Lieut.  Bradbury left that meeting heavy of heart.  Mortlake’s story had been so circumstantial, so full of detail, that it hardly left room for doubt.  And then, too, he had offered to produce positive proof, to allow the officer to witness the actual transaction.

“Good heavens, isn’t there any good in the world?” thought the officer, as the hack in which he had driven out to the Mortlake plant drove him back to the village.  Mortlake had agreed to call for him at the little hotel at eight o’clock.  The hours till then seemed to have leaden feet to the anxious young officer.

It was shortly before this that Roy, returning from an errand in town in the Prescott automobile, was halted at the roadside by a figure which stepped from the hedge-row, and, holding up a cautioning finger, uttered a sharp: 

“Hist!”

Roy, turning, saw a man, seemingly a workingman, from his overalls, at the side of the machine.

“What is it?  What do you want?” demanded Roy.

“I have a message for you,” said the man, speaking in a slightly foreign accent; “you are in great danger.  Your enemies plot it.”

“My enemies!” exclaimed Roy.

“Yes, your enemies at the Mortlake factory.”

“Let’s see,” said Roy thoughtfully, “you’re one of the workmen at the Mortlake plant, aren’t you?”

“I was once,” said the man, with a vindictive inflection, “but I am so no longer.  Mortlake discharged me.”

“Discharged you, eh?  Well, what’s that got to do with me?”

Roy looked curiously at the man.

“Just this much.  I know the meanness that Mortlake plans to do to you.  You have bad and wicked enemies at our place.”

“Humph!  I guess there may be some truth in that,” said Roy with a rather grim inflection.  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Just this:  I am an honest man.  I do not want to see harm come to you or to your sister.”  This was touching Roy in a tender spot.

“To my sister!” he exclaimed.  “Do you mean to say that Mortlake is scoundrel enough to plot against her, too?”

“In this way,” explained the man, “he means to destroy your aeroplane, leaving the field clear for his own type to be selected by the navy.”

“The—­the—­the ruffian!” panted Roy, now thoroughly aroused.  “Tell me more about this.”

“I cannot,” rejoined the workman, “but my partner—­he was discharged too—­he can tell you much, much more.  Will you meet him?  I can take you to him?”

Roy thought a moment.  The man seemed to be wholly honest and in earnest.

“How far from here is the place where your partner is?” he asked.

“Oh, not so very far.  We soon get there in your fine machine.  Will you go?”

“Well, I—­yes, I’ll go.  Come on, get in.”

The man obeyed the invitation with alacrity.  Under his directions, Roy swung the car off upon a by-road after they had gone some few hundred yards.