“I can take the whole tests except cooking the meat and potatoes in the ‘Billy,’” bemoaned young Green, a small chap of about thirteen.  “Somehow, they always seem to burn, or else they don’t cook at all.”

“Well, cheer up, Martin,” laughed Rob.  “You’ll learn to do it in camp.  We’ll make you cook for the whole time we’re out there, if you like—­that will give you plenty of practice.”

“No, thank you,” chimed in Andy Bowles.  “I’ve seen some of Mart’s cooking, and I think the farther you keep him from the cook fire, the better for the general health of the Eagle Patrol.”

At this moment there came a rap on the door.

“Come in!” shouted Rob.

In reply to this invitation, the door opened and a lad of about fifteen entered.  His face was flushed and he bore in his hand a long sheet of green paper.

“Hello, Frank Farnham,” exclaimed Rob glancing at the boy’s flushed, excited face.  “What’s troubling you?”

“Oh, hello, Rob.  Excuse me for butting in on your ceremonies, but I was told Paul Perkins was here.”

“Sure he is, Frank,” exclaimed Paul, coming forward.  “What’s the matter?  It’s much too warm to be flying around the way you seem to have been.  Come in under this fan.”

He indicated an electrically driven ventilator that was whirring in a corner of the room.

“Quit your fooling, Paul,” remonstrated Frank, “and read this circular.  Here.”

He thrust the green “dodger” he carried into the other’s hand.

“What do you think of that, eh?” demanded Frank, as Paul skimmed it with delighted eyes.

The circular contained the announcement of a lecture on aeronautics by a well-known authority on the subject who had once been a resident of Hampton.  To stimulate interest in the subject, the paper stated that a first prize of fifty dollars, a second prize of twenty-five, and a third prize of ten dollars would be given to the three lads of the town making and flying the most successful models of aeroplanes in a public competition.  To win the first prize it would be necessary for the model to fly more than two hundred feet, and not lower, except at the start and end of the flight, than fifty feet above the ground.  The second prize was for the next best flight, and the third for the model approaching the nearest to the winner of the second money.

“Now, Paul, you are an aeronautic fiend,” went on Frank, “So am I, and Hiram has the fever in a mild way.  What’s the matter with you two fellows forming a team to represent the Boy Scouts, and I’ll get up a team of village boys, to compete for the prizes.”

“That’s a good idea,” assented Hiram Nelson.  “I’ve got a model almost completed.  It only needs the rubber bands and a little testing and it will be O.K., or at least I hope so.  How about you, Paul?”

“Oh, I’ve got two models that I have got good results from,” replied the boy addressed.  “One is a biplane.  She’s not so speedy, but very steady; and then I have a model of a Bleriot.  I’m willing to enter either of them or both.”