nest man. I do not want to see harm come to you or
to your sister." This was touching Roy in a tender spot.

"To my sister!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that Mortlake is
scoundrel enough to plot against her, too?"

"In this way," explained the man, "he means to destroy your aeroplane,
leaving the field clear for his own type to be selected by the navy."

"The--the--the ruffian!" panted Roy, now thoroughly aroused. "Tell me more
about this."

"I cannot," rejoined the workman, "but my partner--he was discharged
too--he can tell you much, much more. Will you meet him? I can take you to
him?"

Roy thought a moment. The man seemed to be wholly honest and in earnest.

"How far from here is the place where your partner is?" he asked.

"Oh, not so very far. We soon get there in your fine machine. Will you
go?"

"Well, I--yes, I'll go. Come on, get in."

The man obeyed the invitation with alacrity. Under his directions, Roy
swung the car off upon a by-road after they had gone some few hundred
yards.

"Not long now," he said, as the vehicle bounced and jounced over the ruts
and stones of the little-used thoroughfare.

"This is a funny direction for your partner to live in," said Roy at
length. "There are not many dwellings out this way, nothing but a big
swamp, as I recollect it."

"My partner, he poor man," was the rejoinder. "He live with cousins out
here."

The answer lulled Roy's rousing suspicions.

"It must be all right," he thought. "There can't be any trick in all this.
It's quite likely that Mortlake does want to play us a mean trick. I can't
forget the look he flashed at me the day we took Lieut. Bradbury away from
him in that meadow after we had made our first sea trip. Wow!"

Roy could not forbear smiling at the recollection.

They chugged along in silence for some little distance farther, and then
the man beside him laid a detaining hand on Roy's arm.

"Almost there now," he said. "Better slow up."

Roy did so. The brakes ground down with a jarring rasp.

At the same moment a dark figure stepped from behind a tree trunk. The man
beside Roy held up a hand.

"This is the young gentleman," he said.

Through the gloom the other figure now approached the automobile.

"Do you mind getting out?" it said. "We can talk better in the house."

"Where is the house? I don't see one," said Roy, his suspicions rousing a
little.

"It's just behind that knoll. The path is just ahead," said the newc