Mr.

Vardon's craft, did not make d.i.c.k any too anxious to see the birdman.

And yet he felt that in courtesy he must.

"I'll go in the library and meet him," said d.i.c.k, to the servant who had brought the message. "I don't care to have him out here, where he might see my airship," d.i.c.k added, to his chums.

"I guess you're right there," agreed Paul.

"He might take some of your ideas, and make a machine for himself that would win the prize," added Innis.

"Oh, well, I'm not so afraid of that," replied d.i.c.k, "as I intend, after I complete my craft, and if she wins the prize, to turn my plans and ideas over to the government, anyhow, for their use. But I don't just like the idea of Larson coming out to the work-shed."

Mr. Vardon and his men were in another part of the big barn, and had not heard of the arrival of the army man.

"How do you do?" greeted d.i.c.k, as he met Larson in the library. "I'm glad to see you."

This was polite fiction, that, perhaps, might be pardoned.

"I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Hamilton," went on the lieutenant, with a shifty glance around the room, "but I have left the army, and have engaged in the building of airships.

"I recall that you said at Kentfield, that you were going to construct one, and I called to see if I could not get the contract," Larson went on.

"Well, I am sorry, for your sake, to say that my craft is almost completed," replied d.i.c.k. "So I can't give you the contract."

"Completed!" cried Larson, in tones that showed his great surprise.

"You don't mean to tell me you have undertaken the important work of constructing an aeroplane so soon after coming from the military academy?"

"Well, I didn't want to waste any time," replied d.i.c.k, wondering at the lieutenant's interest. "I'm going to try for the government prize, and I wanted to be early on the job."

Larson hesitated a moment, and resumed:

"Well, then it is too late; I suppose? I hoped to get you to adopt my plans for an aeroplane. But I have been delayed making arrangements, and by resigning from the army.

"Perhaps I am not too late, though, to have you adopt my type of equilibrizer. My mercury tubes--"

"I am sorry, but you are too late there," interrupted d.i.c.k.

"What type are you using?" the lieutenant cried, dramatically.

"The Vardon. I might say that Mr. Vardon is also building my airship.

It will contain his gyroscope."

"A gyroscope!" cried the former officer. "You are very foolish! You will come to grief with that. The only safe form is the mercury tube, of which I am the inventor."

At that moment Vardon himself, who wished to consult d.i.c.k on some point, came into the room, not knowing a caller was there.

"I am sorry," went on the young millionaire, "but I am going to use Mr.

Vardon's gyroscope."

"Then you may as well give up all hope of winning the prize!" sneered Larson. "You are a very foolish young man. Vardon is a dreamer, a visionary inventor who will never amount to anything. His gyroscope is a joke, and--"

"I am sorry you think so," interrupted the aviator. "But you evidently considered my gyroscope such a good joke that you tried to spoil it."

"I! What do you mean? You shall answer for that!" cried the former lieutenant, in an unnecessarily dramatic manner.

"I think you know what I mean," replied Vardon, coolly. "I need not go into details. Only I warn you that if you are seen tampering about the Hamilton airship, on which I am working, that you will not get off so easily as you did in my case!"

"Be careful!" warned Larson. "You are treading on dangerous ground!"

"And so are you," warned the aviator, not allowing himself to get excited as did Larson. "I know of what I am speaking."

"Then I want to tell you that you are laboring under a misapprehension," sneered the former officer. "I can see that I am not welcome here. I'll go."

d.i.c.k did not ask him to stay. The young millionaire was anything but a hypocrite.

"What did he want?" asked Mr. Vardon, when Larson had left.

"To build my airship. He evidently did not know that I had already engaged you. He got a surprise, I think."

"He is a dangerous man, and an unscrupulous one," said the aviator. "I do not say that through any malice, but because I firmly believe it. I would never trust him."

"Nor shall I," added d.i.c.k. "I presume though, that he will have some feeling against me for this."

"Very likely," agreed Mr. Vardon. "You will have to be on your guard."

The young millionaire and the aviator then went into details about some complicated point in the construction of the Abaris, with which it is not necessary to weary my readers.

Larson must have recalled what d.i.c.k had told him about Uncle Ezra being a wealthy man, for, as subsequent events disclosed, the disappointed army officer went almost at once to Dankville. And there he laid before the miserly man a plan which Uncle Ezra eventually took up, strange as it may seen.

It was the bait of the twenty thousand dollar prize that "took," in his case.

Larson had some trouble in reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. When one, (in this case Larson) was announced by Aunt Samantha, Mr. Larabee asked:

"Does he look like an agent?"

"No, Ez, I can't say he does."

"Does he look like a collector?"

"No, Ez, not the usual kind."

"Or a missionary, looking for funds to buy pocket handkerchiefs for the heathen?"