"I shall be back to-morrow," he said, "and have a look at Mortlake's
machines. Of course, the government wants to give everybody a fair field
and no favors."
"Oh, of course," assented Roy, pondering in his own mind what sort of a
machine this mysterious Mortlake craft was.
Suddenly there flashed across his mind a thought that had not occurred to
him hitherto. The _Golden Butterfly_ had been left under the shed at the
farm. What was there to prevent Harding and Mortlake from examining it and
acquainting themselves with the intricacies of the self-starting mechanism
and the automatic balancing device?
There was no question that the farm must have been their destination. Roy
blamed himself bitterly for not foreseeing this. He had half a mind to
return to the farm and bring the aeroplane home himself. But it was
growing dark, and a distant rumble seemed to presage the return of the
afternoon's storm.
"Anyhow," the boy thought, and the thought consoled him, "all those
devices are covered by patents, and even if they wanted to, they could not
steal them. And yet--and yet----"
But the storm came up sharper than ever that evening, and even had he
wished to, Roy would have found it impossible to handle the aeroplane
alone in the heavy wind that came now in puffs and now in a steady gale.
So Roy put his tiresome thoughts out of his head.
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