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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship, by 
+Margaret Burnham
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship
+
+Author: Margaret Burnham
+
+Release Date: September 1, 2010 [EBook #33605]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL AVIATORS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.net
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL AVIATORS
+
+AND
+
+THE PHANTOM AIRSHIP
+
+BY
+
+MARGARET BURNHAM
+
+M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+
+CHICAGO--NEW YORK
+
+Made in U.S.A.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY.
+
+
+"Roy! Roy! where are you?"
+
+Peggy Prescott came flying down the red-brick path, a rustling newspaper
+clutched in her hand.
+
+"Here I am, sis,--what's up?"
+
+The door of a long, low shed at the farther end of the old-fashioned
+garden opened as a clattering sound of hammering abruptly ceased. Roy
+Prescott, a wavy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen, or thereabouts,
+stood in the portal. He looked very business-like in his khaki trousers,
+blue shirt and rolled up sleeves. In his hand was a shiny hammer.
+
+Peggy, quite regardless of a big, black smudge on her brother's face,
+threw her arms around his neck in one of her "bear hugs," while Roy,
+boy-like, wriggled in her clasp as best he could.
+
+"Now, just look here," cried Peggy, quite out of breath with her own
+vehemence. She flourished the paper under his nose and, imitating the
+traditional voice of a town crier, announced:
+
+"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Roy Prescott or any of the ambitious
+aviators--now is your chance! Great news from the front! Third and last
+call!"
+
+"You've got auctioneering, the Supreme Court and war times, mixed up a
+bit, haven't you?" asked Roy with masculine condescension, but gazing
+fondly at his vivacious sister nevertheless.
+
+Peggy made a little face and then thrust forth the paper for his
+examination.
+
+"Read that, you unenthusiastic person," she demanded, "and then tell me
+if you don't think that Miss Margaret Prescott has good reason to feel
+somewhat more enthusiastic than comports with her usual dignity and
+well-known icy reserve--ahem!"
+
+"Good gracious, sis!" exclaimed the boy, as he scanned the news-sheet,
+"why this is just what we were wishing for, isn't it? It's our chance if
+we can only grasp it and make good."
+
+"We can! We will!" exclaimed Peggy, striking an attitude and holding one
+hand above her glossy head. "Read it out, Roy, so that Monsieur Bleriot
+can hear it."
+
+M. Bleriot, a French bull-dog, who had dignifiedly followed Peggy's mad
+career down the path, gazed up appreciatively, as Roy read out:
+
+                    "Big Chance for Sky Boys!
+
+      "Ironmaster Higgins of Acatonick Offers Ten Thousand Dollars
+      In Prizes for Flights and Planes."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars, just think!" cried Peggy, clasping her hands one
+minute and the next stooping to caress M. Bleriot. "Oh, Roy! Do you think
+we could?"
+
+"Could what? you indefinite person?" parried Roy, although his eyes were
+dancing and he knew well enough what his vivacious sister was driving at.
+
+"Could win that ten thousand dollars, of course, you goose."
+
+Roy laughed.
+
+"It's not all offered in a lump sum," he rejoined. "Listen; there is a
+first prize of five thousand dollars for the boy under eighteen who makes
+the longest sustained flight in a plane of his own construction--with the
+exception of the engine, that is; and here's another of two thousand five
+hundred dollars to the glider making the best and longest sustained
+flight, and another of one thousand five hundred to the boy flying the
+most carefully constructed machine and the one bearing the most ingenious
+devices for perfecting the art of flying and--and--oh listen, Peggy!"
+
+"I am--oh, I am!" breathed Peggy with half assumed breathlessness.
+
+"There's a prize offered for girls!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes. Now don't say any more that girls are downtrodden and neglected by
+the bright minds of the day. Here it is, all in black and white, a prize
+of a whole thousand to the young lady who makes a successful flight.
+There, what do you think of that?"
+
+"That Mr. Higgins is a mean old thing," pouted Peggy, "five thousand
+dollars to the successful boy and only one thousand to the successful
+girl. It's discrimination, that's what it is. Don't you read every day in
+the papers about girls and women making almost as good flights as the
+men? Didn't a--a Mademoiselle somebody-or-other make a flight round the
+bell tower at Bruges the other day, and hasn't Col. Roosevelt's daughter
+been up in one, and isn't there a regular school for women fliers at
+Washington, and--and----?"
+
+"Didn't the suffragettes promise to drop 'Votes for Women' placards from
+the air upon the devoted heads of the British Parliament, you up to date
+young person?" finished Roy, teasingly.
+
+Peggy made a dash for him but the boy dodged into the shed, closely
+followed by his sister.
+
+But as she crossed the threshold Peggy's wild swoop became a decorous
+stroll, so to speak. She paused, all out of breath, beneath a spreading
+expanse of yellow balloon silk, braced and strengthened with brightly
+gleaming wires and stays,--one wing of the big monoplane upon which her
+brother had spent all his spare time for the past year. The flying thing
+was almost completed now. It stood in its shed, with its scarab-like
+wings outspread like a newly alighted yellow butterfly, which, by a
+stroke of ill luck, had found itself installed in a gloomy cage instead
+of the bright, open spaces of its native element.
+
+In one corner of the shed was a large crate surrounded by some smaller
+ones. The large one had been partially opened and Peggy gave a little
+squeal of delight as her eyes fell on it.
+
+"Oh, Roy, that's it?"
+
+"That's it," rejoined the boy proudly, lifting a bit of sacking from the
+contents of the opened crate, "isn't it a beauty?"
+
+The lifted covering had exposed a gleam of bright, scarlet enamel, and
+the glint of polished brass. To Roy the contents of that crate was the
+splendid new motor for his aeroplane. But to Peggy, just then, it was
+something far different. A bit of a mist dimmed her shining eyes for an
+instant. Her voice grew very sober.
+
+"Three thousand dollars--oh, Roy, it scares me!"
+
+Roy crossed the shed and threw an arm about his sister's neck.
+
+"Don't be frightened, sis," he breathed in an assuring tone, "it's going
+to be all right. Why, can't you see that the very first thing that
+happens is a chance to win $5,000?"
+
+"I know that. But that contest is not to come off for more than a month
+and--and supposing someone should have a better machine than you?"
+
+For an instant that air of absolute assurance, which truth to tell, had
+made Roy some enemies, and which was his greatest fault, left him. His
+face clouded and he looked troubled. But it was as momentary as the
+cloud-shadow that passes over a summer wheat field.
+
+"It'll be all right, sis," he rejoined, confidently, "and if it isn't, I
+can always sell out to Simon Harding. You know he said that his offer
+held good at any time."
+
+"I know that, Roy," rejoined Peggy, seriously, "but we could never do
+that. We could neither of us go against father's wishes like that.
+He--well, Roy, it's not to be thought of. Poor dad----"
+
+Her bright eyes filled with tears as her mind travelled back to a scene
+of a year before when Mr. Prescott had ceased from troubling with the
+affairs of this world, and commended his children to the care of their
+maiden aunt--his sister with whom, since their mother's death some years
+before, the little family had made their home.
+
+Poor Mr. Prescott had been that hopelessly impracticable creature--an
+inventor. Fortunately for himself, however, he had a small fortune of his
+own so that he had been enabled to carry on his dreaming and planning
+without embarrassing his family. Roy and Peggy had both been sent to good
+boarding schools, and had known, in fact, very little of home life after
+their mother's death which had occurred several years before, as already
+said.
+
+Mr. Prescott, in his dreamy, abstract way, had cared dearly for his
+children. But those other children of his--the offsprings of his
+brain--that surrounded him in his workshop, had, somehow, seemed always
+to mean more to him. And so the young Prescotts had grown up without the
+benefit of home influences.
+
+On Peggy's naturally sweet, vivacious character, this had not made so
+much difference. But Roy had developed, in spite of his real sterling
+worth and ability, into a headstrong, rather self-opinionated lad. His
+success at school in athletics and the studies which he cared about
+"mugging" at had not tended to decrease these qualities.
+
+It had come as a shock to both of them a year before when two telegrams
+had been despatched--one to Peggy's school up the Hudson, and the other
+to Roy up in Connecticut, telling them to return to the Long Island
+village of Sandy Bay at once. Their father--that half-shadowy being--was
+very ill.
+
+The messages had not exaggerated the seriousness of the situation. Three
+days after his children reached his side Mr. Prescott gently breathed his
+last, dying, as he had lived, so quietly, that the end had come before
+they realized it. But in those last brief moments Roy came to know his
+father better than ever before. He learned that the dream of his parent
+had been to produce an aeroplane free from the defects of its
+forerunners,--a safe vehicle for passengers or freight. How far he had
+progressed in this there was no time for him to tell before the end came.
+But Roy, interested already in aeronautics at school, where he had been
+president of "The High Fliers"--a model aeroplane association,--eagerly
+took up his father's desire that he would try to carry on his work, and
+began to take lessons in flying.
+
+In the shed which had been Mr. Prescott's workshop the framework of an
+aeroplane already stood. And with the aid of what money his father had
+left him, Roy had carried on the work till now it was almost completed.
+But the three thousand dollars which had gone for the motor had
+completely exhausted the lad's legacy. As Peggy put it, all their eggs
+were in an "aerial basket."
+
+But how much Peggy had aided him, in what had, in the last few months
+possessed all his thoughts, Roy did not guess. To what extent her
+encouragement had spurred him on to surmount seemingly unconquerable
+difficulties, and how she had actually aided him in constructing the
+machine, his ambition never realized. Not innately selfish, Roy was yet
+too used to having his own way to attribute his success to any one but
+himself.
+
+Sometimes, brave, loyal little Peggy, try as she might, could not
+disguise this from herself, and it pained her a good deal. But she had
+uncomplainingly, ungrudgingly, aided her brother, without hoping for, or
+expecting, the appreciation she sometimes felt she was really entitled
+to. But her great love for her brother kept Peggy from ever betraying to
+him or any one else an iota of her inner feelings.
+
+So intent had the brother and sister been on their talk that neither of
+them had noticed, while they conversed, that a big four-door touring car,
+aglitter with gleaming maroon paint, and with a long, low hood concealing
+a powerful engine, had glided up to the white gate in the picket fence
+surrounding Miss Prescott's old fashioned cottage.
+
+From it a frank, pleasant-faced lad and an unusually striking girl, tall,
+slender and with a glossy mass of black hair coiled attractively on her
+shapely head, had alighted.
+
+Hearing the sound of voices from the open door of the shed in which The
+Golden Butterfly, as Peggy had christened it, was nearing completion,
+they, without ceremony, at once made their way toward it. Peggy, glancing
+up from her sad reverie at the sound of footsteps, gave a glad little cry
+as she beheld the visitors standing framed in the sunlight of the open
+door. While she and the tall, dark-haired girl mingled their contrasting
+tresses in an exuberant school-girl caress, the lad and Roy Prescott,
+were, boy fashion, slapping one another on the back and shaking hands
+with just as much enthusiasm.
+
+"Why, if this isn't simply delightful, Jess, you dear old thing," cried
+the delighted Peggy, as, with both hands on her chum's shoulders, she
+held Jess Bancroft off at arm's length, the better to scrutinize her
+handsome face, "and Jimsy, too," as she turned to the lad with a bright
+smile of welcome; "wherever did you two come from?"
+
+"From the clouds?" demanded Roy.
+
+"No, hardly, although I don't wonder at your asking such a question,"
+laughed Jess, merrily, exchanging greetings with Roy. "Roy Prescott,
+positively I can see your wings sprouting."
+
+They all laughed heartily at this, while Jess ran on to explain that she
+and her brother were stopping for the summer at Seaview Towers, a summer
+estate which their father, a Wall Street power, had leased for the
+season. Of course, explained the merry girl, who had been Peggy's closest
+chum at school, her first thought had been to take a spin over in her new
+motor car and look up her friends, for Roy and James--or Jimsy--Bancroft
+had been almost as close chums as the girls.
+
+"And so this is the wonderful Golden Butterfly that you wrote to me
+about?" exclaimed Jess enthusiastically after the first buzz of
+conversation subsided.
+
+"Yes, this is it," said Roy with great satisfaction in his tones, "and
+I'm proud of it, I can tell you. I think I've made a success of it."
+
+Jess and Jimsy exchanged glances. And then Jess stole a look at Peggy,
+but no cloud had crossed the face of Roy's sister.
+
+"Oh, you darling," thought Jess, "you're too sweet for anything. I just
+know how much you contributed to the Golden Butterfly's existence, and
+yet you won't detract a bit from Roy's self satisfaction."
+
+As for Jimsy Bancroft, he said nothing. He glanced rather oddly at Roy
+for an instant. Then his eyes turned to Peggy's face. Perhaps they dwelt
+there for rather a long period of time. At any rate, they were still
+fixed on her brave beauty when a sudden shadow fell across the stream of
+sunlight that poured into the open portal of the workshop.
+
+"Ah! So this is the place in which young genius finds its habitation;"
+grated out a rather harsh, unpleasant voice.
+
+They all looked up. Perhaps none of them--Jimsy least of all--was pleased
+at the interruption. The newcomer was a tall, angular man, with a
+withered, clean-shaven face,--what Peggy called a "money making face";
+and surely that described Simon Harding, as he stood there in his black,
+none-too-new garments, and his square-toed shoes. One could fairly catch
+the avaricious glint in his eyes as he squinted rapidly over the new
+aeroplane's outlines.
+
+By his side stood a youth who was, so far as dress went at any rate, the
+exact opposite of the elder man. Fanning Harding--or Fan as he was
+usually called--was dressed in elaborate motoring costume. His goggles,
+of the latest and most exaggerated design, were shoved up off his
+countenance now, exposing to view a good-looking browned face. It was
+marred, however, by the same restless, strained look that could be seen
+on his father's visage.
+
+"We're not intruding, I hope," he hastened to say, coming forward with a
+cordiality that seemed somewhat forced.
+
+"Not in the least," said Peggy, hastily, realizing that none of them had
+perhaps looked very cordial, "won't you come in?"
+
+Fan Harding, bestowing an admiring glance on her, seemed to be about to
+accept. His father, however, struck in:
+
+"I'll leave you with the young folks, my boy, while I go up to the house.
+I have some business with Miss Prescott."
+
+As he shuffled off, Peggy and Roy exchanged somewhat uneasy glances. What
+business could this old man--in some respects a power financially and
+otherwise in Sandy Beach--have with their aunt?
+
+"Say Peggy," spoke up Fan Harding, suddenly, "ain't you going to
+introduce me to your friends? And how about inviting us all to have some
+of those strawberries Pop and I noticed as we came down the path?"
+
+"Well, he isn't a bit backward about coming forward!" thought Jess as the
+young people, with due formality, went through the ceremony of
+introductions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SUSPENSE AND ACHIEVEMENT.
+
+
+It was a week after Fan Harding's visit to the Prescott home, on one
+windless, steamy morning, when the pearl-gray mist still lay in the
+smooth hollows running back from the coast, that The Golden Butterfly was
+wheeled out of her cocoon--so to speak--and dragged up the hillside at
+the back of the white, green-shuttered cottage. Miss Prescott, a
+sweet-faced old lady, whose cheek was still blooming despite the passage
+of the years, stood on the back porch of the house watching the process.
+
+If Miss Prescott's face had been somewhat less cheerful than usual since
+her talk with Mr. Harding, all the clouds had been chased from it now.
+She watched as eagerly as a girl while Roy and Peggy, aided by Jess and
+Jimsy and two other lads, friends of Roy's from the village, dragged the
+brand new aeroplane up the hillside.
+
+The excited chatter and laughter of the young folks rang out merrily as
+they worked--for it was work to get the 'plane, light as it was, up the
+grade. Fortunately--for Roy had no desire of a crowd to witness his
+initial ascent in the new 'plane--the Prescott house was some distance
+out of the village, and there were no near neighbors. The place had, in
+fact, once been a farm house, and although the acreage still was in the
+possession of Miss Prescott it was not worked.
+
+A more ideal place for flying could not be imagined. Smooth
+slopes--unwooded, except in clumps--were all about. To the north
+glimmered the sparkling waters of Long Island Sound, while to the south
+stretched fertile farming land, devoted to crop-raising and pasturage.
+
+Very business-like the young people looked as they hauled the monoplane
+up the hill. Roy and Jimsy wore leather puttees, trousers fashioned
+somewhat like riding breeches, and leather coats. On their heads were
+caps of the latter material, well padded within and provided with visors
+pierced with goggles.
+
+The girls wore shirt waists, outing skirts and "sensible" walking boots.
+Jess had on her "Shaker" motoring bonnet, in which she looked very
+captivating indeed. Peggy's glossy hair, unadorned, but tightly confined
+in a net, formed her hair covering. Both girls were all a-tiptoe with
+excitement, for although Roy had had experience with aeroplanes, and so,
+in a limited way, had Jimsy, this feature of the sport was new to them.
+
+At last the summit was reached, and Roy, after calling a halt, took a
+brief but comprehensive survey of the Golden Butterfly. This done, he
+climbed into the chassis--or body--of the thing, and leaning over the
+machinery he rapidly tested all the adjustments and examined the
+lubricating devices to see that all was in order. Everything appeared to
+be.
+
+"Well," said Roy, with some self complacency, stepping out of the
+machine, "everything seems to be ready for the initial flight of the
+Golden Butterfly, my lords and gentlemen."
+
+"And ladies, if you please," put in Jess, in a voice that was vibrant
+with excitement, despite her endeavor to keep calm.
+
+"And ladies," added Roy, with a gallant bow in her direction.
+
+Peggy in the meantime, like an anxious little mother fussing over dolls,
+had been examining the aeroplane once more. Suddenly she gave a little
+cry. The exclamation interrupted Roy who was explaining, with great
+satisfaction, that everything was all right.
+
+"I've looked it over and if there had been anything wrong it couldn't
+have escaped my notice," he observed rather pompously.
+
+"Oh, Roy! Just look here! The spring of this landing wheel is all slack!"
+
+This was the exclamation from Peggy that brought up Roy somewhat shortly
+in the midst of his self-confident harangue.
+
+"By George, so it is, sis!" exclaimed Roy, reddening a little, while Lem
+Sidney, one of his chums, observed with a chuckle to Jeff Stokes, that
+Peggy appeared to know as much, if not more, about the machine than did
+Roy.
+
+The spring was soon tightened by means of a monkey wrench. But that did
+not prevent them all realizing that had it not been for Peggy's acute
+observation a serious accident might have occurred. This done, even
+Peggy's anxious glances could not detect any other flaw in the machine.
+
+"What time did that aviator fellow say he would show up?" then demanded
+Jimsy, abruptly.
+
+"He should be here now," rejoined Roy. "I've half a mind to start anyhow.
+I can manage the machine I am very certain."
+
+"Oh, Roy!" cried Peggy, reprovingly, "you know you promised aunty that
+you wouldn't do anything till Mr. Hal Homer got here."
+
+"All right, sis," put in Roy, hastily, "don't be scared. I'll stick to my
+word."
+
+"Hullo!" cried Jimsy, suddenly, "there comes an auto now."
+
+"So it is," exclaimed the others, as a black touring car came whizzing
+down the road below them. It soon halted, and a figure in leather
+garments with gaitered legs alighted and hastened across the fields
+toward the party clustered about the aeroplane. The car was left in
+charge of the chauffeur.
+
+As Jimsy had guessed, the new arrival proved to be Hal Homer, the
+well-known cross country flier, from whom Roy had taken some vacation
+time aviation lessons.
+
+"He's awfully good looking," whispered Jess to Peggy, after introductions
+to the dapper young aviator had been extended by Roy.
+
+"Oh, so--so," rejoined Peggy, with a toss of her head.
+
+"Maybe you know some one who is handsomer?" questioned Jess with a
+mischievous side glance of her fine eyes.
+
+Peggy flushed under her fair skin. But Jess laughed with good-humored
+raillery.
+
+"Jimsy surely is a good-looking boy," she said, "if he hadn't a pug nose."
+
+"A pug nose!" flared up Peggy. "Oh, Jess, how can----"
+
+Then she stopped short in confusion while Jess laughed the more at her
+discomfiture.
+
+Young Mr. Homer lost no time in starting operations. He ordered his
+helpers to secure the machine to a small tree growing nearby by means of
+a stout rope Roy had brought with him. This done, and the monoplane thus
+secured from flying away when her engine was started, he set the sparking
+and gasolene levers and threw in the switch. Roy and Jimsy, the latter
+acting under Roy's instructions, flew to the propeller.
+
+The Golden Butterfly being a monoplane, this was in front of the machine.
+
+"Be careful when you feel it start, to leap aside," warned Roy, "or you
+might be beheaded."
+
+"I never lose my head in an emergency," joked Jimsy.
