“Why, hullo, boys.  I just heard about your loss.  Any news?”

“No, not a word,” chirped little Joe Digby, one of the few lads in the Eagle Patrol who had never run afoul of the bully.

“Well,” went on Jack, affecting not to notice the silence with which his advances had been greeted, “I hope you find the fellows who did it, whoever they were.”

“Same here,” chimed in Bill Bender, now quite at his ease, “although, at that, I guess it was only a joke, and you’ll get ’em back again before long.”

“Do you think so, Bill?” asked Merritt, looking the bully’s crony steadily in the eye.  “I hope so, I’m sure.  By the way, Hiram Nelson here says that he saw you hurrying up Main Street at just about the time the robbery must have taken place.  You didn’t hear any unusual sounds or see anything out of the way, did you?”

“I—­why, no—­I—­you see, I was on my way home from my aunt’s home,” stuttered Bill, seemingly taken off his guard.

“Yes; your aunt, who left home yesterday afternoon to be gone a week,” shot out Merritt.

“Queer that she should have changed her mind and come home in such a hurry.”

“Oh, come on, Bill,” stuck in Sam, seeing that things were getting very unpleasant.  “We’ve got to hurry up if we’re to get out to Jack’s in time.”

Without another word, the three hurried off, seemingly not at all unrelieved to escape from what Merritt was pretty sure were embarrassing questions.

CHAPTER X

WINNING THE CONTEST

The day which was to witness the tests of the aeroplane models for the prizes offered by the professor of aeronautics dawned still and fair.  It followed several days of storm, in which the boys had been unable to make any excursions in their motor boat, or into the country, or, indeed, even to devote any time to the engrossing subject of tracing the theft of the uniforms to its source.

Early in the morning a small field in the rear of Mr. Blake’s house was well filled with boys of all ages and sizes, watching the contestants in the model contest trying out their craft.  The models were of all sorts and sizes.  Some were freak craft that had been constructed in a hurry from pictures, without any attention being paid to scale or proportions, while others were carefully made bits of mechanism.

Among the latter class were Paul Perkins’ monoplane—­Silver Arrow, he called it,—­Hiram Nelson’s two models, the monoplane of Tom Maloney, a lad of about sixteen, and Ed River’s little duplicate of a Curtiss biplane.  The contest was to take place on the Main Street of the town, in front of the bank, and in the middle of the course two poles had been erected, one on each side of the street, between which a brightly colored tape had then been strung, forming a sort of aerial hurdle.  The tape was fifty feet above the ground, and to qualify at all it would be necessary for the contesting models to clear it.