“He’s a young liar!  Pay no attention to him,” stammered Jack, licking his dry lips.

“Silence, sir!” said Mr. Blake gravely.  “Let us listen to what this boy has to say.  If he is not speaking the truth, you can easily disprove it.  Go on, my boy.”

“Well, I guess that’s about all I know about it:  but I thought I ought to tell you, sir,” confusedly concluded the small lad.

“You young runt, I’ll half kill you if I catch you alone!” breathed Jack, under his breath, as the lad sped off to join his companions.

“Of course, you are not going to pay any attention to that kid’s—­I mean boy’s—­story,” demanded Jack, addressing the professor.  “It’s made out of whole cloth, I assure you.”

In the meantime the machines had been brought to the grand stand and were being examined.  Naturally, after young Digby’s statement, Jack’s was one of the first to be scrutinized.  The committee turned it over and over, and were about to pass on it, when Mr. Wingate, who had been bending attentively over the bully’s model, gave a sudden exclamation.

“Look here, gentlemen,” he cried, pointing to a small tag which Jack had evidently forgotten to remove, “I think this is conclusive evidence.  Here is the label of the ’Manhattan Model Works’ pasted right under this wing.”

“Somebody must have put it there.  It’s a job those Boy Scouts put up on me,” protested Tack.  “I made that model every bit myself.”

“I regret to say that we must regard the price tag as conclusive evidence that this machine comes from a store,” said the professor sternly, handing Jack his unlucky model.  “You are disqualified for entering a machine not of your own workmanship.

“Stand back, please,” he went on, as Jack tried to protest.  “I want to say,” he went on in a loud tone, holding up his hand to command attention, “that there has been a grave mistake made.  The machine which actually flew the longest distance is disqualified, as it was made at a New York model factory.  The first prize of fifty dollars, therefore, goes to Paul Perkins, of the Boy Scouts, the second to Edward Rivers, of Hampton, and the third to Hiram Green, also of the Boy Scouts.

“Hold on one minute,” he shouted, as the crowd began to cheer and hoot.  “There is an additional announcement to be made.  The committee has decided to offer a further reward of five dollars to Thomas Maloney, whose model shows evidence of praiseworthy and painstaking work.”

As the cheers broke loose once more, Jack Curtiss and his cronies slunk off through the crowd, and having placed the rejected model in the buggy, drove off into the country in no very amiable or enviable frame of mind.

“Well, you made a fine mess of it,” grumbled Bill Bender savagely.  “I told you to look carefully and see that all the tags were off it.”

“It’s no more my fault than yours,” grated out Jack, lashing the horse savagely, to work off some of his rage.  “It’s all the fault of those young cubs of Rob Blake’s.  Let them look out, though, for I’ll get even with them before long, and in a way that will make them sit up and take notice.”