+
+But just the same his heart beat, as did those of all of them but Hal
+Homer's, as he and Roy started to swing the great shiny wooden driving
+appliance.
+
+Once, twice, three times they swung it round, exerting all their force.
+The fourth time they were rewarded by a feeble sigh from the engine--a
+sixty horse power motor.
+
+All at once--Bang!
+
+"Let go!" yelled Roy, jumping backward.
+
+Jimsy in his hurry to obey stumbled and fell backward in a heap. He
+rolled some distance down the hill unnoticed, before he succeeded in
+stopping his motion. In the meantime the others--even Peggy--were too
+absorbed in the sight before them to watch Jimsy.
+
+Simultaneously with the sharp report the propeller had whirled around
+swiftly. The next instant it was a mere gray blur, while a furious wind
+from its revolving blades swept the onlookers. Blue smoke spurted from
+the exhausts, mingled with flame, and the uproar was terrific.
+
+The Golden Butterfly, like a thing of life, struggled at her moorings.
+The rope stretched and strained, taut as a violin string, under the pull.
+But it held fast, and after a while Aviator Homer slowed down the engine
+and finally stopped it, after adjusting a miss-fire in one of the
+cylinders. As the propeller became once more visible and then came to a
+stop, the boys broke into cheers, while the girls, too, voiced their
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, isn't it a darling!" cried Jess.
+
+"Aeroplanes are not usually called 'darlings,'" responded Peggy with
+assumed severity, "but--oh, Jess, it's--it's--a jewel and----"
+
+"I'm dying for a ride in it!" burst in Jess.
+
+"Then if you will consent to live a little longer I hope to have the
+pleasure of saving your life," put in Roy, gallantly.
+
+"Oh, Roy! I can ride in it now!" gasped Jess, while Peggy clasped her
+hands and snuggled up close to her chum.
+
+"Well, no, hardly just yet," laughed Roy, "but after Homer has tested her
+thoroughly out I guess you girls can take a spin."
+
+"You know I'm going to learn to handle one," declared Peggy, as Roy made
+off once more. "I know a good deal about the theoretical part of it
+already."
+
+"Well, theory wouldn't do you much good in a mile-long tumble," quoth
+Jess, sagely.
+
+"Nonsense," rejoined Peggy. "Mr. Homer says one is as safe in an
+aeroplane, if one is careful, as in an auto."
+
+"Safer I guess, the way that brother of mine drives sometimes," replied
+Jess. "He calls it 'burning up the road.' But--oh, look, they're casting
+off, or whatever it is you do to an airship when you turn her loose. Oh!"
+
+Snatching off her motoring bonnet Jess began waving it furiously. While
+they had been talking the rope had been cast loose, and now, with Mr.
+Homer himself at the driving wheel, in cap and goggles, the engine was
+being started once more.
+
+In wrapt excitement both girls stood breathless. So intent were they on
+the scene transpiring before them that they had not noticed the approach
+of a second auto on the road below. From it Fan Harding had alighted and
+hastened up the hill, after "parking" his machine, as if in fear that he
+would be too late to view the proceedings.
+
+A sneering look was on his rather handsome face as he rapidly climbed the
+hill. He reached a position behind the two girls just as the aviator gave
+the signal to let go of the machine--to the rear structure of which Lem
+Sidney and Jeff Stokes were perspiringly clinging, their heels digging
+into the soft turf to steady themselves.
+
+As Mr. Homer's hand swung backward and downward they let go. Instantly,
+like an arrow from a bow, the monoplane--the work of Peggy and Roy--was
+off. How it scudded across the hill top! Blue smoke and flame shot from
+its exhaust. Its operator sat hunched over his machinery looking, with
+his goggles, like some creature of the lower regions. Peggy clasped her
+hands and stood a-tiptoe breathlessly as it scudded along.
+
+"Oh, will it rise?" she breathed, her color coming and going in her
+excitement.
+
+"I'll bet ten dollars it won't fly any more than an earthworm."
+
+Peggy turned swiftly, indignantly. Her color flamed and her eyes blazed
+angrily. Jess, hardly less indignant at the sneering tone and words, also
+faced about.
+
+"Good morning, girls," said Fan Harding, easily, raising his motoring cap
+nonchalantly, "I came to see the ascension, but I'm afraid that it's
+going to be a descension."
+
+"I think you're hateful to talk like that," cried Peggy, angrily,
+stamping her foot. "Our aeroplane will rise. It just will, I tell
+you--oh, gracious!"
+
+She broke off in confusion and stood aghast for a moment. The swiftly
+scudding aeroplane had stopped its skittering over the grass and had come
+to an abrupt stop at a distance of about five hundred yards.
+
+Already the boys were running across the turf toward it at top speed. The
+girls could see Mr. Homer clambering out of the chassis as the machine
+came to a standstill.
+
+"Ha! Ha! just as I thought," chuckled Fan Harding, viciously, "that thing
+is a dead failure."
+
+Poor Peggy, tears in her eyes at this seeming disaster, was stung fairly
+out of herself. She switched round on Fan Harding with a suddenness that
+made her skirt fly out and that young gentleman step precipitately
+backward.
+
+"It isn't a failure, Fan Harding," she cried, with blazing eyes. "How
+dare you come here to sneer at us. We didn't invite you. Oh, I could----"
+
+But Jess had seized her arm and succeeded in checking Peggy just in time.
+She whispered something to the indignant girl, who, with a scornful look
+at Fan Harding, turned and, with her friend, ran lightly off toward the
+stranded aeroplane.
+
+"By Jove, I really thought for a minute she was going to slap my face,"
+chuckled Fan Harding to himself. "How pretty she is when she is angry.
+But I guess if she knew what I do about certain affairs she wouldn't be
+quite so fresh with me."
+
+He cast a glance at the aeroplane around which the anxious young people
+were now clustering thickly.
+
+"If that thing is a success," he mused, as he strode off to join them,
+"so much the better for me. I think I could use an aeroplane. I don't see
+why I should let Roy Prescott beat me out at anything. Ah! They've
+started the engine again and--by ginger, she's rising! She's going up!
+She's flying!"
+
+The small irregularity in the working of the engine, which had brought
+the plane to a stop, had been quickly remedied. Even Fan Harding, little
+as he liked Roy, could not help but join in the cheers as the Golden
+Butterfly, swinging in an easy circle, began to climb--higher and higher
+toward the fleecy clouds that flecked the blue dome above.
+
+As for Peggy, she jumped up and down in her enthusiasm till her golden
+hair was tumbling in a tangle about her pink shells of ears.
+
+"Oh, goody! goody! goody!" she squealed in the intensity of her joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE CLOUDS GATHER.
+
+
+"And so unless we can raise that money somehow within a short time we
+shall have to leave dear old Shadyside!"
+
+It was Roy who spoke, in troubled tones, some days after the successful
+flight of the Golden Butterfly. They were seated in the cool-looking
+living room of Miss Prescott's home. The sun filtering in through the
+Venetian blinds, fell in patches on the polished floors--Peggy's work,
+for Miss Prescott's circumstances had been for some time too straitened
+to afford the servants she formerly had. But she had kept all knowledge
+of her struggle from her nephew and niece, until now the time had arrived
+when she felt that she could conceal no longer the object of old Sam
+Harding's visit to her.
+
+The old man, among other things, was President of the Sandy Bay Bank.
+This bank, although the children did not know it, had long held a
+mortgage on Miss Prescott's property. The kindly, sweet-souled lady had
+incurred the debt to forward her brother's dreams. For poor Mr. Prescott
+had always been "just on the verge of making a fortune." Mr. Harding's
+errand was to state that the interest being long overdue and there being
+no immediate prospect of settlement the bank would have to foreclose. The
+real reason for this anxiety, which of course Miss Prescott,
+simple-minded lady, could not know, was, that a real estate concern
+wanted to purchase the property to erect a summer colony.
+
+"But what of my securities in----and----and----?" inquired poor Miss
+Prescott, who really knew no more of business than Peggy's French
+bull-dog.
+
+"In the depressed state of the market that class of securities are worth
+nothing, madam," was the response, "in addition, though I have refrained
+from telling you so till now, your account at the bank is much overdrawn.
+However," he had continued, "to show you that we mean to be fair with you
+we will say nothing about that, but unless the bank gets its interest we
+must have the land."
+
+It was Miss Prescott's relation of the true state of affairs to Roy and
+Peggy that sunny afternoon that had brought forth Roy's exclamation
+recorded at the beginning of this chapter.
+
+"But, auntie," burst out Peggy, blankly, "does the man mean to say that
+there is nothing, absolutely nothing, on which we can realize anything?"
+
+Miss Prescott shook her head slowly.
+
+"There is nothing we can do," she rejoined, sadly. "We shall have to
+leave dear old Shadyside and the land will be cut up and sold to
+strangers. Land which the first Prescott settled on and which has been in
+the family ever since. Oh, dear!" and Miss Prescott, never the most
+strong-minded of women, drew out her handkerchief and began to sniff
+ominously. Peggy, looking bewitchingly pretty in a simple muslin frock,
+wrinkled her forehead seriously.
+
+"It can't--it simply can't be as bad as all that," she persisted. "We can
+raise the money somehow."
+
+"Five thousand dollars!" cried Miss Prescott.
+
+"Phew! That is a lot of money," from Roy. But Peggy had jumped up from
+her chair.
+
+"The contest, Roy! The contest!" she was exclaiming. "We must write this
+very day for particulars. If the Golden Butterfly can win that prize----"
+
+"By Jove, sis, it's five thousand dollars, isn't it?" burst out Roy,
+almost equally excited. "I'd forgotten all about it up till now. What an
+idiot I am. If only----"
+
+He stopped short suddenly, struck by a depressing thought. Probably there
+were plenty of machines, most of them far better than the Golden
+Butterfly, entered in the contest which they had read about. His
+enthusiasm died away--as was the way with Roy--almost as quickly as it
+had flamed up.
+
+But Peggy would not hear of hesitation. She made Roy sit down that very
+night and write to the committee in charge of the Higgins' prize. Under
+her brave, independent urgings things began to look brighter. It was a
+fairly cheerful party that sat down to a simple supper that evening.
+
+"Oh, dear," sighed Peggy, in the course of the meal, "if only I knew some
+one who needed a bright young woman to run an aeroplane, how I'd jump at
+the job."
+
+"You ought to get a high salary at it anyhow," rather dolefully joked Roy.
+
+"And make a high jump, too," laughed Peggy; "but seriously, auntie, I can
+run the Butterfly almost as well as Roy. Mr. Homer said so before he
+left. He said: 'Well, Miss Prescott, I've taught you all I know about an
+aeroplane. The rest lies with you, of course.'" Peggy went on modestly:
+"I could run an auto before. I learned on the one that Jess had at
+school, so it really wasn't hard to get to understand the engine. Don't
+you think I'm almost as good a--" Peggy paused for a word--"a--sky
+pilot!" she cried triumphantly, "as good a sky pilot as you are, Roy?"
+
+"Almost," modestly admitted Roy, his mouth full of strawberry shortcake,
+"but never mind about that now, sis. There are more important things to
+be thought of than that. I'm going into town to-morrow for two things.
+One is to see Mr. Harding myself. It takes a man to tackle these
+things----"
+
+"Oh, dear!" sniffed Peggy.
+
+"The other bit of business I have to attend to," went on Roy, "is to get
+a position. It's time I was a breadwinner." Roy thought that sounded
+rather well and went on--"a breadwinner."
+
+"Oh, Roy!" cried his aunt, admiringly, "do you think you'll be able to
+get a position?"
+
+"Without a doubt, aunt," rejoined Roy, confidently; "no doubt several
+business houses would be glad--to have me with them," Roy was going to
+say but he thought better of it and concluded, "to give me a chance."
+
+Peggy said nothing, which rather irritated the boy. He concluded,
+however, that being a girl, she could hardly be expected to appreciate
+the responsibilities of the man of the household. For since that
+afternoon and its disclosures, Roy had, in his own mind, assumed that
+important position.
+
+Somewhat to Roy's surprise he found no difficulty in obtaining access to
+Mr. Harding at the bank. On the contrary, had he been expected he could
+not have been ushered into the old man's presence with greater
+promptness. He stated his business briefly and straightforwardly.
+
+"Now, Mr. Harding," he concluded, "is there no way in which this matter
+can be straightened out?"
+
+The old man, in the rusty black suit, picked up a pen and began drawing
+scrawly diagrams on the blotter in front of him. Apparently he was in
+deep thought. But had Roy been able to penetrate that mask-like face he
+would have been startled at what was passing in Simon Harding's mind. At
+last he spoke:
+
+"I understand that you have built an aeroplane which is a success?" he
+questioned.
+
+"That's right, sir," said Roy, flushing proudly; "but the ideas we put
+into it were my father's--every one of them. He practically made it his
+life work, you see, and----"
+
+"And you beggared yourself carrying those ideas out, eh?" snarled the old
+man. "Oh, you need not look astonished. I know all about your affairs.
+More than you think for. And now having expended a wicked sum for the
+engine of this flying thing where do you expect to reap your profit?"
+
+Roy was rather taken aback. In the past days--since the first wonderful
+flight of the Golden Butterfly--he had not given much thought to that
+part of it. He realized this now with a rather embarrassed feeling. Old
+Harding eyed him keenly.
+
+"Why--father, before he died, spoke of the government, sir. He wanted the
+United States to have the benefit of the machine if it proved successful."
+
+"Bah!" sneered old Harding, scornfully, "a mere visionary dream of an
+inventor. Now I have a business proposition to make to you. I myself am
+interested in aeroplanes--or rather in their manufacture."
+
+"You, Mr. Harding!" Roy looked his astonishment. The last vehicle in the
+world one would have thought of in connection with "Old Money Grubber,"
+as he was sometimes called, was an aeroplane. If he had been given to
+such things Roy would have concluded the old man was joking.
+
+"Yes, sir," snapped Mr. Harding, "I am. But not directly. It's on
+Fanning's account. He tells me that he has a chance to organize a company
+to give aeroplane exhibitions and also to manufacture them. But he has
+not been able to find a suitable machine, or one that was not fully
+covered by patents till he saw yours in flight the other day."
+
+Suddenly he raised his voice:
+
+"Fanning! Come here a minute."
+
+Almost immediately, through a door which Roy had not hitherto noticed,
+but which evidently led into an adjoining office, the figure of Simon
+Harding's son appeared. To his chagrin, Roy realized that almost every
+word he had said to the father must have been overheard by the son.
+
+Young Harding, who was dressed in a flashy gray suit, with trousers
+rolled up very high to exhibit electric blue socks of the same hue as his
+necktie, greeted Roy, who felt suddenly very shabby and insignificant,
+with a patronizing nod.
+
+"Sorry you're in difficulties, Roy," he said, "but you never were a
+business chap even at school."
+
+The memory of certain monetary transactions in which young Harding had
+been concerned occurred to Roy. The other's patronizing air angered him.
+He would have liked to make some sharp, meaning retort. But the thought
+of Peggy and his aunt restrained him. Roy was beginning to learn fast.
+
+"You needn't bother to tell me anything about the case," went on the
+younger Harding. "I accidentally overheard all that you said. Now, Roy,
+my father has stated the case to you correctly. I've got a chance to make
+money with aeroplanes if I can only get hold of a new model. You've got
+just what I want."
+
+"Come to the point, my boy, come to the point," urged his father.
+
+"I'm getting there, ain't I?" snarled the dutiful son. "Well, Roy, you're
+in pretty tight straits. We can foreclose on that mortgage any day we
+want to. But we won't do it if you give us a square deal. Forget the
+government. Make a deal with us consigning to me the right to manufacture
+and exhibit those aeroplanes and I'll set aside that mortgage and give
+you a thousand dollars to boot."
+
+"And suppose I won't accept that offer?" asked Roy, slowly.
+
+"Then we shall have to go ahead and foreclose. We want that land anyhow,
+but I am even more anxious to set up my son in a paying business,"
+exclaimed old Harding. "Our offer is a fair one. It amounts to giving you
+six thousand dollars for a thing of canvas, wire and clockwork."
+
+"Rather more than that, sir," said Roy, in a steady voice, although he
+was inwardly blazing.
+
+"Well, what do you say?" asked Fanning, eagerly. "We'll draw up the
+papers right now if you say so."
+
+But Roy was learning fast. He knew that the offer just made him had been
+an inadequate one.
+
+"I'd like to have time to think it over," he said, hesitatingly.
+
+"Take all the time you want," said old Harding, with a wave of his
+shrivelled, claw-like hand.
+
+But Fanning did not seem so pleased. It flashed across his mind that Roy
+wanted to consult with Peggy, and somehow Fanning felt that in that case
+his offer would meet with refusal. He therefore resolved to put in a
+heavy blow.
+
+"But I want to start at once," he said. "I can't wait any length of time.
+When you think that if you don't accept my offer you'll all be without a
+roof over your heads I should think that for the sake of your sister and
+your aunt you'd accept."
+
+"They'll never be in that position while I can work," rejoined Roy, with
+a flushed face. He rose and picked up his hat. Somehow he felt that he
+could not stand Fanning very many minutes more.
+
+"Yes, very fine talk, but what can you do?" snarled Simon Harding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+JESS AND ROY.
+
+
+Roy flung back some sort of answer and hastened out of the office. As he
+made his way up the sunny street outside, however, he could not get out
+of his mind the words of Simon Harding. After all, they were true; "what
+could he do?" Mentally, as he walked along, Roy ran over the list of his
+accomplishments. He came to the conclusion that aeroplane building and
+flying was where his greatest strength lay. But how was he to proceed to
+make money with his knowledge?
+
+At this point in his meditations, when, unnoticed, he had almost reached
+the end of the elm-shaded village street, a loud "Honk! Honk!" suddenly
+startled him.
+
+He looked up, and his gloom vanished like a summer cloud as he saw
+smiling down on him from the driver's seat of the big auto which had just
+rolled up beside him, the sunny countenance of Jess Prescott. She was in
+automobile attire and looked unusually attractive.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad I've run across you," she exclaimed.
+
+"You almost did," laughed Roy.
+
+"Did what?"
+
+"Run across me, of course," was the response. "But what are you doing in
+town? And driving your own car, too. Where is Jimsy?"
+
+"Oh, he had to do an errand for father."
+
+"And so you are acting as chauffeur?"
+
+"Yes, don't I make a nice one?"
+
+"You certainly do," rejoined the lad with a great deal of emphasis.
+
+"Well, that being the case, you are commanded to jump in by me at once.
+I've got an errand or two to do and then I'm driving home. We'll go by
+your place and I can drop you there."
+
+"That's very good of you----" began Roy, but Jess cut him short.
+
+"It's really selfish," she exclaimed. "I was looking for an escort. I
+really need one. You haven't got a revolver with you, have you?"
+
+"Good gracious," exclaimed the astonished boy as he climbed into the big
+car; "no, of course not. Whatever do you want one for?"
+
+"Why," confided Jess, as they sped along, "I'm on my way to the bank.
+Mother is going to a big dinner party to-night and I volunteered to fetch
+out her jewels for her from the safe deposit vault where she keeps them."
+
+"And you were afraid of robbers holding you up?"
+
+"Of course not," laughed the girl, skillfully dodging a vagrant dog that
+sped across the road in front of the big car; "but just the same, I'm
+glad to have a nice big boy like you with me. You see, some of the jewels
+are very valuable, and one never knows what might happen."
+
+"No," agreed Roy; "but in broad daylight, on the road between Sandy Bay
+and your home, there could hardly be any risk. For instance, who would
+know that you had valuables in the car?"
+
+"Nobody, except some of the servants at home probably," responded Jess.
+"But here's the bank."
+
+As she spoke she skillfully manipulated her levers and pedals and brought
+the car to a stop against the curb as neatly as any driver could have
+accomplished it.
+
+The car had hardly come to a stop before the bank door flew open and
+Fanning Harding emerged, his features drawn up into what he meant to be a
+pleasing smile, but which more resembled a smirk.
+
+Jess, ignoring his proffered hand, leaped lightly to the sidewalk and,
+responding somewhat frigidly to his pleasantries, made her way into the
+bank. A cold nod was all that had passed between Fanning and Roy, though
+young Harding had looked astonished at beholding the other in Jess's car.
+Before long the girl tripped out of the building once more. But this time
+she carried with her a black leather case. Fanning was once more at her
+side and insisted on helping her into the car, holding her arm rather
+tightly as he did so.
+
+"I wish I could accompany you," he said. "Ten thousand dollars' worth of
+jewels is a rather risky thing to carry about."
+
+"Oh, I have a splendid escort, thank you," spoke up Jess, frigidly. She
+drew on her gauntlets and began fumbling with the levers. Roy was already
+out of the car and cranking up.
