“Do you think it does?” inquired Elmer anxiously. “How could there be an explosion of an airship? Yes, I’m ready.”
The boys hurried down the stairs. Dave, in the lead, found two men who had machines on the aero grounds. They, too, had been aroused and were questioning the clerk.
“All I got over the ’phone from the office on the grounds was what I told you,” the clerk was saying—“building and machine blown to pieces.”
“Let’s hurry,” said Hiram anxiously, as they reached the street. The two men from the hotel ran along with them. They overtook others, aroused by the explosion, and discussing it and trying to figure out what it might mean.
The guard at the gate of the grounds knew no more than what the boys had already learned. He said, however, that several from the office building had gone to the scene of the trouble. Half way across the field, a hangar man running to the office building with information, met them.
“What’s the trouble?” inquired one of the hurrying group.
“One of the hangars blown up—dynamite, I guess,” was the reply.
“No, looks more like malicious spitework. The superintendent and his men are trying to find out.”
Our hero and his comrades could see lanterns moving about over at the row of hangars where the _Comet_ was housed. Another man from the scene was halted by them, and Dave asked quickly:
“The concrete one—the one the _Comet_ was in.”
Hiram uttered a groan. Dave grew pale with anxiety and distress. Elmer grasped hold of his arm as if the blow had made him reel.
“Dave,” spoke Hiram, in a trembling tone, “they stole our machine back at Washington. They’ve destroyed it, now!”
The young airman did not reply. His lips tightly compressed to hide his emotion, he hurried on. Then they all came to a stop. In dismay they stood staring at a mass of ruins—what was left of the wrecked hangar.
Pieces of concrete blocks littered the ground in all directions. Parts of an airship mechanism showed in the glare of the lanterns. The young aviator felt sick all over. He had known all along what there was to fear. His mind was quickly decided as to the motive and source of the vandal act.
“Dave,” suddenly whispered Hiram, in a shaking tone, “the _Comet_ is gone! That may not matter, for we might get another machine, but—what about Will Mason?”
