“Uh huh,” calmly remarked that worthy. “But I’m goin’ to do it. We’ll be back here—couple of days—with Lieutenant Adeler.... Come on, you young Poodle.” “Uh huh,” said Poodle. “Sure, I’ll come.... But I was so comfortable sitting here on this box!” Groaning, he bestirred his round cheerful self to follow Hike’s easy lope up the hill, toward their camp. CHAPTER III LIEUTENANT ADELER AND WIBBELTY-WOBBELTY Major James Griffin, commander of the Army Signal Corps at the Monterey Presidio, did not know that the two boys who came riding up to the door of his office were bearing a great message. He didn’t even know that the taller was the great Hike Griffin. He believed him to be merely Jerry Griffin, Son. Why, sometimes he even thought of him as _Gerald_ Griffin! And, to him, Poodle was only “the son of my old friend Tom Darby.” So he was not much impressed when the boys came scurrying in; excited, though they were tired and what Poodle called “feak and weeble around the knees,” from their hard fast ride back up the coast. “Well, boys,” smiled the tall, slender, gentle Major, “did you have a good ride?” Hike explained that they’d had a good ride, a very good ride. That they hadn’t minded sleeping under single blankets, after all. And that they had found the greatest aeroplane in the world. The Major listened smilingly to their description of Martin Priest and his tet-ra-hé-dral (Hike stumbled over the word, and had to take it in sections, as though it were a circus train!) “Well, well, strange,” said the Major. “I’ll see you at dinner, boys. Better run along now, and get a hot tub.” He turned back to the pile of papers on his desk. Poodle, by raising his eyebrows, asked silently of Hike, “What shall we do?” Just as silently, Hike replied, “Nothing!” by wriggling his shoulders. They left the office, got that hot bath, and went to find Captain Willoughby Welch. Though they did not like the Captain, he was next in rank to the Major. Poodle had nicknamed him “Wibbelty-Wobbelty.” Other people called him “that mean officer.” Captain Welch was a man who always seemed to be sneering—and usually was. No one liked him, yet his manners were beautiful, and his reputation as a Signal Corps expert so great, that Hike couldn’t help looking up to him and admiring him at times—though he never thought, for one single minute, of _loving_ him, as he did splendid Lieutenant Jack Adeler. Captain Welch had been a teacher of physics, of electricity and light and heat, at West Point. When men began trying out aviation, he made so many wonderful flights, and clever inventions—such as a means of fastening bracing cords to the struts or props of planes—that he became famous. He first went over to France, and got one of the first aero pilot’s licenses in the world.