+
+"It would be the pleasure of the ride," said Fanning, in a low voice. "If
+I were with you I could almost wish somebody would try to hold us up so
+that I could show you what I could do in your defence."
+
+"Just as you did that day at school when poor little Henry Willis was
+being beaten by that big bully Hank Jones?" asked Jess, quietly.
+Fanning's glances, and the emphasis he threw into what he said, were very
+distasteful to her, and she took what proved an effectual means of
+squelching him.
+
+"You know I had a sore wrist that day and couldn't get into a fight with
+Hank," said Fanning, but his eyes were downcast and he had not much more
+to say. Presently the auto chugged off, leaving the disgruntled youth
+standing on the sidewalk following it with his eyes.
+
+"So you're trying to win out Jess Bancroft, are you?" the over-dressed
+lad thought to himself. "Well, Roy Prescott, I guess that settles you.
+I've never liked you, and now that I've a chance to get the upper hand of
+you I'm going to use it. You'll regret this auto ride to-day in days to
+come, or I'm very much mistaken."
+
+He turned and reëntered the bank, but presently emerged again in a
+leather coat of black material, black leggings and black cap and goggles.
+Hauling out his motor-cycle from a rack in front of the bank he wheeled
+it into the street, and with an admiring crowd of small boys looking on,
+started the swift, four-cylindered machine. In a cloud of dust he
+vanished in the same direction as had Jess Bancroft's car.
+
+Jess, once the confines of the village were past, "let the car out." They
+sped along, chatting merrily. The roads about Sandy Bay were ideal for
+automobiling, and perhaps neither of the young occupants of the car
+noticed how fast they were going when the vehicle topped a small rise and
+began descending a long steep grade at the bottom of which the railroad,
+which approached on a curve, was visible in two shining parallel streaks
+of metal.
+
+Suddenly there came a shrill, long drawn whistle.
+
+"Hullo, a train!" exclaimed Roy. "Must be a freight; there's no regular
+passenger scheduled to run at this time of day."
+
+"That's right," agreed Jess. "I guess I'll slow down a bit till we see
+how close it is to the crossing."
+
+She pressed her foot on the brake pedal and shoved hard.
+
+But to her astonishment there was no diminution in the speed of the car.
+It plunged forward down the hill, gaining impetus every second.
+
+"Better slow up, Jess," warned Roy, who had not noticed the girl grow
+white and faint, as the possibility of what might occur if she could not
+control the car flashed before her.
+
+"I--I can't!" she gasped.
+
+"The emergency brake!" almost shouted Roy. Below them he had seen a
+swiftly moving column of white smoke. It was the approaching train. Now
+it whistled once more. That meant it was close upon the crossing toward
+which the car was racing at terrific speed.
+
+"I've--I've tried it. It's jammed or something! Oh, Roy! the train!"
+
+Before she could say any more Roy had risen from his seat, and gently,
+but firmly, removed the girl's trembling hands from the steering wheel.
+With might and main he tried to check the car. But all he did was in
+vain. Drops of perspiration stood out upon his forehead. Jess, utterly
+unnerved, sank back in her seat and hid her face with her gloved hands.
+
+Above the roar of the on-dashing car could be heard the sharp puffing of
+the approaching locomotive. Roy tugged as if he would tear his muscle out
+at the brake lever, but it refused to budge. A sort of desperate coolness
+came over him. But Jess, who had uncovered her eyes for an instant, gave
+a sudden shrill scream.
+
+"Oh, we'll be killed! Look,--the train! We'll crash into it!"
+
+"Sit down, Jess," ordered Roy, sternly, for the excited girl had seemed
+to be on the point of jumping from the car as it swayed and bumped toward
+what seemed certain annihilation, at a terrific rate.
+
+Roy glanced desperately about him. The hill was enclosed by steepish
+banks with hedgerows at the top. But at one point he thought he saw a
+chance of escape.
+
+As he despairingly changed the direction of the car two figures sprang
+from behind the hedge and gazed in amazement at the runaway auto.
+
+"They'll be killed to a certainty!" cried one.
+
+Indeed it seemed so. With Jess in a dead faint and Roy looking straight
+into the dark face of danger the uncontrolled car tore onward toward the
+train. The engineer saw it now and blew his whistle shrilly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE.
+
+
+But Roy's quick eye had noted one loophole of escape,--a gap in the bank.
+
+Truly it was taking a terrible risk to dash the car through it. The boy
+did not know what lay beyond, and in taking the chance he was running
+almost as great a risk of annihilation as if he kept straight on. But to
+have done the latter would have been to crash into a solid wall of moving
+freight cars as they bumped across the grade crossing.
+
+It was almost certain that they would be thrown out and maybe injured.
+But Roy did not hesitate. With a quick twist of his steering wheel he
+sent the car spinning on two wheels for the gap. For an instant it seemed
+as if the vehicle would capsize under the sudden change of direction. But
+it did not, although it tilted over at a dangerous angle.
+
+Whiz-z-z-z-z!
+
+In a flash they were through the gap, the landscape blurring, so terrific
+was the speed.
+
+The next instant there was a sickening shock. Instinctively Roy threw out
+an arm to protect his fair companion. Hardly had he done so before he
+felt himself impelled through the air as if from a catapult, and all grew
+blank.
+
+When Roy came to himself his head ached as if it would burst. It was some
+few seconds, in fact, before he realized what had occurred. When he did
+he looked about him. A few paces away lay the still form of Jess
+Bancroft. She was stretched out on a cushion upon which she must have
+fallen. For an instant, as he gazed at her features as pale as marble,
+and her closed eyes, a dreadful thought flashed across Roy's mind. What
+if she were dead?
+
+But to his great relief he speedily ascertained that the girl was
+breathing. An ugly bruise on her forehead may have accounted for her
+continued swoon although she had fainted with terror the instant the
+train appeared beneath them on the crossing.
+
+The car, its hood crumpled up as if it had been made of paper instead of
+metal, stood at the foot of a tree not far off.
+
+"No wonder we were thrown out," thought Roy, as he gazed at the wreck and
+considered the speed at which they had encountered the obstruction. "The
+wonder is we escaped with our lives."
+
+After a brief and ineffectual attempt to arouse the girl the boy looked
+about him for some means of assistance. The cowardly train crew had not
+stopped when they saw the accident. Visions of damage suits and summary
+discharges may have drifted through their minds, for extra freights were
+supposed to send flagmen to the crossing to warn all traffic of the
+train's approach.
+
+Suddenly Roy recollected the two men he had seen spring from behind the
+hedge as the runaway auto approached the gap. What had become of them?
+Apparently they had taken to their heels also, for not a sign was to be
+seen of them.
+
+"Odd," thought the boy to himself; "one would think the first instinct of
+a human being at seeing an accident like this would be to stay and help.
+But, hold on, maybe they've gone for a doctor. A retired physician, Dr.
+Mays, lives not far from here. In the meantime if I could only get some
+cold water."
+
+Suddenly he spied a small brook at the foot of the hill. Ill and dazed as
+he felt Roy sprinted toward it, and wetting his handkerchief hastened
+back to Jess. Kneeling by her side he bathed her forehead. He was
+rewarded in a few moments by beholding her eyelids flutter and open. In a
+few seconds more she was fully conscious, but weak and shaken. Roy
+collected the scattered cushions from the wreck, and placing them like a
+mattress laid the girl upon them.
+
+She thanked him with a wan smile and then lay still once more. Roy wisely
+did not speak. He judged that perfect quiet was what she wanted at that
+moment.
+
+While he sat by her side meditating what to do a sudden noise caused him
+to look upward.
+
+It was a noise like the drone of a giant bumble bee. It came from
+directly above his head.
+
+"The Golden Butterfly!" shouted Roy, springing to his feet.
+
+Above him, at an elevation of some thousand feet, the yellow wings of the
+Prescott aeroplane were outlined against the blue, like the form of one
+of her namesakes.
+
+Roy shouted and waved frantically. Presently he was rewarded by the
+flutter of a handkerchief from the chassis of the 'plane. At the same
+instant it was swung about, and revolving in graceful circles began to
+spiral down to the earth.
+
+"Hooray! It's Peggy and Jimsy!" cried Roy. "I recollect now Jess told me
+that Jimsy was to have a lesson to-day."
+
+Ten minutes later the aeroplane lighted in the field not a hundred yards
+from the wreck. As it reached the ground Peggy started the engine at
+reduced speed. The aerial marvel began to scoot across the field toward
+Roy as obediently as if it had been an automobile under perfect control.
+
+Agitated as he was Roy could not help feeling enthusiastic as the huge,
+glittering, flying thing came closer, its engine roaring and its
+propeller whirring angrily, and yet, the dainty girl in the motor bonnet
+who was driving it had it under perfect control every second. Throwing
+back a lever and cutting off the spark and the gasolene, Peggy brought
+the aeroplane to a stop with a jerk.
+
+Jimsy, with alarmed questions on his lips, sprang out, while Roy helped
+his sister to alight.
+
+"Good gracious, whatever has happened?" gasped the girl, as she stood on
+the ground and viewed the still form of her chum Jess, over which Jimsy
+was bending in genuine alarm.
+
+"It's all right, sis," Roy assured her, "Jess is not badly hurt. See--she
+is looking up at you."
+
+Peggy sped lightly over the turf to her chum's side.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, dear, I'm so glad you've come. It was dreadful. But Roy was
+so brave. I'm sure I owe my life to him, for the last thing I recollect
+we were heading direct for the train."
+
+She would have said more, but Peggy held up an admonitory finger. Turning
+to Roy she sought an explanation of all that occurred. It was soon told,
+and then the question of summoning a physician came up.
+
+In the midst of the discussion Peggy gave a glad little cry.
+
+"The aeroplane! I can fly over to Doctor Mays' house. There's a dandy big
+pasture in the rear in which to alight."
+
+"By George, that's so," agreed Roy, "and I guess, although it sounds a
+bit startling, it's the only thing to do. We can't run the car and nobody
+will be along here for hours perhaps. This road isn't travelled much."
+
+But Peggy, with that quick decision which was characteristic of her, was
+already half way to the aeroplane. A moment more and she was in the
+chassis, and slipping into the driver's seat began adjusting the motor.
+
+"I'll leave you to look after Jess," said Roy to Jimsy, "while I go along
+with Peggy. I'm not sure that she is as expert in managing an aeroplane
+as she thinks she is."
+
+"Well, she brought me over here at a great rate, anyhow," put in Jimsy,
+loyally.
+
+"And in the nick of time, too," said Roy, warmly pressing the other's
+hand.
+
+"Oh, do be back as quickly as possible, my foot hurts dreadfully," moaned
+poor Jess, "and my head feels as if a thousand dwarfs were hammering away
+inside it."
+
+"We'll be back before you expect us," Roy said, cheerily. Jimsy shouted
+something, but his words were drowned in the roar of the motor as Roy
+clambered into the Golden Butterfly and Peggy started the engine.
+
+The aeroplane dashed forward over the smooth turf and then seemed to take
+the air as lightly and easily as a bit of gossamer. Straight up it
+soared, high above the tree tops, and was speedily reduced to a fast
+diminishing speck in the northwest in which direction lay Doctor Mays'
+home. Looking downward from the speeding flyer the boy and girl aviators
+could see, spread out below them like a checkerboard, the fertile Long
+Island landscape.
+
+Through it ran the railroad, looking like a glittering ribbon of steel.
+Off to the north the sea sparkled, a few white sails dotting its surface.
+The Black Rock lighthouse, painted in bands of red and white, formed a
+conspicuous object.
+
+All at once, on the road beneath them, Roy spied a solitary motor-cyclist
+whom, even at the height to which they had now risen, he recognized as
+Fanning Harding. He called his sister's attention to the rider.
+
+"He must have passed right by where the accident happened," he remarked;
+"that road has no outlet for some distance. Funny that he didn't come to
+help us."
+
+"You must remember that the banks and hedge hid the place from the road,"
+Peggy reminded him. "Even Fanning Harding wouldn't have willfully passed
+by you when you were in such straits."
+
+"I don't think so, either," agreed Roy, "and come to think of it, bending
+over his handlebars as he is, he would not be likely to have noticed the
+gap we ploughed through."
+
+"Look," cried Peggy suddenly, "he's stopping."
+
+The girl was right. The motor-cycling boy, whose pace had hitherto been
+as fast as that of the aeroplane, could now be seen to slacken his
+machine and finally stop it. Leaning it against a fence he clambered into
+an adjoining field, and with every evidence of extreme caution he crept
+toward a patch of woods at no great distance.
+
+"What can he be doing?" exclaimed Peggy.
+
+As she spoke they saw the boy below them take something from his hip
+pocket.
+
+"A pistol!" cried Roy.
+
+The next instant Fanning Harding had vanished into the patch of woods
+without having noticed the aerial observers, or, at least, so it appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A ROADSIDE MYSTERY.
+
+
+"Now, what could he be up to?" Roy wondered as they sped on.
+
+"Give it up," laughed Peggy, "unless he was going rabbit shooting."
+
+"Rabbit shooting with a pistol--and in June--oh, Peggy, I thought you
+were more of a sport than that."
+
+"Well, can you suggest any solution?"
+
+"Frankly--no. But I've been forgetting something which the sight of
+Fanning Harding reminded me of," and Roy at once plunged into an account
+of his interview with the banker and his son.
+
+To his great relief Peggy agreed with him that on no account must the
+aeroplane be turned over to the Hardings, but her mind was sadly
+troubled, nevertheless, by what her brother told her concerning Simon
+Harding's attitude.
+
+"It looks as if he was bent on hounding us," she sighed.
+
+"It surely does," agreed Roy, "but look, sis--there's Doctor Mays' house
+off there. You'll have to make a landing in that field back of the barn."
+
+Peggy nodded and deftly touched a lever or two. The aeroplane began to
+descend.
+
+"Want me to take the helm?" inquired Roy.
+
+If Peggy had dared to turn her head she would have flashed an indignant
+glance at her brother. As it was she had to content herself with a very
+haughty, "No, indeed."
+
+Roy laughed.
+
+"You surely are the original Girl Aviator," he exclaimed.
+
+"Huh!" cried Peggy, "by no means the original one, my dear. There are
+lots of them in Europe and there soon will be in this country, too."
+
+"I hope so," responded Roy, "riding with a pretty girl in an aeroplane
+just suits me."
+
+But Peggy did not reply, and for a good reason. They were now just above
+the pasture lot in which she meant to descend, and below them, as they
+dropped, an amusing scene was transpiring.
+
+The Doctor's horse, old Dobbin, was dashing madly around in circles,
+faster than he had gone in twenty years of solid respectability; the two
+cows, and an old mother pig with her family, joined him as the strange
+whirring thing from the sky dropped lowering above them. As for the
+chickens, they flew wildly in every direction, clucking as if they had
+gone mad.
+
+In the midst of the turmoil a rear door opened and a kindly-faced old man
+with white whiskers and a pair of big spectacles perched on his nose,
+emerged, to see what could be causing all the disturbance. He fairly
+dropped the big book he was holding, in his astonishment as he beheld a
+glistening object, like a huge yellow and spangled bird, dropping in his
+very back yard, so to speak. But the next instant he recovered himself.
+
+"Bless my soul," exclaimed Dr. Mays, for it was the retired physician
+himself, "I thought for a moment that the fabled days of the gigantic
+Roc, with which Sinbad the sailor had his adventures, had returned.
+
+"It must be those Prescott children. Ah!" he exclaimed, as the aeroplane
+alighted and came to a standstill, "it is! Dear me, what a century we are
+living in! Boys and girls flying about like--like--my chickens!"
+
+He "clucked" reassuringly to the terrified birds as he hastened toward
+the now stationary machine. Roy and his sister came forward to greet the
+venerable old doctor as he approached.
+
+Roy hastily explained their errand, being interrupted constantly by the
+physician's exclamations of astonishment.
+
+"Go back with you? Of course, I will, my children. Will one of you help
+me catch old Dobbin and harness him? My man Jake is in town to-day."
+
+"Oh, doctor," cried Peggy, entreatingly, "can't we persuade you to go
+back with us in the Golden Butterfly?"
+
+"To fly! Good heavens!"
+
+The aged physician threw up his hands at the idea.
+
+"It is perfectly safe, sir," put in Roy. "Safer than old Dobbin in his
+present frame of mind, I should imagine."
+
+They all had to laugh as they looked at the hitherto staid and sober
+equine careening about the pasture with his tail held high, and from time
+to time emitting shrill whinnies of terror at the sight of the strange
+thing which had landed in his domain.
+
+"I don't know, I really don't," hesitated Dr. Mays. "The very idea of an
+old man like me riding in an aeroplane. It's--it's----"
+
+"Just splendid," laughed Peggy, merrily, "and, doctor, I've often heard
+you say to father that it was a physician's duty to keep pace with modern
+invention."
+
+"Quite right! Quite right! I often told your poor father so," cried Dr.
+Mays. "Well, my dear, it may be revolutionary and unbecoming to a man of
+my years, but I actually believe I will brave a new element in that
+flying machine of yours. More especially as we can reach my young patient
+much quicker in that way."
+
+While Dr. Mays, who was a widower and childless, went to hunt up an old
+cap, as headgear for his novel journey, Roy obtained permission to use
+the doctor's telephone. He called up Jess's home and related briefly to
+Mrs. Bancroft what had occurred, and asked that an automobile be sent to
+the scene of the accident.
+
+Mrs. Bancroft, who at first had been seriously alarmed, was reassured by
+Roy's quiet manner of breaking the news to her, and promised to come over
+herself at once. By this time Doctor Mays was ready, and the young people
+noted, not without amusement, that under his assumed air of confidence
+the benevolent old gentleman was not a little worried at the idea of
+braving what was to him a new element.
+
+The Golden Butterfly was equipped with a small extension seat at the
+stern of her chassis, and into this Roy dropped after it had been pulled
+out. Dr. Mays was seated in the centre, as being the heaviest of the
+party, while Peggy resumed her place at the steering and driving
+apparatus.
+
+"All ready behind?" she called out, laughingly, as they settled down.
+
+"All right here, my dear," responded the doctor with an inward conviction
+that all was wrong.
+
+"Go ahead, sis," cried Roy. "Hold tight, doctor, to those straps on the
+side."
+
+With a roar and a whirring thunder of its exhausts the motor was started
+up. Dr. Mays paled, but, as Roy afterward expressed it, "he was dead
+game." Forward shot the aeroplane across the hitherto peaceful pasture
+lot which was now turned into a crazy circus of terrified animals.
+
+"Wh-wh-when are we going up?"
+
+The doctor asked the question rather jerkily as the aeroplane sped over
+the uneven ground, jolting, and jouncing tremendously despite its
+chilled-steel spiral springs.
+
+"In a moment," explained Roy; "the extra weight makes her slower in
+rising than usual."
+
+"Look out, child!" yelled the doctor, suddenly, "you'll crash into the
+fence."
+
+He half rose, but Roy pulled him back.
+
+"It's all right, doctor," he said reassuringly.
+
+But to the physician it seemed far otherwise. The fence he had alluded
+to, a tall, five-barred, white-washed affair, loomed right up in front of
+them. It seemed as if the aeroplane, scudding over the ground like a
+scared jackrabbit, must crash into it.
+
+But no such thing happened.
+
+As the 'plane neared the obstruction something seemed to impel it upward.
+Peggy pulled a lever and twisted a valve, and the motor, beating like a
+fevered pulse, answered with an angry roar.
+
+The Golden Butterfly rose gracefully, just grazing the fence top, like a
+jumping horse. But, unlike the latter, it did not come down upon the
+other side. Instead, it soared upward in a steady gradient.
+
+The doctor, his first alarm over, gazed about him with wonder, and
+perhaps a bit of awe. Many times had he and his dead friend, Mr.
+Prescott, talked over aerial possibilities, and he had always listened
+with interest to what the inventor had to say. But that he should
+actually be riding in such a marvellous craft seemed like a dream to this
+venerable man of science.
+
+After his first feeling of alarm had worn off the physician found that
+riding in an aeroplane after the preliminary run with its bumps and
+jouncings is over, is very like drifting gently over the fleeciest of
+clouds in a gossamer car, if such a thing can be imagined. In other
+words, the Golden Butterfly seemed not to be moving fast, but to be
+floating in the crystal clear atmosphere. But a glance over the edge of
+the high-sided chassis soon showed the physician that she was tearing
+along at a great rate at a height of about five hundred feet. Fields,
+woods, streams and small farmhouses swam by beneath their keel.
+
+"Well, doctor, how do you like it?" Roy ventured, after a few moments.
+
+"Like it!" repeated the physician; "my lad, it's--it's--it's bully!"
