ink it wasn't time wasted. All I want is encouragement;
I've got the bull-dog grit to carry it on all right."

"I reckon you have, Bud," was the only comment Hugh made; and he ought
to know, because Bud was a member of the Wolf patrol and the leader
had watched him work many a time as though there were no such word as
"fail" in his lexicon.

So Bud busied himself in undoing stout cords and opening both bundles.
When Hugh saw the nature of the load he had been packing up the side
of Stormberg Mountain, he shook his head and laughed.

"What did you think I was, Bud, a mule, or a Chinese porter used to
carrying as much as half a ton on his back?" he demanded. "Why,
that engine would have given me a bad scare if I'd seen it beforehand.
And I toted that all the way up here from the road, did I? Well,
anyway, I've earned the right to boast after this. A motor is no
light load, I don't care how small it may be. Don't you agree with
me, Ralph?"

Ralph was chuckling to himself, seemingly much amused.

"I should say yes," he replied; "and I don't wonder you complained of
feeling a touch of pain in the muscles of your back last night, Hugh.
But really the load Bud took himself was larger and just about as
heavy as yours, you see."

"Oh! he gave me my choice. I saw it was six of one and half a dozen
of the other, so I took the smaller one. I reckon I'll be ready to
tackle a house next time, after having a motor on my back."

Bud set to work assembling the various parts of his model. In some
respects it was rather a crude imitation of a monoplane, but for
practical purposes no doubt it would answer just as well as the most
elegant model. What Bud wanted to find out most of all was whether
he had been working on the right principle. If that turned out to
be correct he could afford to have a better model made; then he
could take up the idea with some of those capitalists who were
interested in building airships of all kinds.

For once Bud was supreme. He gave his orders and the others obeyed.
Even Hugh, accustomed to being the leader, willingly assumed the air
of a novice, though Bud knew very well that the other had studied
the subject of aviation very thoroughly and was competent to advise
in a pinch.

By slow degrees Bud managed to get his planes adjusted and the tiny
motor installed. Hugh, in a quiet and unostentatious way, often
assisted him to overcome some difficulty that arose; so that Bud
declared he d