Staring him in the face in big black letters he read:
Below – and every letter of the article burned itself into Billy’s brain, was a long story eulogizing the enterprise of the Despatch in making the offer and giving a list of the noted aviators who would be sure – so the Despatch thought – to enter the contest.
It was a cold steal of the Planet’s idea.
Almost word for word the conditions were the same as those Mr. Stowe had detailed to Billy that afternoon.
“Well,” remarked the managing editor in a harsh tone, in which Billy recognized the steely ring that always presaged a storm from that august quarter.
“Well,” floundered Billy helplessly, “I cannot account for it.”
“You cannot,” echoed the other in a flinty tone.
“Why no,” rejoined the lad, lifting his eyes to Stowe’s, “can you?”
“Yes I can.”
“You can, sir?”
“We have been sold out.”
“Sold out?”
“Precisely. And there are only three people in the office who could have had any knowledge of the secret. One is the owner of the paper, the other myself and the third is you.”
Mr. Stowe joined his hands magisterially and looked straight at Billy, in whose mind a horrid suspicion had begun to dawn.
The managing editor was practically accusing him of selling the story.
Preposterous as the idea was, Billy realized that to a prejudiced mind, such as the managing editor’s, there would be no way of explaining matters. His thoughts were suddenly broken in on by Mr. Stowe’s harsh voice.
“Is there any one else, Barnes?”
Like a flash the recollection of his encounter with Reade at the very door of the managing editor’s room, the latter’s strange and defiant manner, and the unaccountable publishing by the Despatch of a rival offer, came into Billy’s mind. He was about to mention Reade’s name when he checked himself.
What proof had he?
Then, too, he saw that Stowe’s mind was made up. He did not wish to appear in the position of trying to throw the blame on a man whom he realized the managing editor would not believe could by any possibility have any knowledge of the Planet’s plans.
“I am waiting for your answer,” came the cold, incisive voice again.
“I can think of none, sir,” rejoined the young reporter with a feeling that he had put the rope about his neck with a vengeance now.
“Hum! In that case, by a process of elimination, we have only one person who could have done it, and that – ” He paused. “I hate to have to say it, Barnes, but it looks bad for you.”
“Great Heavens, Mr. Stowe!” gasped Billy, who, while he had seen what the managing editor was leading up to, was struck by a rude shock of surprise at the actual placing into words of the accusation, “do you mean to say you think that I would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know what to think, Barnes,” was the discouraging answer. “I am more sorry than I can say to have had to speak as I have. However, until you can clear yourself of the cloud of a suspicion that must rest on you because of this affair we shall have to part company.”
Billy went white.
His superior then really believed him guilty of the worst crime a newspaper man can commit – a breach of faith to his paper.
“Do you really believe what you are saying, sir?” he demanded.
“As I said before, I don’t know what to think, Barnes. However, what I might say will make little difference. In a short time the proprietor will hear of this, and I should have to discharge you whether I wished to or no. If you wish to act now, you may resign.”
“Very well, then, Mr. Stowe, I will make out my formal resignation,” exclaimed Billy, his cheeks burning crimson with anger and shame.
“I’m sorry, Barnes,” said Mr. Stowe, as the lad, scarcely knowing where he was going, left the room. “I have no other course, you know.”
Fifteen minutes later Billy Barnes was no longer a member of the Planet staff, and his resignation, neatly typewritten, lay on the managing editor’s desk. To do Mr. Stowe justice, he had acted against his own beliefs, but he was only an inferior officer in the direction of the paper. Its owner, he well knew, was a man of violent temper and fixed convictions. When he saw the Despatch Mr. Stowe knew that the vials of his wrath would be emptied and that Billy would have had to leave in any event. And so subsequent events proved, for the next day, when Billy’s immediate discharge was angrily demanded by the Planet’s owner, he was informed by his managing editor that the boy had left of his own free will.
“He resigned last night rather than have any suspicion directed toward him,” said Mr. Stowe; “but, you mark my words, the boy will right himself.”
“Nonsense, Stowe, he sold us out,” said the owner bitterly; “sold us out cold and nothing will ever make me alter my conviction.”
“Except Billy Barnes himself,” said Stowe softly, and lit a cigar, which he puffed at with great energy.
When he had learned that Reade was doing aviation for the Despatch the managing editor’s mind was crossed for a brief minute with suspicion that here might be the traitor. But he dismissed it – was compelled to, in fact. To his mind it would have been an impossibility for Reade to have heard the conversation in which the offer was discussed.
In the meantime both papers continued to work up their $50,000 offers, until there was actually developed a keen and bitter rivalry between them. One morning the Despatch would announce the entry of some prominent aviator in its cross-country contest, and the next the Planet would be out with its announcement of a new contestant added to its ranks. The public appetite was whetted to a keen pitch by the various moves.
Crawford, the man who had taken Billy Barnes’ place on the Planet, was a skilled writer, and an excellent man to work up such a story as the cross-continental challenge. It was he who first broached to Stowe the idea of flinging down the gauntlet to the Despatch and inviting that paper to start its contestants on the same day as those of the Planet, the winner to take the prizes of both papers. This would give the struggle tremendous added interest, and attract worldwide attention, he argued.
While events were thus shaping themselves with the Planet and the Despatch, Billy Barnes had visited his friends, the Boy Aviators, and told them, with a rueful face, of his misfortune.
His manner of so doing was characteristic. A few days after he had left the newspaper he called on them at their work shop. To his surprise he found there old Eben Joyce, the inventor whom Luther Barr had treated so shabbily in the matter of the Buzzard aeroplane of which Joyce was the creator – as told in The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.
Joyce and the two boys were busied over the Golden Eagle when Billy arrived,
