“We’ve stayed with them so far and we’ve got to stay with them to the finish,” declared Frank. “I only wish we knew where this business is going to end.”
They took their package of food from the plane and went across the field toward the farmhouse. It had been abandoned for some years and was in a bad state of repair, but it sufficed for their purpose. The boys spent the greater part of the day exploring the place, and toward mid-afternoon Frank suggested that they might as well sleep there that night. They went back to the plane, which had been undisturbed, and removed the automobile robes, bringing them back to the house.
“We’ll have to sleep on the floor tonight,” laughed Frank.
“I don’t care where we sleep, as long as we get these rascals where we want them.”
They found a spring down in the orchard, and the cold spring water served to make more palatable the sandwiches the farmer’s wife had made for them that morning. Toward evening they went into one of the upper rooms of the house and looked out over the field toward the plane. There they saw three figures walking across the field.
“I hope they’re not going to start off again,” said Joe, in alarm.
“They’ve probably just come back to see if the plane is all right.”
The three men were Giles Ducroy and his companions, and their errand was evidently as Frank had suggested. Ducroy went over the plane very carefully. Then he went toward the back and suddenly pulled open the door in the side. The boys saw him peer into the interior of the plane.
“Boy, isn’t it lucky we didn’t stay there!” exclaimed Joe.
“I hope he doesn’t find that water bottle. We left it there. Remember?”
But Ducroy’s inspection was brief. He drew back, closed the door again and turned to the others with an expressive gesture. Frank and Joe realized that he had merely made the inspection to satisfy the others that there was no baggage in the plane. Evidently the water bottle had gone unnoticed.
The trio stayed only a few minutes, then went back across the field again toward the village.
“That’s that!” said Frank. “We’re all right now until tomorrow night. We’ll go over some time in the afternoon, hide ourselves and then wait for things to happen.”
The boys stayed in the empty farmhouse that night, and they slept soundly in the automobile robes, despite the hardness of the floor. The gray light of dawn was just shining through the window when Frank heard a sound that awakened him with a start.
It was the throbbing roar of an airplane engine!
He got up and scrambled over to the window. When he looked out he was just in time to see a figure clambering into the cockpit of the plane out in the field. Then the machine began to move across the pasture; its speed increased; it rose from the ground, skimmed above the fence, rose higher and higher into the air and then headed far off beyond the village.
Joe, in the meantime, had been aroused by the noise of the engine, and he too witnessed the airplane’s flight.
Disheartened and discouraged, the boys looked glumly at one another.
“I guess that means we’re licked,” said Joe, at last.
XX
That Night
After all their precautions, the sailing away of the airplane without them was a bitter pill to swallow. The Hardy boys had been so confident that the men would remain in this place until the night of the twenty-eighth that this early morning flight took them completely by surprise.
“We’ve lost them now,” said Frank. “We don’t know where they’re going or where this holdup, or whatever it is, is going to take place. And we don’t even know where we are ourselves.”
“It’s tough luck. After all the trouble we went to!”
“I guess the only thing we can do now is go back to Bayport and do our best to warn the post office authorities. I have a pretty good hunch that the gang are planning another air mail robbery. Why else would they use a plane?”
“Not much use staying here,” agreed Joe. “They certainly stole a march on us that time.”
They got dressed and left the empty house. Neither said very much, for they were discouraged beyond measure. All their discomfort of the past two days seemed to have gone for nothing. They realized that the defeat was not their fault, because they could not anticipate that Ducroy and his cronies would leave that morning when they had definitely planned to remain in the vicinity all day; but there remained the unescapable fact that the quarry had eluded them.
“Perhaps the police in the village recognized them and they had to clear out,” suggested Joe.
“I guess that’s the reason. I can’t think of any other.”
They trudged down the lane that led out toward the village road. Their immediate plan was to reach the village, find out where they were, and then return to Bayport as soon as possible.
“There’s just a slim chance we may be able to catch them yet if we tell the post office authorities all we know,” Frank pointed out. “But we haven’t much time to work in.”
The sky was overcast and cloudy that morning, in harmony with the mood of the Hardy boys. They found it difficult to be cheerful after the reverse they had just suffered.
“I’ll bet there isn’t even a railway here,” grumbled Joe.
“And our roadster is miles away.”
“What a fine fix we’re in!”
“Perhaps they’ll come back,” remarked Frank, trying to be optimistic.
“They’re gone for good.”
The Hardy boys crossed a rustic bridge over a stream and went up the dusty road into the village. It was only a small farming town and there were few people in sight. Several cars were parked in front of the small hotel.
“We might as well go in