+
+And thus did his dignity fall like a mantle from Doctor Mays after a few
+moments in Peggy Prescott's, the girl aviator's, Golden Butterfly.
+
+A few moments later they came in sight of the field in which they had
+left poor Jess lying by the side of the wrecked automobile.
+
+Hardly had they alighted before Jimsy, a rather worried look on his face,
+was at the side of the aeroplane.
+
+"Say, Roy," he exclaimed, "you didn't happen to put that jewel case in
+your pocket for safe keeping after the accident, did you?"
+
+"Why, no. Jess had it and slipped it under the seat while she was
+driving," cried Roy. "Why?"
+
+"Because it's gone!" exclaimed Jimsy, somewhat blankly.
+
+"Gone! Impossible!" protested Roy.
+
+"But it is. I've searched the field thoroughly in the vicinity of the
+car, and I can't find a single trace of it."
+
+"It couldn't have been stolen."
+
+It was Peggy who spoke.
+
+Roy thought a moment. All at once the recollection of Fanning Harding's
+queer actions when they had seen him on the road below them flashed into
+his mind. The road, as he had observed, led past the scene of the
+accident.
+
+Would it have been possible for Fanning to enter the field while they lay
+unconscious there? After an instant's figuring Roy had to dismiss the
+idea. Had such been the case, the son of the banker would have been much
+further off when they observed him from the aeroplane than he had been.
+The speed he was making would have carried him far from the wrecked auto
+had he been near it at the time the accident occurred.
+
+What, then, could have become of the jewel case?
+
+"It must be here," exclaimed Roy, positively; "nobody could have taken
+it."
+
+While Dr. Mays bent over Jess and examined her injured ankle the others
+searched the field in every reasonable direction. But not a trace of the
+jewel case could they find.
+
+All at once, the noise of a horse's hoofs coming at a rapid trot was
+heard from the road. Roy, thinking it might be some one of whom he might
+make inquiries, hastened to the hedge and peered over. He saw, coming
+toward him, a disreputable-looking old ramshackle rig, driven by a
+red-haired man of big frame who was slouchily dressed. His chin had once
+been shaven, but now the hair stood out on it like bristles on an old
+tooth brush. By the side of this individual was seated none other than
+the immaculate Fanning Harding, in his motor-cycling clothes.
+
+"Why, that's Gid Gibbons, the most disreputable character about here,"
+exclaimed Roy, in amazement. "What can Fan Harding be doing with him?"
+
+He now noted, to his further astonishment and perplexity, that there was
+a third person in the rig--Gid Gibbon's daughter, a pretty girl in a
+coarse way, and given to loud dressing. She had plenty of black hair and
+a pair of dark eyes that might have been beautiful if they had not had a
+certain hard, defiant look in them.
+
+As they drew near Fan Harding turned and seemed to whisper something to
+the girl, whose name was Hester, at which they both laughed heartily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+PEGGY IS PUZZLED.
+
+
+"Hello, Gid," hailed Roy, thinking that perhaps the ne'er-do-well, who
+conducted a small blacksmith shop some distance off, might be able to
+throw some light on the mystery.
+
+"Hello, yourself," was the response in a harsh, gutteral voice as Gid
+drew in his reins and the conveyance came to a stop. Roy raised his hat
+to Hester Gibbons and nodded coldly to Fan Harding.
+
+"Good gracious, what's been happening?" shrilled out the girl.
+
+"An accident," said Roy, and went on rapidly to explain what had occurred.
+
+"And the worst of it is," the boy went on, "that besides the accident
+Miss Bancroft has suffered a serious loss. A wallet containing valuable
+jewelry has vanished entirely." Roy watched Fan Harding closely as he
+spoke and thought that he saw him change color. It might have likewise
+been fancy, but he could have sworn that the girl, too, looked confused.
+Gid puckered up his lips and emitted a whistle.
+
+"Lost a wallet with jewelry in it, eh?" he repeated.
+
+"Have you looked everywhere for it?" asked Fan Harding, with an
+appearance of great solicitude.
+
+"Everywhere we can think of," rejoined Roy. He turned to Jimsy, who had
+just joined him. Jimsy looked despondent and worried. A glance at his
+countenance convinced Roy that the jewel case was still missing.
+
+"I'll get out and help you look for it myself," said Fan Harding
+suddenly. "It's awfully queer. Miss Bancroft remarked when she left the
+bank that she would take particular care of the jewels."
+
+"I wonder if any one passed on this road while we were unconscious?"
+queried Roy, looking narrowly at Fan.
+
+To his surprise, the other answered with a great show of frankness.
+
+"It's very odd," he exclaimed, "but I myself must have gone by this place
+not more than a few moments after the smash-up. I was on my way to Gid
+Gibbons's blacksmith shop to get a part of my motor-cycle fixed up. I
+guess if I hadn't been bending over my brakes as I rode down hill I'd
+have seen the place myself."
+
+"Guess so," struck in Gid, with a grin; "no one never accused you of
+being blind."
+
+"My motor-cycle was in worse repair than I thought," went on Fan, "and so
+I left it at Gid's place and accepted his offer to ride into town with
+him."
+
+This all sounded plausible enough. Yet Roy noted that Fan had not
+mentioned his little excursion into the wood with the pistol. What was he
+trying to conceal? What had been his mission there?
+
+While these thoughts flashed through Roy's mind Gid and his daughter had
+followed Fan's example and now joined the searchers. By this time, Jess,
+under the doctor's ministrations, was able to sit up. Her face was pale
+as marble, partly from suffering, for her ankle still gave her
+considerable pain, and partly from agitation at the loss of the jewels.
+
+There was a sudden puffing of an auto, and presently Mrs. Bancroft
+herself, in a smaller car than the wrecked one, was driven into the group
+by one of the employees of her husband's estate. As gently as possible,
+after first explanations had been made, Jess broke the news to her. Mrs.
+Bancroft, a tall, stately woman, went white as she heard.
+
+"One of those jewels, a ruby, was an heirloom that has been in the family
+for years," she exclaimed. "I would not have lost it for all the others.
+Has every place been searched thoroughly?"
+
+"Everywhere, mamma," responded Jess.
+
+"Bin over ther ground with a fine tooth comb, mum," said the uncouth Gid.
+
+Mrs. Bancroft raised her lorgnette and regarded the unabashed Gid with a
+look tinged with some disgust. But Gid merely showed his yellow fangs, in
+what he intended to be a pleasant smile, in reply, and lifted his hat
+with clumsy gallantry.
+
+"What was the last you saw of the jewels?" asked Mrs. Bancroft of her
+daughter, after Jess had been tenderly carried to the other auto and made
+comfortable.
+
+"It was just before we started down the hill," was the reply. "I felt to
+see if it was safe under the seat just before the car got away from me."
+
+"Then they were there just before the accident, of course," put in Mrs.
+Bancroft. "And now they are missing in this mysterious way."
+
+"Well, they couldn't have walked off," said Fan; "somebody may have taken
+them while you were unconscious. Unless----"
+
+He stopped and glanced at Roy, who felt his face flushing angrily. There
+had been a queer intonation in Fan Harding's tones.
+
+"Unless what?" put in Jess, looking at Fan Harding directly in the eyes.
+His dropped under the scrutiny of the straightforward girl.
+
+"I suppose you mean unless I took them," struck in Roy, angrily. There
+was a hard note of defiance in his tones which sounded strange there.
+
+Fan Harding glanced at him quickly and then said in a low voice:
+
+"Well, it does look odd, you know, and----"
+
+"Don't dare to say another word like that!"
+
+Peggy, her soft eyes blazing, stepped forward before Mrs. Bancroft could
+stop her. Gid Gibbon's daughter watched the angry girl with a
+contemptuous smile. But Fan Harding went white and shrank back.
+
+"I--I didn't mean anything," he stammered.
+
+"Children! Children!" exclaimed Mrs. Bancroft, "no more of this. It seems
+that there is a mystery here, and perhaps some day it will be solved. But
+in the meantime I wish no suspicion, or doubt even, cast on any one."
+
+If they had been watching Fan Harding they would have seen his face
+brighten up at this. Muttering something in an undertone to Gid, he slunk
+off, accompanied by his disreputable blacksmith companion and the
+latter's daughter, Hester, as she went, flung back a glance of contempt
+at the others, of which they took not the slightest notice.
+
+Dr. Mays elected to return home by means of Mrs. Bancroft's auto. He
+declared, laughingly, that he had had quite enough excitement that
+morning for a man of his years. A few moments after the departure of Fan
+and his strange companions therefore, Mrs. Bancroft's auto, towing the
+injured car by means of a rope brought along for that purpose, set out on
+its return journey. Jimsy rode beside his sister, who made a brave effort
+to bid a cheery good-bye to the young aviators.
+
+But, somehow, all of them felt that a constraint had been suddenly born
+among them, arising out of the mystery of the missing jewels. The next
+day posters, announcing a reward for the recovery of the jewels, were
+hurriedly struck off at Sandy Bay printing office, and distributed
+throughout the town and the surrounding country. In due course the
+Prescott household, of course, received one, and the perusal of it did
+not add to their cheerfulness.
+
+The bills gave a description of the accident and the circumstances, and
+Roy could not but feel that any logical person reading the things would
+come to the conclusion that Roy Prescott probably knew more about the
+facts of the case, at least, than any one else.
+
+In addition to the disconcerting bills the regular police officials of
+Sandy Bay visited the Prescott home and interrogated Roy, to Peggy's huge
+indignation. But worse was to come; private detectives also came and
+questioned and cross-questioned him at great length. Roy could not but
+feel with all this that he was an object of suspicion, but he bravely
+went about as before and tried to hide his inner thoughts as closely as
+possible.
+
+Jess soon recovered and was up and about once more. The four young folks
+interchanged visits and motored and "aeroed" together as freely as
+before, but they somehow all felt that the air was charged with some
+influence that made things quite different to what they had been before
+the accident and the subsequent mysterious vanishing of the jewels.
+
+Peggy privately made up her mind, with a truly feminine intuition, that
+Fanning Harding had something to do with the affair. Recalling his
+strange visit to the wood, she even visited the place by herself one day
+to see if she could light upon any clew that might serve to clear things
+up. But, as might have been expected, she found nothing.
+
+Her trip over had been made in the Golden Butterfly. Disappointed at her
+lack of success, for she had almost allowed herself to believe that she
+would, in some queer fashion, happen upon a clew, the girl was preparing
+to return, when something happened.
+
+A rod, connecting a warping lever with the right wing of the monoplane,
+snapped with a sharp crack.
+
+"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Peggy to herself, "what shall I do?"
+
+She looked about her as if seeking for information from her surroundings.
+All at once she became aware that two men had emerged from the wood
+behind her and were watching her closely.
+
+Plucky as the girl was, she felt her heart beat a little quicker as she
+gazed. There was something so very piercing in their scrutiny.
+
+Suddenly one of them stepped forward, and Peggy saw, to her astonishment,
+that she knew him. More astonishing still, the man was trembling and
+whitefaced as if in alarm at something.
+
+It was Morgan, the butler at Mrs. Bancroft's.
+
+"Why, Morgan, whatever are you doing here?" exclaimed Peggy as she
+breathed more freely.
+
+The man hesitated. His companion, whom Peggy could now see was an employe
+about the Bancroft stables, came to his rescue.
+
+"Why, miss, we've been doin' a bit of trapping in the woods there."
+
+"Yes, miss, that's hit," struck in Morgan, a stout, puffy-faced
+Englishman with "side burns."
+
+"A bit o' poaching, as you might say, miss. I 'opes you won't tell on
+hus."
+
+"Good gracious, no," laughed Peggy, immensely relieved to find that the
+two men were not strangers. "I thought you looked scared when you saw me,
+Morgan."
+
+"Yes, miss. You see, I haint used in hold England ter see young ledies a
+flyin' round like bloomin'--bloomin' pertater bugs, hif you'll pardon the
+comparison, miss. But 'as yer 'ad han h'accident?"
+
+"I have," rejoined Peggy, restraining an impulse to say "I 'ave." "It's
+not much. If there was a blacksmith shop round here I could get it fixed
+in a jiffy. It's just this rod that's snapped."
+
+"Why, miss," puffed Morgan, "Gid Gibbon's place isn't more than a few
+paces, as you might say, from 'ere. Why don't you take that rod there?
+Hi'll h'escort yer."
+
+"Why, that's so," agreed Peggy, "how stupid of me not to have thought of
+it. Gid can fix it in a few minutes."
+
+Selecting a small wrench from the tool box Peggy deftly unbolted the
+broken rod, and then, with Morgan and his companion as guides, she set
+off across the fields for Gid's shop, which she now recalled was a short
+distance up the road, but hidden from the spot where the Butterfly had
+dropped by a patch of woods.
+
+"By the way, Morgan," the girl asked, suddenly, "has anything more been
+heard of the missing jewels?"
+
+To Peggy's astonishment the man started and stammered.
+
+"Yes, miss--that is--no, miss. I means, miss, that there ain't been no
+news, miss, hof hany kind, miss."
+
+Peggy nodded without appearing to note the man's confusion.
+
+"It's a queer affair, miss," put in Morgan's companion, whose name was
+Giles.
+
+"It is, indeed," rejoined Peggy. "I do wish it could all be cleared up."
+
+"Same 'ere, miss, hi'm sure," struck in Morgan, mopping his puffy face.
+He seemed to have, in great part, recovered his composure.
+
+"Well, there is the blacksmith shop," said the other man presently, as
+they emerged from the fields upon the road through a sliding gate. He
+pointed to a long, low, ramshackle structure at the cross-roads. Beside
+it stood a fairly neat cottage and beyond this again a brand new shed,
+from which proceeded a great sound of hammering.
+
+As Morgan and Giles left her, to make a shortcut home across lots, Peggy
+set off at a brisk pace, holding the broken rod in her hands. She almost
+dropped the bits of metal an instant later in a great surprise that she
+encountered.
+
+The door of the brand new building opened and out stepped Fanning
+Harding, in overalls and jumper. Suddenly he became aware of Peggy's
+advancing figure and halted, staring at her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HESTER'S RUBY.
+
+
+The door of the shed had been opened wide, but Fanning closed it swiftly
+as if in great anxiety to conceal what was within. Then it was that Peggy
+first became aware of something she had not noticed before. Above the
+portal was a signboard upon which was painted in staring red letters:
+
+        "Office and Works of the Fanning Harding Aeroplane Co."
+
+Hardly had Peggy digested this astonishing sign before Fanning, his look
+of startled surprise replaced by a smile, advanced, cap in hand, to meet
+her.
+
+"Why, what ever brings you here?" he asked, with the air of easy
+familiarity which Peggy disliked so much. "I guess that that sign gave
+you a kind of a start, eh?"
+
+"It certainly did," agreed Peggy, "and it gives me even more of a start
+to see you working, Fanning."
+
+"Huh," grunted the youth, beneath whose blue overalls were visible a pair
+of gaudy socks of the kind he affected, "I guess you think that I can't
+make good as well as any one else when I try. Roy wouldn't go into a deal
+with me on that aeroplane of his, so I just got busy and started a
+concern of my own."
+
+"Do you mean you are actually building an aeroplane?"
+
+"Yes. Got orders for several of them," rejoined the swaggering youth. "So
+far I've only had Gid to help me, but I guess I'll have to enlarge the
+plant pretty soon. You see that Roy would have been wiser to sell me that
+'plane of his at the start-off. As things are now, the Harding Aeroplane
+Company is going to discount anything in its line."
+
+"Well, I am glad of that," said Peggy, briskly, and with some trace of
+asperity. Fanning's conceited, confident air jarred upon her sadly. "But
+I came over here to find Mr. Gibbons. I want him to repair this rod for
+me."
+
+"Why, that's off an aeroplane!" exclaimed Fanning, eagerly; "you must
+have come to earth in the Golden Butterfly quite close to here."
+
+"Why, yes. In that field yonder," rejoined Peggy, some instinct telling
+her not to disclose the true object of her visit there; "my motor went
+wrong and I had to descend."
+
+"What field did you come down in? That one by the clump of woods round
+the bend in the road?" asked Fanning, with just a trace of anxiety in his
+tone.
+
+"Yes. It was lucky I was so close. Morgan and Giles----"
+
+"What, Morgan and Giles were there?"
+
+Fanning seemed tremendously excited all of a sudden.
+
+"Why, yes. What of it?"
+
+But Fanning had pulled himself together.
+
+"Oh, nothing," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I only thought they
+were a long way from home, that's all. But here comes Gid now. Hey, Gid!
+Miss Prescott wants a rod welded. Can you do it for her right away?"
+
+"Sure," responded the ill-favored blacksmith, shuffling up. His chin was
+more bristly than ever, and his shifty blue eyes blinked like a rat's
+beady orbs as he took the bits of metal.
+
+"A flaw," he declared, examining them; "wonder it didn't break sooner.
+Come on to the forge, miss, and I'll fix it for you in a brace-of-shakes."
+
+Off he shuffled toward the ramshackle forge, Peggy following. Behind her
+came Fanning. As they passed the cottage Hester Gibbons came flying down
+the path, but stopped at a sign from Fanning. The youth dropped further
+behind, and as Peggy followed Gid into the forge and the bellows began
+roaring, they began to talk in low tones.
+
+"Do you think she can suspect anything?" asked Hester at one point.
+
+"Not a thing," was the confident response. "That pale-faced old gopher,
+Morgan, was in the wood this afternoon, though. She told me that. The
+existence of the Harding Aeroplane Company has become known rather before
+I wanted it to, also. However, they may as well know now as any other
+time that they aren't the only fliers in the air. I guess the Harding
+aeroplane will beat anything in its line ever seen."
+
+"I guess it will," laughed Hester, and then, for some unknown reason,
+they both burst into fits of immoderate laughter. Evidently something
+connected with Fanning's new enterprise was deemed highly amusing by both
+of them.
+
+Peggy left without seeing Hester, although from behind a blind in the
+cottage, the girl watched her closely enough. Gid, whatever his other
+shortcomings might have been, was a good blacksmith, and the rod was well
+repaired. Peggy soon had it adjusted, and was about to clamber into the
+chassis and start home when a shout from the road made her look up. An
+automobile stood there, and in it were Jess and Jimsy. They hailed her
+excitedly, and Peggy hastily threw out the switch which she had just
+adjusted and hastened across the field to them.
+
+She soon saw that Jess was waving a leather pocket case above her head
+and that her face was flushed and excited.
+
+"My dear Jess, whatever has happened?" she cried, as she came up to the
+side of the auto.
+
+"Happened!" echoed Jess. "Why, my dear, the most extraordinary,
+inexplicable thing you ever heard of."
+
+"In other words, 'we are up in the air,'" quoth the slangy Jimsy, "even
+if we don't own an aeroplane."
+
+"You see this case," cried Jess, extending the leather wallet for Peggy's
+inspection. "Well, that's the case that held mamma's jewels. It was
+returned most strangely to us this afternoon. We found it on the porch
+after lunch.
+
+"Oh, Jess! the jewels were in it. I'm so glad."
+
+"No, girlie, it was empty."
+
+"Empty!" echoed Peggy, "and nobody knows how it came there?"
+
+"No, we must have been at lunch at the time. None of the servants know
+anything about the matter, either. It's a real, dark and deep mystery."
+
+"It's all of that, my dear Watson," proclaimed Jimsy, folding his arms
+and scowling in imitation of a famous detective of fiction. "Why on earth
+should the thief want to return the wallet? You'd think he'd dodge such a
+risk of being arrested."
+
+But Peggy had been looking at the wallet which had so amazingly
+reappeared.
+
+"Why, Jess," she cried, "it's all mud-stained. It looks as if it had been
+buried somewhere."
+
+"It certainly does," agreed Jimsy, "but even that doesn't give us any
+more to go on than the theory that the jewels have been buried some
+place."
+
+"And been dug up again," put in Peggy, quickly.
+
+After some more conversation the group was about to break up, when Jess
+exclaimed suddenly:
+
+"Oh, by the way, did you hear about Jeff Stokes? No, I see you haven't.
+Well, he's been appointed wireless operator at Rocky Point."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," cried Peggy, impulsively; "that's been his ambition
+for a long time."
+
+Rocky Point was a projecting neck of land about two miles east of Sandy
+Bay. It was quite an important signalling station for ships passing up
+and down the Sound. The position which Jeff Stokes had secured was a
+lucrative one in a way, and, at any rate, was in direct line of promotion.
+
+The two Bancrofts waited to watch Peggy take the air in her now staunch
+aeroplane. It was not until she had vanished with a whirr and a whiz that
+Jimsy thought of starting his own car.
+
+"Gracious," cried Jess, as they sped along, "how I wish that the mystery
+of those jewels could be cleared up."
