“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 veranda. “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 publicity!” Dick chuckled.

“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 spoke. “I’ve thought a lot about it. The fellow who played ghost must be searching for something. What can it be?”

“The emeralds?”

“But he was there before they were lost, Dick,” Larry objected.

“That’s so, Larry.”

“Here’s something that just came to me.” Sandy bent forward in the lounging chair. “Nothing has happened at night, for ten days. But all that time, Mr. Whiteside has been on the ‘day watch,’ as he calls it.”

“Golly-gracious!” Larry exclaimed. “Do you think?——”

“When Jeff flew us there, the first time, there seemed to be somebody in that hangar when we started in,” Dick added to Sandy’s idea.

“You’re right,” Sandy admitted. “By the way, Jeff is back at Bennett Field, taking up passengers for hire again.”

“I’m not worrying about Jeff.” Larry was caught by the suspicious action of their “detective” in taking the day watch while nothing occurred at night.

“What do you think of going out there to the hangar now?” he asked.

They thought very well of the idea.
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It was close to noon when the ’bus deposited them at the town from which they had to walk to the estate.

Strolling down the quiet street toward the main highway, Sandy’s alert eyes, always roving, caught sight of the estate caretaker. They hailed him and ran to the corner where he had turned to wave to them.

He greeted them sourly. Plainly the caretaker was out of sorts.

“Humph!” he grunted. “More dern amachoor detectives!”

“What makes you say that?” Sandy’s grin of salutation changed to a look of hurt surprise.

“Why wouldn’t I say it? Ain’t it enough I had reporters an’ all rampagin’ through the place without you three got to come, on top o’ that Whiteside feller and Jeff——”

“Mr. Whiteside—and Jeff?” repeated Larry.

“Yep! Nights it’s been bad enough—now it’s daytimes! Ghosts! Reporters! Snoopers! And now you fellers in the daytime!”

“What about Mr. Whiteside—and Jeff?” Dick wanted to get to the bottom of a startling situation.

“Well, if you must know—that Whiteside feller was there, as per usual, and along come Jeff, limpin’——”
200

“Limping? Was he hurt?”

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