CHAPTER VII
BUD'S METEOR
Both scouts hurried out to join Bud. They found him standing therewith his head cocked on one side, apparently listening as hard ashe could.
Indeed it did not require any especial gift of hearing to catch thestrange noises spoken of by the ambitious inventor. They seemed tobe close at hand and constantly growing louder all the time. Justas Bud had declared, the racket was undoubtedly caused by some sortof machinery.
Hugh immediately made an important discovery. It rather startled him,too, as well it might, for he had not been dreaming of anything sounusual.
"Why, it's in the air!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"Sure it is," agreed the excited Bud; "in the air and everywhere else.Seems to me I might be listening to a dozen shuttles working with arush."
"But I mean that it comes from _above our heads_!" Hugh quickly added;at which both the others gasped in wonder, though realizing that whatthe patrol leader had said was actually true.
"Whatever can it mean?" stammered Bud.
"Say, do you know it makes me think of something I heard over atBellville during county fair week!" burst out Ralph.
"Meaning an aeroplane?" declared Hugh.
"Just what it was, Hugh," returned Ralph. "But what would a flierbe doing away up here, going around and around in the dark of night?"
"I don't know, and that's all I can say," replied the other; "butperhaps we may be able to find out. There it comes again, swingingaround in a circle. If we all look sharp, we may be able to glimpsesomething up against the sky."
"My stars! An _aeroplane_!" Bud was muttering to himself, as hehastened to follow his companions away from the door in order to havea better range of observation. "Of all the things that we could meetup here, an aeroplane! And me just pining away with yearning to seeone in action! Oh! don't I hope it turns out that way, though? Doyou see it yet, boys? When you do, please put me wise, won't you?"
All of them were straining their eyes to make a discovery, and as itwas possible to follow the course of the swiftly circling though asyet unseen object by listening to the rattle of its engine orpropeller, they kept their attention directed to one particular quarter.
"Oh! I think I can see it now!" cried Bud excitedly.
"Yes, we all do," added Ralph.
They continued to stare up at the moving object, which, as seen inthat uncertain light, looked not unlike a monstrous bat with extendedwings. The sound of the busily working machinery grew louderconstantly. No wonder Bud had been so perplexed when he heard allthis, though more faintly, on the previous night and asked whetherit could be possible to catch the sound of the mills many miles away.
As the three scouts continued to stand there gaping at the dimly seenflier, a sudden terrific crash and vivid flash almost stunned them.Indeed, Bud crumpled up and might have fallen to the ground, onlythat he came in contact with Hugh and received the support of hisfirm footing.
The very ground shivered under them. It seemed as though somesubterranean mine must have been exploded, causing the rockribbedearth to quiver in a sickening fashion.
When they dared look up again, the queer bat-like object had vanishedentirely from sight. Voices were heard, however, close at hand.They told of more or less excitement; and coming with them was thesound of one or more persons pushing recklessly through the thicketsthat grew in many places as a second growth.
Presently even these noises died away and a dead silence reigned. Bythen, Bud managed to regain possession of his voice.
"Oh, another terrible meteor! Why, we must be right in the middleof a shower of shooting stars! And let me tell you, that one hit theearth not a great way off, too! I'm going to take a look in themorning and see if I can find it. They say that college professorsoften pay big sums for being set on the track of these meteors thatbury themselves in the ground. What if she had dropped right downon top of this shanty, boys? I'm glad we got off as well as we did,aren't you, Hugh?"
Hugh did not answer. Evidently he was thinking deeply at thatparticular moment. There was indeed plenty to concern him inconnection with the mysterious aeroplane that nightly circled theregion, always accompanied by that strange explosion.
"Seems to me I can smell something queer like burnt powder," Budpresently remarked. "Do meteors explode when they hit the earth,Hugh?" And would they send out a rank odor like that?"
"I don't happen to be up in the doings of meteors, Bud," answeredthe other, "but I should think it might be something like that.We'll all take a look after breakfast, and see what we can find.Perhaps it may surprise us. This seems to be a general all-aroundsurprise party for the lot of us. We were taken aback to findRalph here in the old shack; he had his surprise when he watchedthose two men carry on so queerly; then we had the shock lastnight of hearing thunder and seeing lightning when the sky wasclear; after that, the fellow looking in at the window startledus. You were a little surprised your self, I reckon, Bud, atyour success in trying out your stability device as applied toaeroplanes. And now comes the discovery that one of the air craftis skimming around here nightly, doing some stunt that we can'tunderstand yet."
"We ought to call this Camp Surprise, then," announced Ralph.
"That's what," echoed Bud.
"Now let us go in again," suggested Hugh. "It seems as if thefireworks might be all over for this particular night. Even theaeroplane has gone off where none of us can hear the motor workingany longer."