+
+As she spoke they were passing by the cottage occupied by Gid Gibbons.
+
+"Oh, look, there's that horrid Fanning Harding and Gid Gibbons's daughter
+at the gate," cried Jess.
+
+At the same instant as she uttered the exclamation, Hester Gibbons looked
+up in time to see Jess's gaze concentrated upon her. She whisked about,
+her skirts swinging as she did so. But she did not turn quickly enough
+for Jess's sharp eyes not to see that she snatched at something she had
+been wearing at her throat.
+
+The millionaire's daughter was almost certain that the object Hester
+snatched at in such a hurry was a ruby brooch, or at least an imitation
+of one. She had distinctly caught a ruddy flash as Hester's hand moved to
+her throat.
+
+Jimsy, too, had noticed it, it seemed, for he suddenly observed:
+
+"Seems queer for Hester to be wearing jewelry. Her father must be making
+money fast nowadays."
+
+"Yes," said Jess, but her voice was distant and preoccupied. She was
+certain that her eyes had not deceived her. It had been a ruby that
+Hester Gibbons had pulled off and hastened to conceal. Obeying an
+impulse, she turned and gazed back over the top of the tonneau.
+
+Through the dust cloud behind the car she could see that Hester and
+Fanning Harding were once more in deep conversation at the gate. She
+wondered what they could find so engrossing to talk about, and also
+speculated on several other things. She, however, avoided mentioning her
+suddenly aroused suspicions to Jimsy. He was so hasty. Inwardly she made
+a resolve to seek out Peggy the first thing the next day and compare
+notes with her. She could not help feeling that matters were assuming a
+very complicated aspect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A RACE AGAINST TIME.
+
+
+One evening, a week later, Peggy and her brother were tightening up some
+braces on the Golden Butterfly after an afternoon's flight along the
+coast, when the sharp "honk! honk!" of an automobile from the road
+attracted their attention. Running to the door, Peggy saw Jimsy and his
+sister in the "Gee Whizz," as their red auto had been christened.
+
+But that there was something the matter with the Gee Whizz was evident.
+The motor, ungeared, was coughing and gasping in a painful manner. Jimsy
+shouted as he saw the two young Prescotts.
+
+"Say, you aviators, come here and see what you can do to doctor a poor
+creeping earthworm of an auto."
+
+Laughing at his tone and words, Peggy and her brother hastened down the
+path and through the gate.
+
+"Something's wrong with the transmission," explained Jimsy.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Roy.
+
+"What a question, you goose?" cried Jess; "if we knew we'd have fixed it
+long ago."
+
+"It's doubly annoying," said Jimsy, in an impatient voice, "because we
+got a wire from father to-night, saying that he would take us on a trip
+to Washington with him if we arrived in New York by eight-thirty."
+
+"Oh, you poor dears," exclaimed Peggy, "and if you don't get there at
+that time?"
+
+"We can't go, that's all," said Jess, tragically clasping her gloved
+hands.
+
+"Bother the luck," muttered Jimsy, with masculine grumpiness. "Found out
+what's the trouble, Roy?"
+
+"Yes," was the response; "one of your gears is stripped. I'm afraid that
+there'll be no Washington trip for you folksies."
+
+The tears rose in Jess's fine eyes. Jimsy looked cross, and an abrupt
+silence fell.
+
+It was Peggy who broke it with a suggestion.
+
+"There's a train leaves Central Riverview junction at six, isn't there?"
+
+"I believe so," rejoined Jess, in a doleful voice; "we took it one night,
+I remember, when we missed the through cars from Sandy Bay."
+
+"It's five now," nodded Peggy, examining the dial of a tiny watch, one of
+the last presents her father had given her.
+
+"Fat chance of getting this old hurdy-gurdy fixed up in time to make it,"
+grumbled Jimsy.
+
+"You don't have to," cried Peggy, with a note of triumph.
+
+"Don't have to!"
+
+It was Jess who echoed the remark.
+
+"No, indeed. Our aerial express will start for the junction in a few
+minutes, and----"
+
+But the rest was drowned in an enthusiastic shout. Jess threw her arms
+about her chum and fairly hugged her.
+
+"You darling. We can make it?"
+
+"We must," was the business-like rejoinder. "Roy, you get the Butterfly
+out and fill the lubricator tank. We've got enough gasolene."
+
+Roy and Jimsy, arm in arm, hastened off to the shed. The two girls
+followed more leisurely. It was not long before everything was in
+readiness, but fast as they worked it was nearly half an hour before
+preparations were all complete.
+
+Then they climbed in and Peggy started the engine. But the next instant
+she shut it off again.
+
+"The second cylinder is missing fire," she pronounced.
+
+Roy bent over the refractory part of the motor and soon had it adjusted.
+Then the motor settled down to a steady tune, the regular humming throb
+that delights the heart of the aviator.
+
+"All ready?" inquired Peggy, adjusting her hood and goggles and turning
+about.
+
+"Right Oh!" hailed Jimsy.
+
+"Now, boys and girls, prepare for a long run," warned Peggy; "with this
+load it will take a long time to rise."
+
+The aeroplane was speeded up and soon traversed the slope leading from
+the back of the shed to the summit of the little hill at the rear of the
+Prescott place. As it topped the rise Peggy turned on full power. The
+Golden Butterfly dashed forward and then, after what seemed a long
+interval, began to rise. Up it soared, its motor laboring bravely under
+its heavy burden. In the dusk blue flames could be seen occasionally
+spurting from the exhausts. It would have been a weird, perhaps a
+terrifying sight to any one unused to it--the flight of this roaring,
+flaming, sky monster, through the evening gloom.
+
+"We've got half an hour to make the twenty miles," shouted Roy, from his
+seat beside his sister. Peggy set her little white even teeth and nodded.
+
+"I'm going to make for the tracks and follow them. That's the quickest
+way," she said.
+
+It seemed only a few seconds later that the red and green lights of a
+semaphore signal flashed up below them.
+
+"Bradley's Crossing," announced Roy.
+
+Swinging the aeroplane about, Peggy began flying directly above the
+tracks.
+
+"No sign of the train yet--we may make it," said Jimsy, pulling out his
+watch. It showed a quarter to six, and they had fifteen miles to travel,
+or so Roy estimated the distance.
+
+"Let her out for a mile-a-minute," he exclaimed.
+
+Peggy only nodded. She was far too busy getting all the work she could
+out of the motor. An extra passenger makes a lot of difference to an
+aeroplane, and the Butterfly was only built to accommodate three. But she
+was answering gallantly to the strain.
+
+On she flew above the tracks, every now and then roaring above some
+astonished crossing keeper or track-walker.
+
+Suddenly, from somewhere behind them, they heard a long, moaning whistle.
+
+"The train!" shouted Jess.
+
+In her excitement she gripped Roy's arm tightly and peered back.
+
+All at once, around a curve, the locomotive came into view--black smoke
+spouting from its funnel and a column of white steam pouring from its
+safety valves.
+
+"She'll beat us," cried Jimsy, despairingly, as the thunder of the
+speeding train grew louder. The setting sun flashed on the varnished
+sides of the cars.
+
+The engineer thrust his head out of the cab window and gazed upward. His
+attention had been attracted by the roaring of the motor overhead.
+
+He broke into a yell and waved his hand as he saw the flying aeroplane
+dashing along above him. The next instant his hand sought the whistle
+cord.
+
+"Toot! toot! toot!"
+
+The occupants of the aeroplane waved their hands. To their chagrin,
+however, they saw that, overloaded as the aeroplane was, the train was
+gaining on them in leaps and bounds. Its windows were black with heads
+now as passengers, regardless of the danger of encountering some
+trackside obstacle, leaned out and gazed up at the Golden Butterfly
+roaring along like some great Thunder Lizard of the dark ages.
+
+"Don't they stop anywhere between here and the junction?" gasped Jimsy.
+
+Roy shook his head.
+
+"It's a through train from Montauk," he said; "they make all the speed
+they can."
+
+"Two minutes," cried Jess, suddenly; "we won't do it."
+
+But Peggy had suddenly swung off the tracks and was cutting across
+country. She had seen that the track took a long curve just before it
+entered the junction. By taking a direct "crow flight" across country she
+might beat it after all.
+
+And she did. As the train came thundering into the station and stopped
+with a mighty screaming of brakes and hiss of escaping steam, the
+aeroplane came to earth in the flat park-like space in front of the depot.
+
+"Tumble out quick!" shouted Roy, "she only stops a jiffy."
+
+Jess and Jimsy lost no time in obeying.
+
+"Good-bye, you darlings!" cried Jess, as she sped after her brother
+toward the station.
+
+"We'll get our tickets on the train!" shouted Jimsy, as they vanished.
+
+"All ab-o-a-r-d!"
+
+The conductor's voice ran peremptorily out. He had seen the race between
+the aeroplane and the train, but even that could not disturb a
+conductor's desire to start on time.
+
+As the wheels began to revolve, Jimsy and Jess swung on to the steps of
+the rear parlor car. As they did so the passengers broke into an
+involuntary cheer. The shouts of approval at the up to date manner in
+which the young folks had "made their train," mingled with the puffing of
+the locomotive as it sped off.
+
+Among the spectators of the sensational feat had been a broad-shouldered,
+bronzed man in a big sombrero hat, who sat in the same parlor car which
+Jimsy and Jess had entered. He looked like a Westerner. As the train
+gathered headway he suddenly, after an interval of deep thought, struck
+one big brawny hand upon his knee and exclaimed to himself:
+
+"It's the very thing--the very thing. With a fleet of those I could
+develop the Jupiter and astonish the mining world."
+
+He rose, with the slowness of a powerful man, and made his way back to
+where Jimsy and Jess were sitting. Raising his broad-brimmed hat with
+old-fashioned courtesy, he addressed himself to Jimsy and was soon deep
+in conversation with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE RIVAL AEROPLANE.
+
+
+In the meanwhile, the exciting race against time had resulted in
+overheating the Golden Butterfly's cylinders, and a stop of an hour or
+more at the junction was necessary. Thus it was quite dark when the young
+Prescotts were ready to make for home. A small crowd had gathered to see
+them start, for there was a little community of houses scattered about
+the junction.
+
+They decided to go the way they had come, namely, to follow the tracks to
+the crossing and then turn off for home. It was their first experience in
+night piloting, and when they were ready Peggy switched on the tiny
+shaded bulb that illuminated the compass. This done, she started the
+engine, and the Golden Butterfly shot into the air under its reduced load
+with an almost buoyant sense of freedom.
+
+The crossing was reached in several minutes less than it had taken them
+to reach the junction on the going trip. Peggy turned off as she marked
+the glowing lights beneath her, and presently the Golden Butterfly was
+skimming along above dark woodlands and gloom-enshrouded meadows. There
+was something awe inspiring about this night flying. Above them the
+canopy of the stars stretched like a mantle spangled with silver sequins.
+Below, the earth showed as a black void.
+
+They were flying slowly to avoid overheating the cylinders again.
+Suddenly a bright glare shot up against the night from below, and a
+little ahead of them. It died down almost instantly, only to flash up
+once more.
+
+"Gid Gibbons's forge!" exclaimed Roy. "Let's fly over by there and see
+what he's doing."
+
+"All right," agreed Peggy; "ever since my visit there I have felt a great
+interest in Mr. Gibbons. But we'll have to make haste, there's some wind
+coming before long."
+
+The girl was right. A filmy mist, like a veil, had spread over the stars,
+dimming their bright lamps, and a wind was beginning to sigh in the trees
+under them.
+
+But they had not reached Gid Gibbons's place, or rather a location above
+it, when an astonishing thing happened. From the ground a red light and a
+green light set at some distance apart began to rise. Up and up they
+climbed through the night in long, swinging circles. Between them was
+dimly visible the dark outlines of some fabric.
+
+"An aeroplane!" cried the boy and girl, simultaneously.
+
+"Fan Harding's aeroplane!" cried Peggy, an instant later.
+
+"And--oh, Roy--it can fly!" she added, admiringly.
+
+"No doubt of that," was the rather grudging reply, as the red and green
+lights soared up and up.
+
+"Keep clear of it, sis, we don't want a collision," warned Roy.
+
+"Oh, I'd like to get close and see it," breathed Peggy. "I never would
+have credited Fan Harding with being able to do it."
+
+"Nor I," exclaimed Roy, his dislike of Fan Harding giving place to
+admiration--genuine admiration--of the other's ingenuity.
+
+"Well, he's beaten me out at my own particular specialty," he exclaimed
+presently, after an interval in which the lights had climbed far above
+the Golden Butterfly. "That's a better machine than ours, Peg."
+
+"I guess we'll have to admit that," rejoined the girl, with a sigh. "I
+wonder if he'll enter for the prize?"
+
+"Of course. With a craft like that he'd be foolish if he didn't. Odd that
+he's trying it out at night, though."
+
+"I suppose he wants to keep secret what it can do and then spring it on
+an astonished world," rejoined Peggy. "Good gracious!" she broke off
+hurriedly.
+
+The aeroplane had given a sudden lurch, and at the same instant a sharp
+puff of wind struck them both in the face. Peggy's hands fairly flashed
+among her levers, and she averted what might have been a bad predicament.
+
+Involuntarily, at the same instant, Roy had glanced up at the other
+aeroplane to see how it was faring. To his astonishment the lights did
+not seem to waver.
+
+"Wow, Peg!" he cried, "that puff didn't even bother Fan Harding's craft.
+It was uncanny to see her weather it."
+
+"There's something uncanny about it altogether," sniffed Peggy; "it's a
+regular phantom airship."
+
+"That's just what it is," agreed Roy, "but I'm afraid it is a substantial
+enough phantom to carry off that $5,000 prize."
+
+Another puff prevented Peggy from replying just then. Once more the
+Golden Butterfly careened violently, and then, under Peggy's skillful
+handling, righted herself. But this time the puff was followed by a
+steady rush of wind.
+
+"Better turn, Peg, before it gets any worse," advised Roy; "we're off our
+course now."
+
+"I--I tried to," exclaimed Peggy, desperately, "but the wind won't let
+me. I don't dare to."
+
+"We must," exclaimed Roy, with a serious note in his voice; "if this wind
+freshens much more we won't be able to turn at all."
+
+He leaned forward and took the wheel from his sister. But the instant he
+tried to steer the aeroplane round, the wind, rising under one wing tip,
+careened her to a perilous angle.
+
+"No go," he said; "we've got to keep on going."
+
+"But where can we land?" asked Peggy, a little catch in her voice.
+
+"We'll have to take chances on that," decided Roy. "It would be suicidal
+to try to buck this wind."
+
+The breeze had now freshened till it was singing an Aeolian song in every
+wire and brace of the Golden Butterfly. Brother and sister could feel the
+stout fabric vibrate under the strain of the blast.
+
+The aeroplane was moving swiftly now. But it was the toy of the wind,
+which grew stronger every minute. The dark landscape beneath fairly flew
+by under them. Neither of them thought to look back at the red and green
+lights in the sky behind them.
+
+All at once, Roy, who had leaned over his sister's shoulder and glanced
+at the compass, gave a sharp cry.
+
+"We've got to turn, sis," he said, in a tense, sharp voice.
+
+"What do you mean, Roy? Are we in any very serious danger?"
+
+The girl's voice shook nervously in response to the anxiety expressed in
+her brother's tone.
+
+"Danger!" echoed Roy. "Girlie, we are being blown out to sea!"
+
+Blown out to sea! The words held a real poignant terror for Peggy.
+
+"Oh, Roy, we must do something!" she cried, helplessly.
+
+"Yes, but what? We can't, we daren't turn about. The machine would tip
+like a bucket. No, we must keep on and trust to luck."
+
+Peggy shuddered. Hurtled along in the wind-driven darkness, brother and
+sister sat in silence, waiting for the first warning that they were
+approaching the sea.
+
+In the blackness it was impossible to see anything ahead, and the
+starlight, which, dim as it was, might have helped, had been overcast by
+a filmy covering of light clouds.
+
+Once or twice as they were hurried helplessly along, the propeller
+beating desperately against the wind, they saw, far below them, the
+cheerful lights of some farmhouse. Further off a glare against the sky
+indicated the lights of Sandy Bay.
+
+How they wished that they were safe and sound at home, as they were blown
+onward by the wind, going faster and faster every minute.
+
+Roy, his pulses beating hard, and every nerve at tension, had taken the
+wheel from his sister, even at the risk of careening the aeroplane when
+they shifted their positions. Every now and then he tried to turn ever so
+little, but each time a tip at a dangerous angle warned him not to
+attempt such a thing.
+
+All at once Peggy uttered a shrill cry.
+
+"Oh, Roy! The sea!"
+
+Above the screeching of the wind and the hum of the motor they could now
+hear another sound, the thunder of the surf on the beach.
+
+Straining his eyes ahead Roy could see now the white gleam of the
+breakers as they broke in showers of spray on the seashore. A real sense
+of terror, such as he had never felt before, clutched at his heart as he
+heard and saw.
+
+But controlling his voice, he turned to Peggy.
+
+"Be brave, little sister," he said; "we'll pull through all right."
+
+Peggy said nothing in response. She dared not trust her voice to speak
+just at that moment. White faced and with staring, fixed eyes, she sat
+motionless and silent, as the Golden Butterfly was driven out above the
+roaring surf and the tossing waves. To her alarmed imagination the sea
+seemed to be reaching up hungry arms for the two daring young aviators.
+
+Suddenly she was half blinded by a brilliant flash of light which bathed
+the aeroplane in a flood of radiance. The next instant it was gone, but
+they could see the great shaft of radiance sweeping around the compass.
+
+"It's the light!" cried Roy. "The Rocky Point light!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+IN DIREST PERIL.
+
+
+"Oh, if we could only work round and land on the point," exclaimed Peggy.
+"There's a fine, smooth field there; in fact, it's all bare ground,
+without rocks or trees."
+
+"Yes, and Jeff Stokes is wireless operator there, too," rejoined her
+brother. "Hullo," he exclaimed an instant later, "the wind is shifting a
+bit. I almost got her head round that time."
+
+"Then there is a chance, Roy!"
+
+"Yes, sis, but don't count too much on it."
+
+Like a skillful jockey handling a restive horse, Roy worked the Golden
+Butterfly about on the shifting air currents. If once he could turn her
+nose toward the land he was sure that he would be able to make the ground
+by driving the aeroplane down on a slanting angle.
+
+Once or twice, while he strove with hand and brain against the elements,
+he caught his breath with a gasping intake--so near had they come to
+overturning. But, thanks to the wind eddies of the point, it was
+possible, after a deal of breathless maneuvering, to get the aeroplane
+headed for the land.
+
+The instant he found himself in this position Roy threw on all his power
+and then, "bucking" the wind, like a ship beating up to windward, he
+rushed down through the night upon the point. As he did so the rays of
+the slowly revolving light flashed brightly upon the laboring aeroplane.
+In the radiance it looked like some struggling night bird beating its way
+against the storm and darkness.
+
+As Peggy had said, the point was clear of rocks or brush, and a landing
+was made without much difficulty once the aeroplane had been turned. Just
+as a ship can face the waves with comparative security, so an aeroplane,
+being driven into the teeth of a gale, is secure so long as she does not
+"broach to"; in other words, get sidewise to the blast. It was touch and
+go with the Golden Butterfly for several minutes, though, during that
+struggle with the elements, and two more thankful young hearts rarely
+beat than Peggy's and Roy's as they stepped from the machine and made it
+fast by pointed braces provided for the purpose.
+
+Hardly had she touched the ground before a door in the lower part of the
+lighthouse opened and the form of Jeff Stokes emerged. He told them that
+the struggle with the wind had been seen by the light-keeper and himself,
+and he was warm in his congratulations of the daring young aviators. The
+light-keeper, a grizzled man named Zeb. Beasley, followed close on Jeff's
+heels.
+
+"Come right into the house and hev some supper," he said warmly. "It's
+only rough fare, but you're welcome. My misses will be glad to have you."
+
+Truth to tell, both Peggy and her brother were almost famished and worn
+out after the tension of the struggle with the wind. This being so, they
+were glad enough to accept the light-keeper's kind invitation.
+
+Peggy's first action, however, was to hasten to the 'phone in the
+lighthouse and call up their aunt. Miss Prescott, who had been badly
+worried over their prolonged absence, was much relieved to learn that
+they were safe and sound.
+
+Mrs. Beasley, a motherly woman of middle age, took charge of Peggy while
+Jeff Stokes entertained Roy. Jeff said that he liked the life at the
+light, lonesome as it grew sometimes. When he felt blue he used to
+relieve the monotony by talking, by means of invisible waves, with other
+operators. He wiled many a weary hour away in this manner, he said.
