The lecture which took place in the village hall came first and was well attended, most of the young folks of Hampton being there.  If the truth must be told, however, while the lecturer was expounding his subject, illustrating it on the blackboard with chalk drawings, the majority of his young hearers were wishing that it was over and the contest really begun.

Especially was this true of the boys of the Eagle Patrol, who were every one of them anxious to see what kind of aeroplanes Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender would have produced.  The lecture, however, at last came to an end, and the gentlemen on the platform shook hands with the professor and the professor shook hands with them, and somebody called for three cheers for “Hampton’s distinguished son.”

Everybody then lost no time in filing out into the afternoon sunlight, where they found quite a crowd already on the streets, and a small wooden grand stand, which had been erected near what was expected to be the finishing line, seating several guests.  The committee and the professor, led by the Hampton brass band, blaring away at patriotic airs, made their way to the front seats in the structure, and everybody was requested to line up on each side of the street, so as to make a clear lane for the models to fly in.

The starting line was about a hundred yards from the red tape, and the contestants were compelled to stand back of this.  Mr. Wingate, the president of the yacht club and member of the Boy Scout Council, had already shuffled the numbers of the contestants in a hat, and they were to fly their models in the order in which they drew their figures.

Up to this time there had been no sign of Jack Curtiss or Bill Bender, but the boys now saw them hastening up to a member of the committee and whispering to him.  A moment later a man, with a megaphone boomed out from the grand stand: 

“William Bender announces that he has withdrawn from the contest.”

“Aha!  I’ll bet Jack’s got cold feet, too,” whispered Hiram, nudging Paul, who was kneeling down and winding up the long rubber bands which drove the propellers of the Silver Arrow, an Antoinette model.

But a short interval showed him to be mistaken, for Jack, with his usual confident air, repaired to the buggy in which he had driven into town from his father’s farm, and speedily produced a model that caused loud sighs of “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” to circulate through the juvenile portion of the crowd.

However he had managed to accomplish it, the bully had certainly produced a beautiful model.  It was of the Bleriot type, and finished perfectly down to the minutest detail.  Every wire and brace on it was silvered with aluminum paint, and it even bore a small figure at its steering wheel.  Beside it the other models looked almost clumsy.

The faces of the Boy Scouts fell.

“If that machine can fly as well as she looks,” said Rob to Merritt, “she wins the first prize.”