Gimbel patriotically offered to burn the Martin factory, or in some way stop the use of Martins in the tests, for a consideration of three hundred thousand dollars to be paid him because of the risk. The old boy fell for it and, when the thing was broken up, was actually working about fifty men getting the magnetic apparatus ready, and had sent a letter to a prominent rubber company in Akron, warning them to be ready to furnish the Government at least thirty free balloons at a month’s notice. Gimbel, hot after the three hundred grand, had decided to carry on after the failure of his attempt to ignite the factory in Cleveland. He had assured the old boy that the wrecks in Boundville had been due to the rotten construction of the Martins, and did not plan to let him realize what he was actually doing. You can see, by the methods used, how easy it would be to ruin enough ships _en route_, without being caught, they figured, to cause the bombing to be a bust that year. And that meant Gimbel’s three hundred thousand. He had got the aged millionaire so completely _non compos mentis_ that the poor old man considered it a holy crusade for the good of the country. The way Gimbel was operating was this: Two men had drifted to the field at Boundville, without anybody seeing them, chatted with Marston, and then suggested some coffee. They had doped it, so Marston slept like the dead and they came back and filed the wires. In the gang Gimbel had collected--three men, it appeared--there was one flyer. In some way they were informed when I left Cleveland--that would be simple enough--and their plan of shooting me down was a very good one. The wreck would have been a total, soul-satisfying and complete catastrophe, of course, with four tons dropping a few thousand feet out of control. Fire would have been inevitable, and the chance of ever discovering, from two heaps of bones, that we had been shot would have been negligible. By the time it was decided the two flyers would have been safely away, anyhow. They might have reported the wreck themselves, or landed, looked over the bones, and made certain that any tell-tale signs of bullets had disappeared before they did anything about reporting it. Any farmers around would have known nothing whatever about such technical matters, and guns can not be heard above the roar of motors. * * * * * On my way back to Langham, and for several hours before I started, I had a good chance to think over all that Marston had done. Desperately wounded as he was, he had had to climb from his cockpit over into mine, get the ship under control from the seat alongside me, leaning over to grasp the wheel, and then unbuckle my belt and heave me out of my seat.