+
+Suddenly, in the midst of their talk, he excused himself and hastened to
+the small room in which his instruments were. The place, filled with
+shiny, mysterious apparatus and networked above with wires, was as neat
+as a pin.
+
+"Some one's calling," Jeff explained.
+
+His quick ear had caught the faint "tick-tick" hardly audible to the
+untrained ears, which told him that a message was vibrating through the
+night. Slipping over his head a metallic apparatus, not unlike the
+telephone receivers worn by "Central," Jeff began listening intently.
+Drawing a pad toward him, he was soon writing down the message as it was
+ticked off. Presently it was completed, by which time Peggy was one of
+his audience.
+
+"'Steamer Valiant, Captain Briggs, of London, wishes to be reported as
+passing Rocky Point, bound for Boston,'" read off Jeff. "Hum--nothing
+very exciting there."
+
+"What are you going to do now?" asked Peggy, as Jeff, the message in his
+hand, turned to another table, one on which were arranged some ordinary
+telegraph instruments.
+
+"Send it by ordinary wire telegraphy into the head office in New York,"
+he said.
+
+"Why not send it by wireless?" asked Peggy.
+
+"Too much chance of delay and getting cross currents," explained Jeff.
+"We found that for quick transmission of ordinary business, that the wire
+is best, unless the atmospheric conditions are just right."
+
+Suddenly, one of the telegraph instruments began to crackle and click
+loudly.
+
+"Phew!" said Jeff, listening intently; "here's something that will
+interest you folks."
+
+"What is it?" asked Peggy, eagerly.
+
+"It's--wait a minute till I catch the last----" Jeff listened a few
+seconds more and then faced about. "Why, that message was a despatch from
+the Sandy Bay correspondent of the New York Planet to his paper," he
+said. "It was an article telling that Fanning Harding has completed a
+successful aeroplane which made a wonderful flight to-night in a stiff
+wind. He says that Harding has formed a company and means to manufacture
+similar craft. Then there was a lot of taffy about what a fine young
+fellow Harding is, and how bright, and so on. Wonder if it's true?"
+
+"I can vouch for that," said Peggy. "I've seen his factory. It's out by
+Gid Gibbons's shop."
+
+"So that's where Gid is getting all his money," exclaimed Jeff. "I saw
+him spending it like water in Sandy Bay the other day. Hester's got a lot
+of new dresses and hats, too."
+
+Peggy's heart beat a little faster. This sounded like a corroboration of
+her suspicions. Where could such a man as Gid Gibbons be getting such
+large amounts of money as he seemed to have recently? But before she
+could ask any more questions Mrs. Beasley announced supper. Speculation
+was rife in Peggy's mind as they sat down to the broiled sea bass,
+freshly caught, home-grown potatoes and string beans and other good
+things which the light-keeper had designated as "rough fare." Peggy was
+fain to admit afterward, and so was Roy, that never had she enjoyed
+anything so much as that meal in the old lighthouse with the wind roaring
+about it and the rough, kindly faces of their entertainers smiling on
+them.
+
+Good-natured Mrs. Beasley soon after arranged sleeping accommodations for
+her young guests, and that night the young aviators slumbered peacefully,
+while above them the great revolving light swept steadily in slow
+circles, warning vessels passing up and down the Sound of the dangerous
+proximity of Rocky Point.
+
+The next day dawned bright and fair. The sea lay like a sheet of blue
+glass, with scarcely a ripple to mar its polished surface. The last trace
+of the wind had died down.
+
+"We'll have no more breeze till sundown," announced Mr. Beasley at
+breakfast. Like most men of his profession, he was an earnest and
+accurate student of the weather. After breakfast Jeff Stokes, who had
+been on duty all night, was relieved by his assistant, a young man who
+boarded in the village and rode over to his duty on a motor-cycle.
+
+"Well," said Roy, after they had thanked their good-hearted entertainers
+warmly, "I guess it's time for us to be getting home."
+
+But Peggy had noted a wistful look in Jeff Stokes's eyes as he stood by
+the side of the aeroplane, which an examination had already shown to be
+none the worse for its buffeting of the night before.
+
+"Would you like to try a little flight, Jeff?" she asked.
+
+"Would I?" echoed the youth; "will a duck swim?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so," laughed Roy, "and so can a certain young wireless
+operator fly."
+
+"Gee, Roy, you mean it?"
+
+"Of course, if you're not scared."
+
+There was a mischievous twinkle in Roy's eye as he bent over the engine.
+
+"How would you like a ride, Mr. Beasley?" asked Peggy presently, while
+Roy adjusted the engine.
+
+The weather-beaten old fellow fairly threw up his hands.
+
+"Land of Goshen, miss!" he exclaimed, "I've lived on the earth and sea,
+man and boy, for fifty years, and I ain't agoin' ter tempt Providence by
+embarking in a sky clipper at this late day."
+
+"You bet you ain't," put in Mrs. Beasley with deep conviction. "Why, if
+you ever done such a thing we'd be like to be read out of church--not but
+what it's all right for young folks if they know how to manage the
+contraptions."
+
+"Now, then, Jeff, if you are ready will you get in?" said Roy presently.
+
+The slender young wireless operator hopped into the chassis with
+alacrity. But his face was a bit pallid from excitement at the idea of
+the new method of locomotion he was about to test.
+
+Last good-byes were said, and the motor began to whirr like a gigantic
+locust. There was a grinding and buzzing as the gears meshed and the
+aeroplane began to scud off.
+
+"Fer all ther world like some big, pesky grasshopper," declared Mrs.
+Beasley, as it scudded off across the smooth turf.
+
+But if the good lady was astonished, then it was nothing to her amazement
+when a moment later the Butterfly soared up into the air, lifting as
+gently on the windless atmosphere as a bit of drifting gossamer.
+
+Up and up it swept in graceful hawk-like circles.
+
+"Dear Suz!" shrieked Mrs. Beasley presently, "if they ain't agoin' out
+ter sea!"
+
+"Just what they air," shouted her husband, shading his eyes with a
+wrinkled hand. "I never thought ter have lived ter have seen such a
+thing!"
+
+Roy had been unable to resist the temptation to take a little spin out
+above the glassy, scarcely heaving water. The gulls, soaring above it,
+viewed with amazement the invasion of their realm by this buzzing, angry
+looking monster. They flew about it shrieking.
+
+"Goodness, I hope they don't attack us," exclaimed Peggy.
+
+"Not likely," was Roy's response. "They think we are some kind of big
+bird, I guess, and want to have a game with us."
+
+As they swept on, all agreed that never had they felt such a feeling of
+exhilaration as came to them as they swooped and swung above the
+glistening blue water, for all the world like some huge bird. Once or
+twice motor boats went by beneath them, and the occupants looked up at
+first in wonderment and then in enthusiasm at the sight the Golden
+Butterfly and her three young occupants presented.
+
+But all at once the steady song of the engine began to grow different. It
+"skipped" and sputtered and coughed. Blue smoke rolled from the exhausts.
+The aeroplane began to waver and sag.
+
+Jeff Stokes turned rather pale.
+
+"What is the matter?" he gasped, steadying his voice as much as he could
+as the aeroplane began to drop steadily down toward the water beneath
+them.
+
+"The gasolene's given out," rejoined Roy in a voice which was full of
+anxiety.
+
+"Oh, Roy, what shall we do?"
+
+Peggy gasped as the aeroplane, its propeller beating the air more and
+more feebly, began to descend with greater rapidity.
+
+"We'll have to volplane to some land if we can, and if we can't we must
+take our chances for it in the water," was Roy's grim reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WHAT HAPPENED ON THE ISLAND.
+
+
+"Look," cried Peggy suddenly, "isn't that a small island below there?
+Maybe we can make that?"
+
+"I'll try to," was the answer, as Roy gripped the steering wheel more
+firmly.
+
+At the same instant the motor, with a gasp and a sputter, gave out
+altogether. But Roy knew how to volplane; that is, to reach the earth by
+swinging the aeroplane in circles so that her stability was maintained
+even with the power cut off.
+
+He began to execute this maneuver now. The island which Peggy had
+indicated was a small spot of land some five miles off the shore. It was
+sandy and barren looking on one side, though at the further end from them
+there grew some trees and scrubby looking bushes.
+
+If he could only keep the aeroplane from sagging down into the sea Roy
+was confident he could land at the place in safety. But it was still some
+distance off and the aeroplane was still dropping with much greater
+rapidity than seemed comfortable. Both Roy and his sister were expert
+swimmers, and the boy knew that Jeff was at home in the water. But at the
+same time, if they struck the surface of the sea, there was the chance
+that they might become entangled in the aeroplane and drowned before they
+had an opportunity to save themselves. So it was with a keen sense of
+apprehension that the boy exercised all the air craft of which he was
+master in bringing his sky cruiser downward.
+
+"Oh!" cried Peggy suddenly as the Golden Butterfly gave a sickening
+downward drop like a stone plunging to vacancy.
+
+But the empty "air pocket" which the craft had struck was a small one,
+and the next instant the atmosphere caught the broad wings and buoyed the
+aeroplane up from what seemed to be destined to be a disastrous fall.
+
+The drop had, however, had one good effect. It had thrown the aeroplane
+almost on end, and in that manner drained a few last driblets of gasolene
+from the depleted tank into the feed pipes.
+
+It was only a little fuel, but it was enough to cause the engine to
+resume operations for a couple of minutes. Taking advantage of this lucky
+accident, Roy drove forward, and as the propeller came once more to a
+standstill the Golden Butterfly sank down into a bed of sand which made
+her almost at once stationary.
+
+"Well, we are--aerial Robinson Crusoes," exclaimed Peggy as, having
+clambered out of the chassis, she stood surveying the little island which
+they had so fortunately landed upon.
+
+"Yes, and if we don't get some gasolene pretty quick we'll be Crusoes in
+a mighty uncomfortable sense," commented Roy, moodily gazing about at the
+surrounding sea, smooth as a sheet of glass and without the sign of a
+boat upon it. Far off on the horizon there hung a three-masted schooner,
+all her sails set, in the flat calm. But she was too far off to aid them
+even had she been able to.
+
+"Tell you what we'll do, let's explore the island," said Jeff Stokes
+suddenly.
+
+"Of course," cried Peggy, clapping her hands, "that's what everybody does
+in story books when they are stranded on a desert island, and right after
+that they always find just what they want, even down to a silver-mounted
+manicure set."
+
+"I'd like to see a tin-mounted can of gasolene," grunted Roy.
+Nevertheless after seeing to the engine of the aeroplane he was willing
+enough to set out with the others to explore this little spot of land in
+the Sound.
+
+It was so small that it did not take them long to reach the summit of the
+low peak into which it rose in the centre.
+
+"Oh, there's a little hut!" cried Peggy, suddenly.
+
+Sure enough, below them, and half overgrown with tall weeds and scrub
+growth, was a half ruined hut. It was doubtless the relic of some
+fisherman who had once used the island as headquarters. But it had,
+apparently, long lapsed into disuse.
+
+Hardly had they spied it before Roy made another discovery. Drawn up in a
+miniature cove not far from the hut was a trim and trig white motor boat,
+seemingly, from her long narrow shape and powerful engines, capable of
+great speed.
+
+Here was a discovery! A motor boat meant gasolene and companionship.
+
+With a soft cry of joy Peggy was dashing forward toward the hut, from
+which they could now hear proceeding the hum of human voices, when Roy
+suddenly checked her. From the doorway there had suddenly issued the
+figure of Morgan, the Bancrofts' butler. He gazed about him with a look
+of half alarmed suspicion on his flabby face. The young aviators
+instinctively crouched back behind a screen of green brush. They felt a
+suddenly aroused premonition that everything was not as it should be.
+
+"H'its nothink," said Morgan, addressing someone within the hut, after he
+had gazed about a little more without seeing anything to further alarm
+his suspicions.
+
+"All right, if that's the case come back in here," came another voice
+from inside the hut.
+
+"Giles!" recognized the astonished Peggy. But another and a greater
+surprise was yet in store for them when they heard another voice strike
+into the conversation. There was no mistaking the tones for any others
+than Fanning Harding's.
+
+"You chaps are nervous as kittens," he was saying, "who on earth would
+come to this island? We are as private here as if we were in the South
+Seas. Now go ahead, Morgan, with what you were saying."
+
+"Well, what h'I says is this," spoke up the English butler, "a fair
+diwision and no favoritism. You say you want a third? You ain't
+h'entitled to h'it. H'it was h'only by h'accident that you found h'out
+h'our secret h'and h'I thinks you ought to be content with what you can
+get."
+
+"Very well," was the rejoinder, "but as you fellows know, I've got you in
+my power. You daren't make a move without consulting me. If you try any
+monkey tricks I'll crush you so quick you won't know what struck you. The
+police are still carrying on their investigation, and----"
+
+But here the voices sank so low that the eager young listeners could hear
+no more. But their eyes shone as they exchanged glances. Somehow both
+Peggy and Roy felt that the conversation had related to the mysterious
+vanishing of the jewels. This at least appeared clear from Fanning
+Harding's reference to the police.
+
+"We'd better get back to the other side of the island before they come
+out and see us," counseled Peggy. "If they were to find out we had been
+spying on them they might get frightened and spirit the jewels away from
+wherever they have them concealed, for I'm just as sure now that they are
+all three mixed up in it as I am that--that----"
+
+"We have no gasolene," put in Roy.
+
+"But you have no proof and nothing to go upon," objected Jeff Stokes who
+was, like most folks around Sandy Bay, familiar with the details of the
+strange occurrence.
+
+"That's just the trouble," said Peggy, "and it is just as impossible to
+go ahead in the case as it is for us to fly without fuel."
+
+"Peg!" cried Roy, suddenly, "look at that!"
+
+"That" was a ten gallon can of gasolene standing on the beach by the side
+of the motor boat. Evidently, to drag her bow up on the beach, they had
+lightened the craft so as to make the task easier, for several ropes,
+water jars and other bits of marine tackle lay about.
+
+"If we could only get it," sighed Peggy.
+
+"Yes, if," was the rejoinder from Roy, "but we can't steal it, and, as
+you say, it might spoil everything if Fanning Harding thought that we had
+overheard any of his talk."
+
+"Look out!" warned Jeff Stokes in a whisper the next instant. The warning
+did not come a bit too soon. The door of the hut opened and the party
+which had been in conference inside emerged. They made straight for the
+motor boat, which Jeff Stokes had, in the meantime, recognized as one
+that was for hire at Sandy Bay.
+
+"Come on, boys, we've got to be getting back," urged Fanning moving
+quickly and preparing to shove the craft off.
+
+"Wait till I chuck some of this truck in," grumbled Giles.
+
+He stooped and rapidly threw in the ropes and other gear scattered about.
+Then as Fanning Harding and the flabby-faced butler shoved the craft off
+he made a hasty scramble for the boat's bow, leaping in as she floated
+free of the beach.
+
+"H'I soy," shouted Morgan, "you forgot the bloomin' gasolene."
+
+"Better put back and get it," growled Giles; "if you fellows had helped
+me a bit instead of givin' advice it wouldn't have bin forgotten."
+
+"Oh, we can't bother with it now," struck in Fanning, impatiently, "we've
+plenty in the tank to take us back. I'm not going to delay any longer."
+
+He spun over the fly wheel as he spoke and the motor boat began to cut
+rapidly through the water headed for Sandy Bay. As soon as it had gone a
+safe distance the three stranded young adventurers joined hands and
+executed a wild war dance of joy. By a means almost miraculous they had
+fallen across the very thing they needed.
+
+"It's just like the story books!" cried Peggy, delightedly.
+
+They raced down toward the coveted can, which was half full of the
+precious fuel. Enough to get them ashore at any rate. Before returning to
+the stranded aeroplane they examined the hut, but found nothing in it but
+a few broken-down bits of furniture.
+
+"Queer," commented Jeff, "I half expected to find something."
+
+"Not likely," laughed Roy, "they're too foxy for that."
+
+"What do you suppose they came to the island for?" asked Peggy.
+
+"To get a quiet place to talk where they would not be observed by any one
+who knew them, I guess," rejoined her brother. "Oh, if only we could
+solve the mystery. It's tantalizing to be so close to it and yet with so
+many tangled ends left ravelled."
+
+"Be patient," advised Peggy, "it will all come out in time. And now I'm
+as famished for lunch as the Golden Butterfly is, so lets fill up the
+tank and then head for home."
+
+"Second the motion," laughed Jeff Stokes.
+
+Half an hour later the Golden Butterfly once more rose, and without
+incident or mishap winged her way back to Rocky Point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+JUKES DADE APPEARS.
+
+
+The aviation field at Acatonick a few days before the big contests for
+juvenile aviators was alive with action and color. The spot selected was
+a flat, smooth field of some fifty acres on the outskirts of the town.
+
+The grass spread a green carpet, thickly sprinkled with wild flowers,
+while at one side of the place was a row of green-painted sheds known as
+the "hangars."
+
+"Hangar is French for shed," Peggy had explained to a group of friends
+from Sandy Bay whom she was showing over the grounds, "and I think that
+_shed_ is a whole lot better word than 'Ongar,' which is the way you are
+supposed to pronounce it."
+
+One of the sheds--as in deference to Peggy we shall call them--was of a
+different color, and stood somewhat apart from the rest. It was also much
+larger and bore in consequential-looking letters over its door the words:
+
+               "Harding Aeroplane Company. Keep Out."
+
+And to see that this notice was enforced to the letter, Fanning Harding
+had installed a red-nosed watchman with a formidable club at the portal.
+Considerable secrecy, in fact, had been observed concerning his
+aeroplane. Several large boxes had arrived one night and been hustled as
+quickly as possible into the shed.
+
+The shed assigned to Roy Prescott, happened, by an odd coincidence, to be
+next door to the Harding one. The second day of their stay at Acatonick,
+Roy, on coming down to the field from the hotel at which he and Peggy and
+Miss Prescott were stopping, was much surprised to be greeted by Fanning,
+with some effusiveness.
+
+After a lot of preliminary hemming and hawing, Fanning broached to Roy
+once more the proposition of selling the Golden Butterfly.
+
+"But I thought you had a fine type of aeroplane of your own," said Roy,
+wondering at this renewal of Fanning's offer.
+
+"So I have," was the rejoinder, "but now that I have established my
+business on a paying business basis I can handle another type. You know
+mine is a biplane model."
+
+Roy nodded. He had no liking for Fanning, but the other was so effusive
+that he felt it was incumbent on him to meet the other lad half way, as
+the saying is.
+
+"I'd like to have a look at your craft sometime," he said.
+
+"Not much you won't," rejoined Fanning, quickly, "you'll see her on the
+day she wins the big prize and not before."
+
+"You seem to have it won already," rejoined Roy, rather contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, yes," was the confident reply, "I'm going to simply fly rings round
+you and the rest, so you'd better take up my offer now, for after the
+race your Golden Butterfly stock won't be worth a penny."
+
+"I'm not so certain about that," was the answer.
+
+"Then you won't take up my offer. I'll raise it another two hundred."
+
+Roy smiled and shook his head. Something in his refusal angered the other
+lad.
+
+"Well as you wish," he said, strolling off, "but dad has been pretty
+lenient with you up to date. As you won't meet us half way, though I'm
+going to advise him to force you to sell the Golden Butterfly."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By foreclosing that mortgage without further delay."
+
+Fanning whipped the words out with a vicious intonation. All his mean
+nature surged up into his face as he spoke. Roy breathed a little
+quicker. But outwardly he was calm and cold as ice.
+
+"That's your privilege," he said shortly, turning away, but that night he
+and Peggy had a troubled discussion about ways and means, and it became
+more than ever evident to them how much depended on winning the five
+thousand dollar prize.
+
+There were several aspirants in the juvenile class on the grounds as well
+as fliers of more mature years, for Mr. Higgins had interested some other
+capitalists, and it had been decided to make quite an event out of the
+aerial meet.
+
+On the day before the race, which meant so much to them, Peggy and Roy
+decided to take a practice spin across country in their 'plane. The
+capable looking machine excited much favorable comment when it was
+wheeled out of its shed. Several of the other competitors gathered about
+it while the engine was being tuned up. Among them was a surly looking
+chap with a dark, roughly-shaven chin and a pair of shifty eyes. He stood
+beside Fanning Harding, who was also in the crowd about the Golden
+Butterfly.
+
+The Sandy Bay boy gazed on with a sneering look while our two young
+aviators got everything in readiness. This took some time for everybody
+was anxious to take a hand in the work, and it was quite a task to
+kindly, but steadfastly, reject these offers, well meant as they were.
+
+At last everything appeared to be in good shape and with a buzz and a
+whirr the engine was tried out. It worked perfectly, and before the crowd
+had had time to cheer, the aeroplane shot up from the ground in front of
+its shed with hardly any preliminary run. Then came a belated cheer.
