Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/71

66 his work for nothing, and given his business away in the bargain, for of course he understood that you'd guess what it all meant."

"It strikes me," mused Tom, sitting on the lower berth, and turning toward his indignant chum, "that we're having all sorts of thrills aboard this steamer long before we get to the danger zone and the waiting subs."

"A little bit too much excitement to please me. The trouble is it's all on one side. So far we haven't been able to get a single whack at those clever scamps."

Tom was taking it very much in the light of a joke. He at least was not worrying himself because the plotters had met with such a bitter disappointment when they may have anticipated great things to come of this secret search.

"Do you think they'll be ready to give it up as a bad job, now that they've looked your trunk over, and failed to find anything?" Jack went on to ask.

"That's hard to say. They may take a notion to scatter your trunk around for a change."

"But why should they do that?" demanded Jack.

"On general principles, and because, don't you see, I might have been shrewd enough to hand the paper over for you to hide away in