"Perhaps she dropped to the ground," remarked Bud. "There might beanother open place not far away, like the old field where we triedout my little model this morning. And say, doesn't it strike youas funny that just one solitary meteor should take a notion toexplode each night?"
No one answered this question, though Bud was too busy pondering onthe run of strange events that had fallen to their share of late tonotice the lack of interest his comrades seemed to take in the matter.
Once inside, they again sat around talking. It was Ralph this timewho gave utterance to a certain fact that had been in his mind, whichinterested both his chums as soon as they heard it.
"I don't know," he started to say soberly, "whether either of youhappened to notice it, but there seemed to be something foreignabout the voices we heard after the big noise. Not a single wordcould I understand, either, and yet they seemed to be pretty nearby."
"I didn't happen to notice that, Ralph," Hugh observed seriously;"but if the men who spoke were your mysterious friends of the otherday, one thing is sure---they weren't the ones who sat in thatspeeding monoplane."
"Eh? How do you know that?" queried Bud, becoming deeply interested.
"Well, in the first place," suggested Ralph, not waiting for Hugh'sreply, "the sound of voices came from the same level as our ownlocation. I'm dead sure of that fact. Then again we could hear theswish of brush, and I even caught the sound of men crashing throughthickets and falling over logs."
"Yes," added Hugh, "and it struck me that they were in something likea blue fright, as though the nearness of that explosion had giventhem a bad scare. Only a sudden panic could make men rush throughthickets as recklessly as they were going."
"Everybody may not like meteors to drop all around 'em," Bud muttered;"and I can't blame the fellows much, either. I came near beingknocked flat on my back, myself, when that one let go with a bang.My ears are ringing yet, and I'm afraid I'll go deaf if I have tohear much more of that sort of cannonading."
Although they continued to sit up for some little time and talk, Hughdid not see fit to mention certain suspicions that had taken root inhis own mind. He believed he was on the track of the truth, butuntil he had a little more positive evidence he hesitated to speakout boldly.
They finally settled down and tried to sleep. Bud seemed to findlittle difficulty in forgetting all his troubles and triumphs, forhis heavy breathing quickly announced that he was dead to the world.With the other two it was a more protracted task, and possibly theytur
ned over as many as half a dozen times before surrenderingdrowsily to the god of slumber.
There was no further trouble during the balance of that night, thesecond they had spent in the old shack. Saturday morning dawnedwith a clear sky, and it looked as though the day might be arepetition of the two previous ones. This gratified the scoutsvery much, for no matter how seasoned a camper may be, the weatherhas considerable to do with his enjoyment. If rain continues topour down, there is very little pleasure to be found in spendinghours or days under canvas or the leaking roof of a cabin, wishingin vain for a break in the weeping clouds. And so the three ladsexpressed themselves as contented when they broke out from theshelter of the shack on that morning and found the conditions sofavorable.
Bud hoped to make another try with his model before noon, since theyexpected to be on the move shortly afterward. There was a long hikebefore them ere they could expect to reach the road leading home,where possibly a wagon might be hired to help get them into townagain.
One thing pleased them, and this was the fact that for the most partthe return journey would be down-grade. In consequence they expectedto make the distance separating them from the road in about half thetime it had taken in coming.
Bud hurried through the morning meal. Indeed, Ralph even joked himon his seeming lack of appetite; for as a rule Bud was a good feederand came second only to Billy Worth, long recognized as champion inthe troop.
"Well, you see," Bud explained, "there are a whole lot of importantthings I mean to do to-day, and the sooner I get busy the betterchance I'll have to go through the list. First thing of all is totake a little tramp around toward the west of the camp, to see if Ican stumble on the place where that last old shooting star struck us.I'm going to look sharp for a hole, because it seems to me such a biglump of iron and other ore would smash into our earth at a prettylively clip."
"Hold on a minute and let's start fair!" called out Ralph. "We'rejust as anxious as you are to make some sort of discovery, eh, Hugh?"
"Some sort, yes," the patrol leader admitted, with a queer littlesmile that Bud noticed, but could not understand just then.
So the three boys started to comb the immediate vicinity of the shack,spreading out in something like a fan formation. They took to thewest, because all of them seemed to be of one opinion: that thedreadful crash had come from that particular quarter.
Now and then one of them would call out or give the Wolf signal, justto inform the others where he happened to be. In this manner someten minutes went by and Hugh was thinking that the explosion musthave been much further away than any of them had suspected at thetime, when Bud was heard giving tongue.
Bud, when excited, always broke loose and allowed himself free rein.
"Come this way, boys!" he was shouting gleefully. "I've run theold meteor to earth. My stars! what a terrible hole she did make!Must be as big as a house!"