Ned started for the village where there was a gasolene depot. He fancied the villagers regarded him rather curiously, but he did not stop to ask what it meant. Another odd fact was that the usual crowd of curious rustics about the airship was missing. It was as though they suspected trouble might come, and they did not want to be mixed up in it.
Never, Ned thought, had he seen a man so slow at getting ready the supply of gasolene. He was to take it out in a wagon, but first he mislaid the funnel, then the straining cloth, and finally he discovered a break in the harness that needed mending.
"I believe he's doing it on purpose to delay us," thought the youth, "but it won't do to say anything. Something is in the wind." He helped the man all he could, and urged him in every way he knew, but the fellow seemed to have grown suddenly stupid, and answered only in French, though previously he had spoken some English.
But at last Ned, by dint of hard work, got him started, and rode on the gasolene wagon with him. Once at the anchored airship, Tom and the others filled the reserve tanks themselves, though the man tried to help. However he did more
