let that go. But why did Jeff bring us here?”

“He said, this morning, we had helped him a lot and he didn’t have money to pay us,” Larry answered. “He offered us a joy-ride.”

“But why did he come so far out on Long Island, and then get a dead stick so handy to this old estate that hasn’t been lived in for years and that has everybody scared so they won’t come near at night?”

“‘Then get a dead stick!’” Larry shook his head. “Why, Sandy! I know you read detective stories until you think everything is suspicious——”

“So do you read them—and Dick, too!”

“But we read to try to guess the answers to the mystery,” Dick declared. “You’ve got the idea that real life is like those wild stories. Everything looks as if it had some hidden mystery behind it—I know what will be your new nickname——”

He chuckled to show there was no malice as he stated the new name.

“Suspicious Sandy!”

“That’s good,” Larry smiled. “Suspicious Sandy thinks a pilot gets a dead stick to make us land near a haunted hangar——”

“I saw him cut the ignition switch!” declared Sandy defiantly.

“You thought you did!”

“I know I did—and, what’s more, here we are at a spot where nobody comes because of the ghost story—and he tells us to go into the hangar and—the door is left up a little way——”

“Oh, Sandy, you’re letting wild imagination run away with you!”

“Am I? All right. You two go on in—and be held for ransom!”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho! That’s good. Suspicious Sandy—is that somebody inside the hangar?” Dick changed his tone suddenly, dropping his voice to a whisper as he stooped and saw something move behind the old amphibian at the back of the building.

“I thought I saw—but it’s gone!” Larry retorted, lowering his voice also.

By a common impulse of curiosity they stooped and went in. Sandy, his own impulse following theirs, was inside almost as quickly.

“There isn’t anybody!” Larry’s eyes became used to the duller light that filtered through the thick dust on the roof 

 Prev. P 6/147 next