Dick 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 Dick 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 Dick, to the servant who had brought the message. "I don't care to have him out here, where he might see my airship," Dick 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 Dick, "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 Dick, 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 Dick. "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 Dick, 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 Dick.
"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 Dick 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."
Dick 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 Dick. "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 Dick 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?"
"Hardly. He's smoking, and I wish you'd hurry and git him out of the parlor, for he's sure to drop some ashes on the carpet that we've had ever since we got married."
"Smoking in my parlor!" exclaimed Uncle Ezra. "I'll get him out of there. The idea! Why, if any sun is let in there it will spoil the colors. How'd you come to open that?" he asked of his wife, wrathfully.
"I didn't. But I was so surprised at havin' someone come to the front door, which they never do, that I didn't know what to say. He asked if you was to home, and I said you was. Then he said: 'Well, I'll wait for him in here,' and he pushed open the parlor door and went in. I had it open the least mite, for I thought I saw a speck of sun comin' through a crack in the blinds and I was goin' in to close it when the bell rang."
"The idea! Sitting in my parlor!" muttered Uncle Ezra. "I'll get him out of that. You're sure he ain't a book peddler?"
"He don't seem to have a thing to sell except nerve," said Aunt Samantha, "and he sure has got plenty of that."
"I'll fix him!" cried Uncle Ezra.
But he proved to be no match for the smooth sharper in the shape of Larson.
"Did you want to see me?" demanded the crabbed old man.
"I did," answered Larson coolly, as he continued to puff away at his cigar. "I came to offer you a chance to make twenty thousand dollars."
"Twenty thousand dollars!" Uncle Ezra nearly lost his breath, he was so surprised.
"That's what I said! I'm in a position to give you a good chance to make that much money, and perhaps more. If you will give me half an hour of your time—"
"Look here!" interrupted Mr. Larabee, "this ain't no lottery scheme; is it? If it is I want to warn you that I'm a deacon in the church. I wouldn't go into any lottery unless I was sure I could win. I don't believe in gambling. As a deacon of the church I couldn't countenance nothing like that. No gambling!"
"This is not a gamble," Larson assured him. "It's a sure thing. I'll show you how to make twenty thousand dollars!"
"I—I guess I'd better open a window in here, so we can see," said Uncle Ezra, faintly. "That's quite a pile of money to talk about in the dark," and to the horror of Aunt Samantha she saw, a little later, the sun shamelessly streaming in on her carpet that had only been treated to such indignities on the occasions of a funeral, or something like that. The parlor of the Dankville house was like a tomb in this respect.
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