Of course the three were looked upon as the luckiest fellows ever known by the rest of the troop present.  Others among the boys had experienced some notable things since joining the troop and assisting the rival armies in the field of maneuvers as signal corps operators; but nothing that had come their way as half as wonderful as being taken up in a genuine war aeroplane and being given a wild ride through the clouds.

What Hugh had to tell about the two foreign spies also excited the delighted interest of Billy Worth, Arthur Cameron, Walter Osborne, Blake Merton, Don Miller, Cooper Fennimore, “Spike” Welling, Alec Sands, Sam Winter, Dick Bellamy, Tom Sherwood, Ned Toyford and Jack Durham, all of whom were present.  They asked him many questions, and seemed never to tire of hearing about how the army air pilot had fired those volleys of small bombs down at the skulkers, actually driving them from the field for good.

A week later when Hugh met Bud Morgan on the way to school, he saw from the way in which the other looked at him that in some sense the die had been cast.

“What’s doing now, Bud?” asked the patrol leader, possibly guessing what the answer would turn out to be.

“Smashed her into flinders this A.M.,” replied Bud, firmly.

“I reckon you must mean that aeroplane model of yours,” ventured Hugh.

“And you hit the bull’s-eye plumb center when you say that, Hugh.  I just made up my mind that I was too young to bother my brains over a man’s work and go to high school at the same time.  My lessons aren’t any too good as it is, and they’d get so rotten bad soon I’d be sent home with a note to my dad.  I’ve been trying to find out where I got that idea of the stability device, and finally discovered an article about the Wright invention tucked away in one of my books.  Must have read it once and then forgotten all about it, so there’s how I fooled myself into believing the idea was original with me.  Served me right, too, but, anyhow, she worked, Hugh, didn’t she?”

He grinned as he made this last triumphant observation, and Hugh shook him by the hand to show how sorry he felt for the disappointed inventor.

“Worked like a charm, Bud,” he remarked; “and if the famous Wright brothers could have seen what you did, after only glimpsing the article long ago, they would have said, just as I do, that you deserve a heap of credit, that’s what.”

“Well, I’m done with the whole business right now,” Bud continued firmly.  “Find that it gets too much of a hold on my mind to bother with while I’m still going to school.  Day and night I couldn’t think of anything but monoplanes, cylinders, drag brakes, propellers, guy wires, wing-tips, levers, barographs, barometers, searchlights, volplaning and all such stuff.  It was wearing on my mind, you see.  I even dreamed of flying, and came near taking a header out of my bedroom window that would have given me a broken leg, or twisted my neck so I could see both ways to Sunday.  So I called it off, and threw up the sponge for keeps.”