Page:Rover Boys in the Air.djvu/45

Rh "See an airship?" cried Tom Bender. "We sure did scooting over this burgh like a streak, too! Was it your machine? Who was running it? I tried to make out but couldn't."

"Nobody was running it," answered Sam. "It ran away on its own account, from back of our barn. Where did it go to?"

"Ran away! Suffering toadstools, Sam, you don't mean it! I don't know where it went, it went so fast."

"Which way was it headed? Try to tell me as nearly as you can."

"It was headed over Bear Hill, near the Spring. That would about take it over Rayville."

"Thank you, Tom; then I'll call up somebody in Rayville. Good-bye."

"Oh, say, Sam, hold on a minute. You say the machine broke away. How was that?" Tom Bender was all curiosity.

"We were trying the engine and propellers, that's all. I'll tell you the rest when I see you," answered the youngest Rover, and rang off.

"Tom would keep me answering questions for a year if I let him," he added, to his brothers.

He next tried the Rayville general store, but could get no information concerning the missing biplane. Then he tried several farmers who were