h a megaphone boomed out
from the grand stand:

"William Bender announces that he has withdrawn from the contest."

"Aha! I'll bet Jack's got cold feet, too," whispered Hiram, nudging
Paul, who was kneeling down and winding up the long rubber bands which
drove the propellers of the Silver Arrow, an Antoinette model.

But a short interval showed him to be mistaken, for Jack, with his
usual confident air, repaired to the buggy in which he had driven into
town from his father's farm, and speedily produced a model that caused
loud sighs of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" to circulate through the juvenile
portion of the crowd.

However he had managed to accomplish it, the bully had certainly
produced a beautiful model. It was of the Bleriot type, and finished
perfectly down to the minutest detail. Every wire and brace on it was
silvered with aluminum paint, and it even bore a small figure at its
steering wheel. Beside it the other models looked almost clumsy.

The faces of the Boy Scouts fell.

"If that machine can fly as well as she looks," said Rob to Merritt,
"she wins the first prize."

"Not a doubt of it," was Merritt's reply.

"Oh, well," put in Tubby, for the three inseparables were standing
together, "if he can win the prize fairly, don't knock him. He
certainly has built a beautiful machine. You've got to give him credit
for that."

And now, as Jack, with a triumphant smile at the glances of admiration
his model excited, strode to the starting point, elbowing small boys
aside, and drew from the hat, the man with the megaphone once more
arose. He held in his hand the result of the drawing and the order in
which the models would fly.

"The f-i-r-s-t model to com-pete for the big p-r-ize," he bellowed,
"will be that of Thomas Maloney--a Bler-i-ot!"

Poor Tom might have called his machine a Bleriot, but it is doubtful if
the designer of the original machine of that name would have recognized
the model as having any more than a distant relationship to the famous
type of monoplane. It was provided with a large tin propeller,
however, and seemed capable of at least accomplishing a flight. In
fact, at the trials in the morning it had flown well, and by some of
the lads was regarded as a sort of "dark horse." As Tom was on the
village team, as opposed to the Boy Scout contingent, he was greeted
with loud cheers and whistles by his friends as he stepped to the
starting line, and, holding his already wound up machine