guess it will be the only way we can
catch those fellows. Now I'll go back to town, and the first thing in
the morning I'll round-up my posse and start it off. The men can
surround the camp, and lay quiet until we arrive in this ship. Then,
when we descend on the heads of the scoundrels, right out of the sky,
so to speak, my men can close in, and bag them all."

"That's a good plan," commented Mr. Sharp, "but are you sure these are
the men we want? It's pretty vague, I think, but of course the clue Tom
got is pretty slim; merely the name Shagmon."

"Well, this is Shagmon," went on the sheriff, "and, as I told your
young friend, I've been trying for some time to bag the men at the
summer camp. They number quite a few, and if they don't do anything
worse, they run a gambling game there. I'm pretty sure, if the bank
robbers are in this vicinity, they're in that camp. Of course all the
men there may not have been engaged in looting the vault, and they may
not all know of it, but it won't do any harm to round-up the whole
bunch."

After a tour of the craft, and waiting to take a little refreshment
with his new friends, the sheriff left, promising to come as early on
the morrow as possible.

"Let's go to bed," suggested Mr. Sharp, after a bit. "We've got hard
work ahead of us to-morrow."

They were up early, and, in the seclusion of the little glade in the
woods, Tom and Mr. Sharp went over every part of the airship.

The sheriff arrived about nine o'clock, and announced that he had
started off through the woods, to surround the camp, twenty-five men.

"They'll be there at noon," Mr. Durkin said, "and will close in when I
give the signal, which will be two shots fired. I heard just before I
came here that there are some new arrivals at the camp."

"Maybe those are the men I overheard talking in the office building,"
suggested Tom. "They probably came to get their share. Well, we must
swoop down on them before they have time to distribute the money."

"That's what!" agreed the county official. Mr. Durkin was even more
impressed by the airship in the daytime than he had been at night. He
examined every part, and when the time came to start, he was almost as
unconcerned as any of the three travelers who had covered many hundreds
of miles in the air.

"This is certainly great!" cried the sheriff, as the airship rose
swiftly under the influence of the powerful gas.

As the craft went higher and higher his enthusiasm