+
+"That's the craft that wins the big prize," said a stout, good-natured
+looking man.
+
+"Don't you be so certain," snapped out Fanning Harding, who stood close
+by, and to whom the words were gall.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with you, my young friend," asked the jovial man;
+"you must be meaning to get it yourself."
+
+"That's right," was the confident reply.
+
+"Well, don't count your aerial chicks before they're hatched," was the
+merry rejoinder. A laugh at Fanning's expense went up from the crowd. The
+boy flushed angrily and strode off in the direction of his hangar.
+
+"Confound that young Jackanapes of a Roy Prescott," he muttered, as he
+went; "he gets ahead of me every time. But I'll fix him. Pop needs that
+land, and if Roy wins this race the Prescotts can pay off that mortgage
+and be on the road to riches. Well, I guess I'll settle all that. But
+I'll have to act quickly."
+
+"You seem to be sore on that Prescott boy," came a voice at his shoulder
+suddenly.
+
+Fanning turned quickly to find himself confronted by the unprepossessing
+individual who had stood at his side during the start of the Golden
+Butterfly, which was by this time almost out of sight in the eastward.
+
+"Why, what do you know about it?" he asked, sharply.
+
+"Well," was the rejoinder, "being an observing sort of an individual I
+figured out that you were not best pleased at seeing what a fine
+aeroplane that kid has. Right, ain't I?"
+
+He coolly took from his pocket a disgusting-looking cigar stump and
+proceeded to light it, leering impudently into Fanning's face the while.
+
+"Well, may be you are and then again you may not be," was the Sandy Bay
+youngster's cautious reply; "but how does it interest you?"
+
+"Because I haven't any more use for him than you have, and if you make it
+worth my while I'll give you a bit of information that will be of value
+to you."
+
+"What do you mean?" inquired Fanning, beginning to listen with more
+attention than he had hitherto shown.
+
+"Just this, that I'm Jukes Dade, who used to work for Mr. Prescott years
+ago, but he discharged me for--for--well for a little fault of drinking I
+had. Come now, don't you recognize me?"
+
+"By George, I do," exclaimed Fanning; "but it was so many years ago you
+were with Mr. Prescott that I hardly knew you. You have changed greatly."
+
+"I may have," was the reply in bitter tones. "I've been through enough.
+But there's one thing I ain't never forgotten in all these years, and
+that is my resolve to get even on old man Prescott."
+
+"But he is dead," put in Fanning, wondering at the baleful expression of
+hatred that had come into the man's face.
+
+"All true enough. I heard that some time ago. But if I can injure the son
+in any way, I'd like to do it. I've got a wrong to avenge, and if you
+want to pay well to have Roy Prescott put out of the race to-morrow I'm
+your man."
+
+"Hush, don't talk so loud. Some folks over there are looking at us."
+
+"Oh, well, if you're afraid to----"
+
+"No, no, that isn't it. I must prevent Roy winning that race to-morrow at
+all hazards. Come into my hangar and we can talk quietly."
+
+"Ah, that's the talk," was the rejoinder, and Jukes Dade chuckled with
+grim delight. "You want a little job of work done to settle our friend's
+hash. Well, you've come to the right shop when you meet up with old Jukes
+Dade who has an axe of his own to grind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A GIRL AVIATOR'S ADVENTURE.
+
+
+In the meantime, Peggy and Roy, the former at the steering wheel and
+controls, were skimming through the air above the charming country
+surrounding Acatonick. The exhilaration of flying, the thrill and zest of
+it, were strong upon them as they glided along, and they made an extended
+flight.
+
+"She is working like a three-hundred-dollar watch," cried Roy joyously as
+the speedy monoplane flew onward.
+
+"She's a darling," was Peggy's enthusiastic response. "I'm sure that if
+nothing happens you'll win that race to-morrow, Roy."
+
+"I hope so, little sister," was the response, "for there's a whole lot
+depending on it."
+
+"But just think. If you only do we shall be at the end of our troubles."
+
+"Not quite, sis," Roy reminded her, "that affair of the missing jewels is
+still a mystery, and as long as it stays so some folks will always be
+suspicious of me."
+
+"Oh, Roy, don't say such things. Nobody but the horridest of the horrid
+would----"
+
+"Unluckily," struck in the boy, "there are a lot of the horridest of the
+horrid in this world, and some of them are in Sandy Bay."
+
+He laughed and then went on more seriously:
+
+"It's a pretty nasty feeling, I can tell you, to know that you are
+unjustly suspected by several folks of--of--er--knowing more about an
+affair of that kind than you tell."
+
+"What can have become of the jewels?"
+
+"Ah, that's just it. Of course we have our suspicion, based really on
+nothing, that Fanning Harding knows something about them. But if he did
+why would he place that wallet on the porch of Jess's home?"
+
+"It's beyond me."
+
+"And beyond me, too. I'm quite sure that nobody was about the place when
+the accident happened, and I could not have been unconscious more than a
+few seconds. Now who could have stolen the wallet in that time?"
+
+"It will all come out in time. I'm sure of it, Roy, dear," said Peggy,
+earnestly. "Perhaps it will turn out to be not such a mystery after all."
+
+"I don't know," was Roy's rejoinder. "Mr. Bancroft has had some of the
+cleverest detectives in the country on the case, and a description of the
+jewels, some of which were heirlooms, has been wired everywhere
+broadcast. But up to date none of them have turned up at any pawnshops or
+other likely places."
+
+For some moments more they talked in this strain, when Peggy suddenly
+gave a cry and pointed below. They were passing over a tiny lake
+surrounded by steeply sloping banks, wooded with beautiful trees. It was
+an isolated spot, no human habitation being near at hand apparently.
+
+"Oh, isn't that pretty?" cried Peggy delightedly. "It looks as if it
+might have come out of a picture book."
+
+"And the sight of that water reminds me that I'm terribly thirsty," said
+Roy. "I bet there are some springs by that lake, or if there are not
+maybe the water is good to drink from the lake itself."
+
+"Let's go down and see," said Peggy, with a bright smile, and setting
+over a lever and twisting a couple of valves she began to depress the
+aeroplane.
+
+"There's a good landing place off there to the right of the end of the
+lake," cried Roy, indicating a bare spot where some land seemed to have
+been cleared at one time.
+
+"All right, my brilliant brother," laughed Peggy merrily. "I saw it at
+least five minutes ago. Hold tight, I'm going to drop fast."
+
+To any one less accustomed to aerial navigation than our two young
+friends, the downward plunge would have been alarming in its velocity.
+But to them it was merely exciting. Within a few feet of the ground, just
+when it seemed they must dash against the surface of the earth with
+crushing force, Peggy set the planes on a rising angle and the Golden
+Eagle settled to earth as gracefully as a tired bird.
+
+"Well, here we are," exclaimed Roy, looking about him at the sylvan scene
+as they alighted; "and now what comes next?"
+
+"A hunt for the spring, of course," cried Peggy, placing one hand on her
+brother's shoulder and nimbly leaping from the chassis to the soft,
+springy ground. And off they set toward the margin of the little lake
+below them.
+
+"Reminds me of Ponce de Leon's hunt for a spring," laughed Roy, who felt
+in high spirits over the fine way the Golden Butterfly had conducted
+herself.
+
+"But he was looking for the Fountain of Eternal Youth," said Peggy,
+quickly.
+
+"Wonder if he'd have been any happier if he'd found it," murmured Roy,
+philosophically.
+
+"If he'd been a woman he would," said Peggy.
+
+"Would what? Have found it?"
+
+"No, you goose, but have been perfectly happy if he had attained
+perpetual youth. Why, I think----Why, whatever was that?"
+
+The girl broke off short in her laughing remarks and an expression of
+startled astonishment crept over her features.
+
+"Why, it's some one groaning," cried Roy, after a brief period of
+listening.
+
+"Yes. Some one in pain, too. It's off this way. Come on, Roy, let us find
+out what is the matter."
+
+Without a thought of personal danger, but with all her warm girlish
+sympathy aroused, plucky Peggy plunged off on to a path, from a spot
+along which it appeared the injured person must be groaning. But Roy
+caught her arm and pulled her back while he stepped in front of her.
+
+"Let me go first, sis," he said; "we don't know what may be the matter."
+
+Peggy dutifully tiptoed along behind, as with hearts that beat somewhat
+faster than usual they made their way down the narrow path which led them
+into the deep gloom of the deeper woods. All at once Roy halted. They had
+arrived on the edge of a little clearing in the midst of which stood a
+tiny and roughly built hut with a big stone chimney at one end. Although
+the place was primitive it was scrupulously neat.
+
+Painted white with green shutters, with a bright flower garden in front,
+it was a veritable picture of rural thrift.
+
+The boy hesitated for an instant as they stood on the opposite edge of
+the cleared ground. There was no question but that they had reached the
+place whence the groans had proceeded. As they stood there the grim
+sounds began once more, after being hushed for an instant. Now, however,
+they took coherent form.
+
+"Oh, help me! Help me!"
+
+Roy was undetermined no longer. Directing Peggy to remain outside till he
+summoned her, he walked rapidly, and with a firm step, up the path
+leading to the hut, and entered. It was so dark inside that at first he
+could see nothing. But pretty soon he spied a huddled form in one corner.
+
+"Oh, don't hurt me! I'm only a harmless old man! I have no money," cried
+the cringing figure, as Roy entered.
+
+"I don't want to hurt you," said the boy kindly; "I want to help you."
+
+He now saw that the form in the corner was that of an old man with a
+silvery beard and long white hair. From a gash on his forehead blood was
+flowing, and the wound seemed to have been recently inflicted.
+
+"What is the matter? What has happened?" asked Roy, gently, as he raised
+the old man to a chair into which he fell limply.
+
+"Water! water!" he cried, feebly.
+
+Roy hastened outside saying to himself as he went:
+
+"This is a case for Peggy."
+
+Summoning her he hastily related what had occurred and the warm-hearted
+girl, with many exclamations of pity, hastened to the wounded man's side.
+
+"Get me some water quick, Roy," she exclaimed, tearing a long strip from
+her linen petticoat to serve as a bandage. Outside the hut, Roy soon
+found a spring, back of a rickety stable in which the old man had a horse
+and a ramshackle buggy.
+
+When he returned with the water the poor old fellow took a long draught
+from a cup Peggy held to his lips and the girl then deftly washed and
+bandaged his wound. This done the venerable old man seemed to rally, and
+sitting up in his chair thanked his young friends warmly. Roy, in the
+meantime, had been looking about the hut and saw that it was furnished in
+plain, but tidy style. Over the great open fireplace, at one end, hung a
+big picture. Evidently the canvas was many years old. It was the portrait
+of a fine, self-reliant looking young man in early manhood. His blue eyes
+gazed confidently out from the picture and a smile of seeming
+satisfaction quivered about his lips.
+
+"I'll bet that's a fellow who has got on in the world," thought Roy to
+himself as he scanned the capable, strong features.
+
+"Ah," said the old man, observing the lad's interest in the painting,
+"that picture is a relic of old, old days. It is a portrait of my brother
+James. He----But I must tell you how I came to be in the sad condition in
+which you found me. Have you a comfortable chair, miss? Yes, very well,
+then I will tell you what happened this afternoon in this hut, and will
+then relate to you something of my own story for I was not always a
+hermit and an outcast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE HERMIT OF THE WOODS.
+
+
+"My name is Peter Bell," began the old man, "and many years ago I was
+like any other happy, care-free young man, who is the son of well-to-do
+parents. I had a brother named James Bell, who was much younger than me.
+We were very fond of each other and inseparable.
+
+"Our home was on the Long Island coast and we often went boating. One day
+when we were out in my boat a storm came up and she capsized. I tried to
+save my brother who was a poor swimmer. But in the midst of my efforts
+the bulwark of the wave-tossed boat struck my head and rendered me
+insensible. It seems, however, I must have clung to the boat, for when I
+came to myself I had almost been blown ashore, and, striking out, I soon
+reached it.
+
+"But to my horror I soon saw that people shunned me. In some way the
+story got about that I had saved myself at the expense of my brother's
+life. Such stories are always readily credited among the majority of
+people in a small town and the tale spread like wildfire with
+exaggerations. Driven half wild by the general contempt which I met on
+every side I left home one night, and having a sum of money in my own
+right I decided to live the life of a recluse.
+
+"I recollected this spot to which I had come on hunting expeditions in
+brighter days. Not long after, grief over my brother's death resulted in
+my mother's life coming to a close, and shortly afterward my father's
+demise occurred.
+
+"They left but little, but I managed to secure that portrait of my
+brother you see hanging up there and a few bits of favorite furniture
+associated with happier times.
+
+"I have lived here ever since and have become reconciled to my fate. From
+time to time I used to advertise for news of my brother, offering
+rewards, but long ago I stopped that, and have no doubt that he perished
+in the storm, although for a time I comforted myself by thinking that he
+might, by some strange chance, have been saved.
+
+"In some way a rumor has spread through the countryside that I have much
+wealth hidden here, and this afternoon four masked men entered the hut
+and when I protested, in reply to their demands, that I had no money,
+they struck me down and searched the house. Then cursing me for a fraud
+and an impostor because they found no gold they left, leaving me to my
+fate."
+
+"You have no idea who the men were?" asked Roy who, like Peggy, had
+listened with close attention to the old man's story.
+
+"Yes, I think they were young men of bad reputation from a neighboring
+village; however, I am not sure. I am certain that I recollected hearing
+the voice of one of them when I was in the market in that village some
+time ago."
+
+"Oh, then, you do go into town sometimes?" asked Roy.
+
+"Oh, yes," rejoined the hermit, "but no more than I can help. I have long
+since departed from the ways of the world and the habitations of men. But
+I gather herbs in the woods for miles about and sell them to folks in the
+villages."
+
+"I suppose that is why you have the horse and cart?" put in Peggy, who
+had been gazing out of the window and had noticed the tumbledown barn.
+
+"Yes," rejoined the old man. "I am not as active as I was once and my old
+bones will not carry me as far as they used to. So I drive old Dobbin
+when I have a journey of any length to make."
+
+The hermit would not hear of any help being summoned for him. He said
+that he was in no danger of a second attack, as the search of his little
+property had been thorough and had resulted in the rascals, who had
+invaded his haunts, getting nothing for their pains. Refusing some
+refreshment the old man offered, the young aviators soon after left the
+hut, promising to call in again in a few days and give the hermit an
+opportunity to see the aeroplane in which he was much interested. The old
+man asked them many questions about the races of the next day and seemed
+interested in hearing the details.
+
+The Golden Butterfly they found just as they had left her, and clambering
+on board they were soon winging their way back to Acatonick where, as you
+may imagine, they had an interesting story of the incidents of the
+afternoon to relate to Miss Prescott that evening.
+
+"I never saw such children for adventures in all my born days," she
+declared, "but I have a letter here which I must show you. I am afraid it
+means that we shall have to leave the old home."
+
+She drew an envelope from her handbag which lay on a table of the hotel
+room and handed it to Roy. On opening it, he found that it contained a
+formal notice from the Sandy Bay Bank, that unless the accumulated
+interest and other moneys owing them were paid up within a week that
+foreclosure proceedings would be taken. The boy gave a disconsolate
+whistle as he finished reading the letter aloud and handed it back.
+
+He had hardly done so when there came a rap on the door of the room. "I
+wonder who that can be so late?" thought Roy, getting up and going to the
+door.
+
+A bellboy stood there with a note.
+
+"A messenger just brought this from the aviation grounds," he said. "Any
+answer?"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Roy, skimming hastily through the note. It was
+typewritten and signed:--James Jarvis, Superintendent of Arrangements.
+
+  "Dear sir: You are requested to report at the executive tent at once.
+  An important meeting will take place affecting the competitors in
+  the races to-morrow."
+
+This was what Roy read. Then he turned to the bellboy and told the lad to
+inform the messenger that he would be there as soon as possible.
+
+"Queer though," he said to Peggy and his aunt. "I didn't know of any
+meeting that was scheduled to take place to-night. I guess it's one
+that's been called at the eleventh hour to make some arrangements."
+
+"That must be it," agreed Peggy. "Shall I come with you?"
+
+"No, thanks, sis," rejoined the boy; "you'd better get to bed. It's going
+to be an exciting day to-morrow for us all."
+
+The boy snatched up his cap and with a hasty good-bye, was off.
+
+Downstairs in the lobby of the hotel he found the messenger awaiting
+him,--a shifty-eyed man with a blue chin. It was, in fact, Jukes Dade,
+who, in a different suit of clothes and with a clean shave and haircut,
+looked a trifle more presentable than he had earlier in the day when he
+made himself known to Fanning.
+
+"This way, sir," he said, with a fawning sort of bow.
+
+"Out of this door is the quickest," said Roy quickly, with a feeling that
+he would rather walk to the grounds alone than with such a companion.
+
+"But we're not going to walk, sir. The committee has sent an auto for
+you."
+
+"A car, eh?" said Roy; "well, that's considerate of them. I'll tell my
+sister. She might like to come along, too."
+
+The messenger shook his head.
+
+"Sorry, sir; but we've got to pick up some other aviators on our way and
+every bit of room in the car will be taken."
+
+"Oh, very well, then," said Roy, "lead on."
+
+The blue-chinned Dade shuffled across the lobby with a furtive air.
+
+"Funny," thought Roy. "I've seen that chap some place before, but to save
+my life I can't place him."
+
+Cudgelling his brains to try to recall where he had met the man, Roy
+passed through the hotel lobby and out into the street. In the lamplight
+he saw a big car standing at the curb, shaking as its ungeared engine
+puffed and chugged. A chauffeur, with an auto mask and goggles on, sat on
+the front seat. Roy got in behind in the tonneau while the messenger took
+his seat by the chauffeur.
+
+He said something in a low whisper to the driver and the next instant
+there was a grinding whirr as the gears were connected and the car rolled
+forward.
+
+"Well, they've got a good fast car here," thought Roy, as the machine
+sped along over the roads. "At this rate we ought to be at the grounds
+in----"
+
+But what was this? Surely the road they were on was not the right one.
+Leaning forward he touched the chauffeur on the shoulder.
+
+"This isn't the road to the grounds," he said.
+
+"Oh, yes it is," put in the messenger; "it's a short cut, though. Isn't
+it, Fred?"
+
+The chauffeur did not speak but merely nodded his head.
+
+Although by no means satisfied with the explanation, Roy made no
+immediate comment. In the meantime they had passed the outskirts of the
+little town and were now whizzing along an unlighted road bordered with
+big trees. On and on they went, and Roy, every minute, grew more uneasy.
+Where could they be taking him?
+
+"Where are you going?" he demanded suddenly, his suspicion showing in his
+tone as he rose in the tonneau and leaned forward. "I want you to know
+that----"
+
+But before he could utter another word the blue-chinned messenger did an
+astonishing thing. With a quick, imperceptible movement he produced a
+revolver and thrust its gleaming barrel up under Roy's nose.
+
+"Sit back and keep quiet," he warned, "and you'll be all right. If you
+make a holler you'll get what's in this barker."
+
+As he spoke the auto began to slow down, and presently a dark form
+stepped from the shadows of the trees ahead and stood awaiting its coming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE ENEMY'S MOVE.
+
+
+Roy's first feeling was one of indignation at the fellow's impudence.
+
+"What do you mean by such conduct," he blurted out angrily. "Take me to
+the aviation grounds at once, or----"
+
+"That's just where we are taking you away from, young fellow," sneered
+the man behind the pistol. "Ah! Don't move. I'm very nervous and if I get
+excited this pistol might go off. It's very light on the trigger."
+
+As he spoke the auto slowed down almost to a standstill, and the man who
+had evidently been waiting for it, swung himself on the running board and
+joined the others on the front seat. Like the driver, he wore a motoring
+mask and goggles which effectively concealed his features, and yet to Roy
+there was something familiar even about the muffled up figure. Once the
+third man was aboard, the auto plunged forward once more at breakneck
+speed. It rocked from side to side on the rough road as it flew along.
+But the man with the pistol kept his weapon levelled at Roy throughout
+all its jouncings and joltings.
+
+Like a wise boy, Roy had concluded that it would be worse than foolish to
+attempt any resistance to his abductors. So he sat motionless and silent
+as the car tore onward through the night. He had not the least idea where
+they were, nor for what place they could be bound. Nor had he yet had
+time to think over the reason for this bold kidnapping.
+
+Now, however, it was plain that the object of the trip was to take him to
+some place and hold him prisoner till the aero race was over. It struck
+him with cruel force that, unless he could manage to escape, the object
+of the expedition seemed very likely to prove successful.
+
+All at once the car struck a bump in the road with a violent wrenching
+thud. It leaped into the air like a live thing while a frightened shout
+burst from the throats of the men on the front seat. Mechanically Roy
+gripped the sides of the tonneau to avoid being thrown out like a missile.
