“Hooray!” Dick slapped Sandy’s shoulder. “The ‘man higher up’ has come down to earth! Here comes Larry!”

“You’re a sight for sore eyes!” Sandy exclaimed as the youthful amateur pilot joined his friends.

“I haven’t seen much of you, I know.” Larry sat down on the swing by Dick on the latter’s veranda¹. “Daytimes I’ve been studying rigging and checking up on an airplane, because Tommy thinks a pilot ought to know everything there is to know about his ship because he may have to do things himself if he gets hold of a careless rigger.”

“If the pilot didn’t know the right way he couldn’t say if his helper was doing things the wrong way,” agreed Sandy.

“But that hasn’t kept you away evenings,” objected Dick.
197

“Tommy has been very good to me, giving me his time, in his room, so he could tell me all the ‘fine points’ he has picked up about flying.”

“Sky Patrol’s report received, considered and accepted,” Dick stated.

“Now for yours,” Larry smiled. “What has the Ground Crew done?”

“Watched, evenings, turn and turn about, till midnight,” Dick told him. “Mr. Whiteside took the day shift and came on to relieve us every midnight.”

“What progress have you made?”

“None at all!”

Sandy, responding to Larry, added:

“But you wouldn’t expect anything to happen if you’d seen all the reporters who have been ‘hanging around’ the old estate. Why, one has slept in that hangar a couple of nights.”

“No ghost with any self-respect would make a show of himself for newspaper publicity²!” Dick chuckled³.

“Almost all we needed to do was to watch the reporters,” Sandy said. “But they have given up, I guess. There was only one out last night, and he told me he thought the paper that ran that ‘box’ had played a trick on the others and on the readers.”

“That’s good,” Larry remarked. “Now the coast will be clear, the ghost can walk, and I will be with my trusty comrades to trip him up.”
198

“It seems queer to me,” Dick

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