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Rh "This is queer," he added, presently. "I can't see any marks in the sand or mud or bushes. She'd make marks if anybody hauled her."

"I've got it!" cried Tom. "They hoisted her on a flat car! The railroad people have taken her!"

"But she is our biplane!" cried Sam, stubbornly.

"Maybe they took her to the freight house in Ashton," suggested Stanley.

"We'll soon find out—if you'll take us there in the auto."

"Sure!" answered Jack Mason, promptly.

The boys were about to leave the neighborhood when they heard the strokes of an axe, ringing through the woods.

"There's a wood chopper!" cried Dick. "Maybe he knows something about this. I guess I'll ask him."

They soon located the man—an elderly individual who worked for the farmer who owned the woods.

"Yes, I see 'em hoist the airship on the flat car," said he, in answer to their questions. "Had quite a job o' it, too."

"Did they take it to Ashton?" queried Dick.

"No. They was goin' to fust, but then Jimmy Budley—the section boss—said it would be