But
this question was not answered, for at that moment Mrs. Rover came into
the room, and the course of the conversation had to be changed,--the
lads not wishing to worry her with their new troubles.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE TELEPHONE

Tom and Sam spent the balance of the day in looking for the missing
biplane, walking down to the river, and even visiting Humpback Falls,
where the youngest Rover had once had such a thrilling adventure.

"Don't seem to be in sight," remarked Tom, after they had tramped
through the woods and over the rocks until they were tired.

"Looks to me as if the _Dartaway_ had gone further than we supposed
possible," replied Sam. "Maybe she's a hundred miles from here."

"Oh, she may have gone clean over to the ocean and dropped in," said
Tom. "But I don't see how she could--with nobody to steer. How long
would an auto keep to the road without somebody steering?"

"Do you know what I think we ought to do? Go back home and telephone to
the villages and towns in the direction the biplane took. Somebody must
have seen the craft,--if she kept in the air."

"By Jove, Sam, that's the idea! Why didn't you think of that before? It
would have saved us quite a tramp."

The two boys turned back, and reached home a little after the supper
hour. The meal had been held back for them.

"Any luck?" asked Dick, who sat in an easy chair on the front piazza.
His cuts had been plastered up and he felt quite like himself again.

"No luck; but Sam has an idea," answered Tom, and mentioned what it was.

"You must have supper first," said Mrs. Rover. "Then you can do all the
telephoning you please." And so it was agreed.

During the past few months the telephone service in the neighborhood of
Dexter's Corners had been greatly improved and the lines could be
connected with nearly all of the villages and towns roundabout.

"I'll try Carwood first," said Sam. "I'll call up Tom Bender. He's a
wideawake fellow and would know if an airship had been seen."

Carwood was soon had on the wire and Sam presently was talking to the
boy he had mentioned--a lad who worked in the general store with his
father.

"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! Suffer