“That’s the kind of talk I like to hear, Hugh,” the other replied, looking up with a smile on his anxious face.  “Just wait till I get these covers off, and then you’ll see what I’ve been doing all these months when some of the fellows were kidding me on being a regular old book worm and not wanting to come out and play even football with them.  It was the hardest kind of work, but if she even goes a little, I’ll think it wasn’t time wasted.  All I want is encouragement; I’ve got the bull-dog grit to carry it on all right.”

“I reckon you have, Bud,” was the only comment Hugh made; and he ought to know, because Bud was a member of the Wolf patrol and the leader had watched him work many a time as though there were no such word as “fail” in his lexicon.

So Bud busied himself in undoing stout cords and opening both bundles.  When Hugh saw the nature of the load he had been packing up the side of Stormberg Mountain, he shook his head and laughed.

“What did you think I was, Bud, a mule, or a Chinese porter used to carrying as much as half a ton on his back?” he demanded.  “Why, that engine would have given me a bad scare if I’d seen it beforehand.  And I toted that all the way up here from the road, did I?  Well, anyway, I’ve earned the right to boast after this.  A motor is no light load, I don’t care how small it may be.  Don’t you agree with me, Ralph?”

Ralph was chuckling to himself, seemingly much amused.

“I should say yes,” he replied; “and I don’t wonder you complained of feeling a touch of pain in the muscles of your back last night, Hugh.  But really the load Bud took himself was larger and just about as heavy as yours, you see.”

“Oh! he gave me my choice.  I saw it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, so I took the smaller one.  I reckon I’ll be ready to tackle a house next time, after having a motor on my back.”

Bud set to work assembling the various parts of his model.  In some respects it was rather a crude imitation of a monoplane, but for practical purposes no doubt it would answer just as well as the most elegant model.  What Bud wanted to find out most of all was whether he had been working on the right principle.  If that turned out to be correct he could afford to have a better model made; then he could take up the idea with some of those capitalists who were interested in building airships of all kinds.

For once Bud was supreme.  He gave his orders and the others obeyed.  Even Hugh, accustomed to being the leader, willingly assumed the air of a novice, though Bud knew very well that the other had studied the subject of aviation very thoroughly and was competent to advise in a pinch.

By slow degrees Bud managed to get his planes adjusted and the tiny motor installed.  Hugh, in a quiet and unostentatious way, often assisted him to overcome some difficulty that arose; so that Bud declared he did not know how he could have managed without the other’s help in tightening wire stays and installing the motor.