As they were coming out of the shed they were hailed by no less a personage than Mayor Hanks.

“Well,” said he, “are you going to fly?”

“We think of doing so,” said Roy, hesitating a little.  He wanted to speak of the conduct of Lish Kelly, but on second thought he decided not to; the man might merely have had a fit of bad temper on him.  His threats might have been only empty ones.

“If you’re going to fly I have got some entry blanks with me,” said the mayor.  “I wish you’d sign ’em.”

He drew out a bunch of blue papers with blanks for describing the name of the machine, its power, driver and other details.

This decided the boys.

“All right, we’ll enter all our machines,” said Roy; “let us go into the writing room and we’ll sign the entry blanks.”

“Good for you,” cried the mayor delightedly; “you’ll be a big drawing card, especially the young ladies.  I never heard of gals flyin’, although, come to think of it, why shouldn’t they?”

In the writing room they concluded the business.  When it was done all the machines had been entered in every contest, including an altitude one.

“We start at ten sharp, so be there,” admonished the mayor as he departed, highly pleased at having secured quite a flock of young aviators at no cost at all.

It was as his figure vanished, that Lish Kelly crossed the writing room.  He had been sitting in a telephone booth, and leaving the door a crack open had heard every word that had passed.

He greeted the boys with an angry scowl.

“So you ain’t going to stay out?” he said gruffly, as he passed.  “All right; look out for squalls!”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE TWISTED SPARK PLUG.

“Gracious, are we in for more trouble?”

Jimsy looked blankly at Roy; but the latter only laughed at his chum’s serious face.

Somehow, viewed in the bright light of early day, Lish Kelly’s threats did not appear nearly as formidable as they had over night.

“Nonsense; what harm can he do us anyhow?  We’re going to go into this race, and we’re going to win too.  Just watch us.”

“Going to tell the girls anything about Kelly and his remarks?”

“No; what good would that do?  It would only scare them.”

“That’s so, too; but just the same I didn’t like the look of Kelly’s face when he came through.”

“He looked to me like a bulldog that had swallowed a baby’s boot and didn’t like the taste of the blacking on it,” laughed Roy.

At this juncture the girls came into the room.  All were radiant and smiling in anticipation of the day’s sport.

“Well, we’ve been and gone and done it,” announced Roy.

“Done what?” demanded Peggy.

“Signed the paperrr-r-r-s,” was the rejoinder, rendered with great dramatic effect.

He waved the duplicate entry blanks above his head.