“Say, he is a big fellow!” exclaimed Mr. Stern. “Well, the best thing you can do is to go to Nathan’s garage. Tell him I sent you and he won’t gouge you on the price. He’s dealt with me before,” and Jason Stern said this with an air that boded no good for Mr. Nathan should the latter try any unfair tactics. Arranging to have some one on guard over his _Blackbird_ night and day until he should return, Tom and his friends set off to the village. They found Nathan’s garage and quickly arranged to hire a big touring car, with room in it for Koku. “We’ll put in something to eat and take some blankets along,” decided Tom. “No telling how long we may be on the road, and I don’t want to have to stop and put up at a hotel. We’ll either camp out in the open or sleep in the car. The nights are warm.” “Suits me,” agreed Ned. Of course saying nothing of their object, the travelers started off in the machine, Tom heading it to the north and as near as he could judge in the general direction of the bandits and where the blue machine had last been observed. Tom Swift’s training had made him a careful observer, and it was not idly that he had told Ned he had marked the place where the trees sheltered the blue aeroplane. After one or two false turns, the young inventor got on the right road, and as evening was falling he guided the machine along a country thoroughfare in a sparsely settled neighborhood. Coming upon a lonely cabin where an aged man and his wife lived, Tom inquired whether they had heard of an aeroplane landing in that vicinity lately. “Yep,” replied the old man. “A big blue flyin’ machine come down in a lot over by the river early this morning. I went over to see it. Say, I didn’t ever believe there was such things. I’d never seen one before except in pictures. Hattie here, she won’t believe I saw it.” “You can’t tell me!” declared the man’s wife. “Nobody can fly in the air! I never believed it and I never will. It’s agin nature!” Leaving the queer couple, but satisfied that they were on the right track, Tom and his companions rode on until further inquiries gave them the information that they were within half a mile of the place where the aeroplane, for some reason, had come down. “We’d better not take the auto very close,” said Tom. “They might suspect something, though I suppose they have been as overwhelmed with curious ones as we were back there.” “It will be better to go up easy, I think,” agreed Ned. Accordingly, the auto was parked in a secluded place, and, taking Koku with them to identify the robbers should the men prove to be those under suspicion, the chums cautiously approached the clump of trees. As they drew near they could see that a sort of camp had been established about the aeroplane which was painted blue. It was a large machine, as Koku had said.