+
+The next instant, with a rasping grind and a sickening swaying and
+jouncing the car tore full tilt down the side of the road, which, at this
+point, was banked, and fetched up motionless and hub-deep in a pool of
+dark water.
+
+"Don't let the kid escape," came a shout from the man who had boarded the
+car on the roadside, as the auto ceased to move.
+
+But before the words had left his lips Roy had perceived that the water
+in the pond was not much more than knee high. Quick as a cat he was out
+of the tonneau before any of the others had time to collect their wits.
+As the man shouted his warning the lad struck out through the oozy
+ground, seeking, with every ounce of his strength, to shroud himself in
+the darkness at the pond edge before the pistol wielder could locate him.
+
+But he had not gone more than a few steps when--
+
+Bang!
+
+A red flash cut the night behind him and a bullet whistled by his ear.
+
+"Look out, you fool, you don't want to kill him," came a voice behind him.
+
+"Gid Gibbons," flashed through Roy's mind. He was almost at a thick clump
+of alders now. As he heard the splashing of the bodies of the abductors,
+as they took to the water after him, he plunged into the coppice and
+pushed rapidly on into its intricacies.
+
+Shouts and cries came from behind him, and suddenly a blinding shaft of
+white radiance cut through the blackness. They had turned on the
+searchlight of the car in a determined effort to locate their escaped
+prisoner.
+
+As the light penetrated among the maze of alder trunks, Roy threw himself
+flat. While his pursuers hunted about, muttering and angrily discussing
+the situation, he crouched in his shelter, hardly daring to breathe.
+After what seemed an eternity of suspense he heard one of the men, whose
+voice he seemed to recognize as that of the pistol carrier, angrily
+declaiming.
+
+"Aw, what's ther use, ther kid is a mile off by this time, worse luck."
+
+"Hush, don't talk so loud," came another voice. "You don't know who may
+be about."
+
+"Well, we'd better be getting that car out of the mud and making
+ourselves scarce," came in the tones which Roy was certain were those of
+Gid Gibbons. "If there's a hue and cry raised about this and they find
+that car stranded here they can easy trace us."
+
+"That's so," was the response in the voice of Jukes Dade. "Come on, boys,
+we'll get her out of this confounded slough if we can, and get back to
+town."
+
+The voices died away as they retreated, splashing like water animals
+through the mud and ooze.
+
+As silence fell once more Roy straightened up from his unpleasant
+situation and looked about him. The night was starry, and above his head
+he could see The Dipper. He knew that the outside stars of this
+constellation pointed to the North Star and he soon had the latter
+located. This gave him the points of the compass, and figuring that
+Acatonick must lie to the east of his present position, he struck out in
+that direction as nearly as he could.
+
+He had no idea of the time, to his great chagrin, for in his haste to
+obey the forged summons to the flying track he had forgotten to bring his
+watch. In fact, in his hurry, he had slipped into an old coat, the
+pockets of which contained nothing more useful to him than a packet of
+chewing gum. He slipped a wad of this into his mouth to "keep him
+company" as he expressed it to himself, and grittily went forward.
+
+The wood ended presently, and he found himself in a field with woods on
+all three sides, except that on which the swamp impinged. Little as he
+liked the idea of plunging into pathless woods, with nothing to guide him
+but the stars, as he glimpsed them through the trees, there was no help
+for it. Go on he must. Crossing the field rapidly he soon reached the
+border of the tangle and entered its black shadows. Keeping as straight a
+line as he could he hastened forward, and to his great delight, soon saw
+that the trees were beginning to thin out, and that beyond lay,
+apparently, open country.
+
+"Hooray, I'm bound to strike a road before long now," thought Roy
+gleefully and quickened his pace.
+
+He had not gone more than a few paces, however, when through the trees he
+heard a strange sound. It was a clinking sound like the rattling of a
+chain.
+
+The boy was bold enough, but the mysterious sound on the edge of that
+dark wood caused his pulses to beat a bit quicker. What could it be?
+
+Gradually, as he stood still among the trees, the sound drew closer.
+
+"Ghosts in story books always clank chains," thought Roy, to himself.
+"Now if I believed in such things, I----"
+
+He stopped short abruptly, as, from behind a clump of brush in the
+direction from whence the clanking had proceeded, there suddenly emerged
+a tall form all in white.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Roy, considerably startled by the sight of this
+sudden apparition. "I do believe----"
+
+But at the sight of the white form he had involuntarily given a backward
+step. Without the slightest warning he felt the ground suddenly give way
+under his feet, and his body shot down through space.
+
+Down, down he shot, a hundred mad thoughts twisting dizzily in his head.
+
+All at once his progress was arrested. Before he could realize what had
+happened he felt a flood of icy cold water close over his head and a
+mighty ringing and roaring in his ears.
+
+But Roy was used to diving, and he automatically, almost, held his breath
+till he shot to the surface again. Then he extended his hands and found
+that his fingers encountered a rough stone wall of some kind.
+
+"I'm in an old well," gasped the boy as the truth suddenly flashed across
+him. He looked upward. Far above him, as if seen through a telescope, he
+could see the glittering stars. They were reflected, also, in the
+agitated water about him.
+
+Somewhat to his astonishment, for the thought of death itself had been in
+his mind as he hurtled downward, Roy found that he was unhurt. But his
+present position was by no means one to invite congratulations. At the
+bottom of an old well in the midst of lonely fields he might stay a long
+time before rescue would arrive.
+
+And in the meantime,--but Roy bravely put such thoughts resolutely out of
+his head, and began to feel about him to see if it was not possible to
+find some rough places in the sides of the excavation by which he might
+clamber to the surface. But his fingers only encountered stonework set
+far too smoothly to be of any service to him.
+
+Then he suddenly noticed what he had not observed before, and that was
+that a rope depended from above, trailing its end down into the water. It
+was too thin to bear his weight, but the boy thought he could utilize it
+to keep himself above the surface without effort.
+
+Tying a loop knot in it he thrust an arm through the noose and found that
+he could sustain himself very comfortably. Then he began to shout. Loudly
+at first--and then more feebly as his voice grew tired. But no answering
+sound came back to him.
+
+For the first time since he had found himself in his predicament cold
+fear clutched at the young aviator's heart.
+
+What if nobody heard him and he was compelled to remain at the bottom of
+the old well?
+
+As this thought shot through his mind Roy noticed, too, that a deadly
+chill was beginning to creep up his limbs. He shivered waist deep in the
+chilly water as if he had an ague.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A COWARD AND HIS WAYS.
+
+
+Peggy awoke the next day with a feeling of distinct uneasiness. She and
+her aunt had sat up till after midnight awaiting Roy's return, but, as we
+know, the lad was in a position from which he could not extricate
+himself. An attempt had been made to communicate with the aviation
+grounds, but an unlucky aeroplane had blundered against the telephone
+wire during an afternoon flight, snapping the thread of communication.
+
+In spite of the late hour at which they had retired, however, Miss
+Prescott and her niece were up betimes. But early as it was they found
+the little town all astir. Excursion trains were already pouring their
+crowds into the place and the streets were fairly alive with humanity.
+Peggy's first act on awaking was to gaze out of the window, beneath which
+some fine trees grew. Not a breath of wind stirred their leaves. The air
+was as clear and undisturbed as it was possible for it to be.
+
+Donning a white duck skirt and a plain shirt waist, and dressing her hair
+in a becomingly simple style, Peggy hastened to the office of the hotel,
+and going to the telephone switchboard asked the operator to put her in
+communication with Roy's room. But after several minutes spent in a vain
+attempt to obtain an answer Central had to inform the anxious girl that
+there was no reply.
+
+Thinking that after his late absence of the night before Roy might have
+overslept, Peggy despatched a bellboy to his room. But the report came
+back that the room was empty and that Roy's bed had not been slept in.
+
+"See if you can get the executive office on the aviation grounds," said
+Peggy to the 'phone girl. But although the wire had been repaired and
+communication was easily established, there was no news of Roy. Worse
+still for Peggy's peace of mind, she learned now, for the first time,
+that there had been no meeting at the aviation field the night before.
+
+"If your brother got a note to that effect it was a forgery," said the
+official who answered the call.
+
+Peggy fairly flew upstairs to her aunt's room. Rapidly she informed Miss
+Prescott of what had happened.
+
+"Oh, I'm certain now that that hateful Fanning Harding has something to
+do with it," she almost sobbed.
+
+"Hush, dear," said her aunt, although in the gentle lady's breast a great
+fear had arisen, "everything may be all right. At any rate, I do not
+believe that any one, no matter how anxious they were that you should not
+compete in the race, would dare to resort to such methods to keep Roy out
+of the contest."
+
+"I don't know so much about that, auntie," rejoined the girl. "I was in
+our hangar yesterday afternoon and I noticed a horrid looking man
+prowling about with Fanning Harding. If it had not been too improbable I
+should say that I knew the man's face."
+
+"My dear!" exclaimed the good lady in astonishment.
+
+"Well," rejoined Peggy with conviction, "I'm almost sure that the man was
+Jukes Dade, a workman who once was employed in his laboratory and
+workshop by my father. He was a skillful mechanic, but dad had to
+discharge him because he drank fearfully. He swore at the time that he
+would get even with us in some way. But we never heard any more of him.
+Yet if that really was him with Fanning Harding yesterday I'm awfully
+afraid that there is some mischief stirring."
+
+"What you say, my dear, makes me also very anxious," responded Miss
+Prescott. "Perhaps we had better communicate with the police at once."
+
+"Not yet, aunt," breathed Peggy; "you see, Roy may turn up in time for
+the race, and if he does, everything will be all right."
+
+"But, Peggy----"
+
+"On the other hand, if we spread an alarm that he is missing we shall be
+declared out of the contest."
+
+"I see what you mean, my dear," was the response, "and I suppose that
+what you say is best. I feel positive, somehow, that we shall have news
+of Roy before long, and that no harm has come to him."
+
+But the morning wore on, and no word came. In the meantime, every
+available source of information had been canvassed thoroughly without
+result. Roy Prescott had totally vanished; or so it seemed.
+
+Peggy, as in duty bound, spent all she could spare of the morning at the
+aviation field, putting the finishing touches on the Golden Butterfly.
+The big contest was not to be held till the afternoon, and in the
+meantime, some of the smaller events were flown off. But Peggy was too
+heartsick to watch the aeroplanes thunder around the course, which was
+marked out by red and white "pylons" or signal towers.
+
+Instead, she remained in the hangar and kept a watchful eye on Fanning
+Harding, who, with some mechanics and the same man she had noticed about
+the hangar the day before, was very busy over his machine, apparently.
+But no one obtained even a glimpse of Fanning's air craft, for it was not
+wheeled out, and, except when one or the other of his party dodged in or
+out, the doors of his hangar were closed.
+
+In the course of the morning Fanning's father arrived, and not long
+after, to Peggy's unbounded delight, Jess and Jimsy and a party of
+friends drove up to the Prescott hangar.
+
+"Why, Peggy, what is the matter with you? You look
+positively--er--er--dowdy!" exclaimed Jess, gazing at her friend after
+first greetings were over.
+
+"And Roy, where is Roy?" demanded Jimsy.
+
+"Yes, where is he? We want him to explain the points of this gasolene
+turkey-buzzard to us," cried Ed. Taylor, one of the gay party.
+
+"I expect him here any minute," rejoined Peggy, and then drawing Jess and
+Jimsy aside she related to them, in a voice that shook in spite of
+herself, the mysterious occurrences of the night, and Roy's total
+disappearance.
+
+"I'm going right over now and ask Fanning if he knows anything about it,"
+announced Jimsy indignantly as soon as the girl had concluded.
+
+"Oh, don't, please don't," begged his sister.
+
+"I don't think it would be wise to, now," put in Peggy.
+
+But Jimsy was not to be shaken in his purpose. Fanning was outside his
+hangar smoking a cigarette and swaggering about when Jimsy approached
+him. Perhaps the self-assertive youth felt a bit alarmed at the look in
+Jimsy's eye as he stepped up, but he assumed an impudent expression and
+blew out a puff of smoke which he did not try to avert from Jimsy's face.
+
+"Good morning, Fanning," said Jimsy, bottling up his temper at the
+other's insulting manners, "can you give me a few minutes of private
+conversation?"
+
+"Hum, well I don't know. What's it about?" inquired Harding more
+impudently than ever.
+
+"It's about Roy, Fanning," said Jimsy seriously. "I want you to tell me
+on your word of honor that you don't know where he is."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh? Well, you have an awful nerve to come to me with such
+questions. How do I know where he is?"
+
+This question was somewhat of a poser for Jimsy. That impetuous youth had
+approached the other more or less on an impulse, and now that the direct
+question was put to him he felt that he could not, for the life of him,
+put his suspicions into so many words.
+
+"Well--er--you see," he said somewhat confusedly, "I had an idea that you
+might have seen him."
+
+"Well, I haven't, and what's more I don't want to," snapped Fanning
+aggressively. He was quite cool now that he saw that Jimsy had nothing
+definite against him in his mind, but only a vague suspicion.
+
+"You really mean that, Fanning?" rejoined Jimsy earnestly. "His sister is
+terribly worried. He hasn't been seen since last night."
+
+"Is that so?" asked Fanning with a sudden accession of interest; "then he
+can't race to-day, can he?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking about the race," said Jimsy; "it was Roy himself I was
+worrying about."
+
+"Well, you may as well stop your anxiety," chuckled Fanning; "how do you
+know he isn't off on a little spree, and----"
+
+"That's enough, Fanning. Roy Prescott does not do such low-down things.
+He----"
+
+"Oh, you mean to imply that I do, eh?"
+
+Fanning came forward pugnaciously.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Jim Bancroft, you just take yourself away from
+this hangar as quickly as possible. I don't want anything to do with you,
+do you understand? It's none of my business if Roy goes off and forgets
+to tell you where to find him. How do you know he hasn't gone off with
+those jewels?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Jimsy's tone was as angry in reality now as Fanning Harding's had been
+for effect a few seconds before.
+
+But Fanning, in his bitter enmity toward Roy, could not see the danger
+signals in Jimsy's honest gray eyes.
+
+"What do I mean?" he drawled; "why, just this, that the investigation of
+the police has taken a new turn in the last few days, and that Roy is
+likely to be arrested within the next twenty-four hours for robbery. I'll
+bet he got wind of it and skipped out. I'll bet----"
+
+"How dare you?"
+
+Peggy, eyes aflame, stepped up. Her bosom heaved angrily.
+
+"How dare you say such things? You--you coward."
+
+"Well, I ain't coward enough to steal a girl's jewels and then----"
+
+"Hold on there, Fanning. Stop right there."
+
+It was Jimsy's turn. But Fanning was too much worked up in his vindictive
+anger to stop.
+
+"I won't stop," he shouted. "I'll say it right out. Roy Prescott is a----"
+
+But before he could utter another word Jimsy's fist had shot out, and
+Fanning's chin happening to be in the way he felt himself suddenly
+propelled off his feet and elevated into the air. He sought to recover
+his balance as he reeled, but his foot caught in a bit of turf, and
+whirling his arms about like one of those figures on the top of a barn he
+measured his length.
+
+"Had enough?" asked Jimsy mildly, rolling up his sleeves.
+
+"No, you despicable young whelp!" roared Fanning, utterly throwing aside
+all prudence. "I haven't."
+
+He leaped to his feet and rushed toward Jimsy. As he did so Jess gave a
+shriek. In the angry, half-crazed youth's hand there glistened a long
+clasp knife.
+
+"Jimsy! Look out!" cried the girl.
+
+But before the frenzied Fan could spring upon Jimsy, who was utterly
+unprepared for the production of the deadly weapon, a dainty foot in
+white canvas outing shoes and silk stockings flashed out from under
+Peggy's skirt. It caught Fanning as he sprang, and the next instant, for
+the second time that day, he fell sprawling on the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE DARING OF PEGGY.
+
+
+By the time he had risen to his feet several of the officials of the
+track were seen approaching, and Fanning, with a scowl of deep disgust at
+our party, who paid little attention to him, shuffled off. At first Peggy
+thought that the officials had seen something of the trouble and would be
+angry. But it turned out that they were only coming to announce a few
+minor changes in the rules governing the race, and to distribute printed
+copies of the same.
+
+As they passed on one of them turned and remarked casually:
+
+"By the way, as the wind is so light we have decided to have the big
+contest an hour earlier than was announced, and eliminate the girls'
+contest, so that everybody can get home from the grounds in good time for
+dinner."
+
+He hastened on to join his companions on their journey down the line of
+hangars, outside of which aeroplanes were sputtering and smoking, and
+excited aviators and mechanics hustling about.
+
+All at once a big biplane was wheeled out and soared into the air. It
+carried a blue and gold streamer.
+
+"That's Steiner of the Agassiz High School in New York City," explained
+Jimsy; "he's confident of winning the big prize."
+
+Peggy made some reply. She didn't know just what. Her mind was throbbing
+with the idea that Roy's inexplicable absence meant that harm had come to
+him, and that even if he were safe the advancing of the hour of the race
+would put them out of it if he did not make haste.
+
+"Look, there goes Banker of the Philadelphia Polytechnic, and Rayburn of
+the Boston Tech," cried Jimsy the next instant as a biplane and a
+graceful white-winged monoplane shot aloft on trial trips, their motors
+exploding loudly and a tail of blue smoke streaming out behind them. A
+slight cheer came from the grand stands, which were already beginning to
+fill, as the boy aviators shot upward.
+
+"Oh, Roy! Roy, where are you?" sighed Peggy to herself, as she watched
+the young aspirants for aerial honors swinging around the course.
+
+"I'm going over to the stand and 'phone to the police station," said
+Jimsy presently; "they may have news of him over there by this time."
+
+"Oh, yes, please do," cried Peggy, as Jimsy hastened off.
+
+When he had gone the two girls turned troubled countenances to each other.
+
+"You poor honey," cried Jess, "I know how you are suffering. But don't
+worry, Peggy, I'm sure it will come out all right."
+
+"Yes, but--but you don't know what depends on Roy's winning this race,"
+cried Peggy. "I am sure that some of our rivals in the race--I need not
+mention who--have something to do with his disappearance."
+
+"What do you mean by saying 'a lot depends on it,' girlie?" asked Jess,
+drawing Peggy's arm within her own.
+
+With brimming eyes Peggy told her friend frankly and fully what she had
+not before, namely, the exact circumstances of the Prescott family and
+the threat which old Harding held above their heads.
+
+"So, you see, Jess," she concluded sadly, "this could not have happened
+at a worse time for us."
+
+"I see that," gently rejoined the other girl, "but listen, dear, you may
+have a chance to win it after all if you will trust to us to find Roy."
+
+"Trust to you?" repeated Peggy in a puzzled tone. "Trust to you to find
+Roy?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, while you--go in and win the race!"
+
+"Why, what are you talking about?" gasped Peggy.
+
+"A brilliant idea that has just occurred to me. You are about Roy's
+height, and if your hair was cut short you'd look enough like him to be
+his twin brother instead of his sister. But that doesn't matter, for you
+wear goggles and a helmet in driving that thing, anyway, don't you?"
+
+"Yes. But,--oh, Jess, I couldn't do that."
+
+"Not even for your aunt's sake, Peggy, and to show those whom you suspect
+that they could not put a Prescott out of the race, however hard they
+tried? Come into the shed with me. I am going to persuade you, if I can,
+to do a brave thing."
+
+With their arms about each other's waists the girls walked toward the
+hangar and entered it. As they did so the figure of Jukes Dade glided
+from a place of concealment close at hand, and slipping behind some low
+bushes he gained the rear of the Prescott shed unperceived. Once there he
+placed an ear to a crack in the structure, from within which could be
+heard the murmur of girlish voices.
+
+Whatever he heard seemed to strike him with astonishment at first and
+then with a malicious glee.
+
+"So," he muttered, "that's your scheme, is it? Well, I guess we'll be
+able to head that off. That aeroplane of yours won't go in that race if I
+can help it, and even if it did I know enough now to head you off from
+getting the big prize. That young Harding ought to pay me well for this."
+
+So saying, Jukes Dade shuffled off toward Fanning's hangar, still
+chortling evilly to himself.
+
+Jimsy returned to the shed without any good news. In fact, the doleful
+expression on his usually merry face would have told them that long
+before he opened his mouth. In the midst of the general gloom a merry
+face was suddenly obtruded through the swinging doors.
+
+"Hullo! hullo! young folks, what's the trouble? You look as if you were
+going to attend a funeral."
+
+They looked up to see the figure of Hal Homer, clad in white flannels,
+and with a checked cap on his curly head, standing in the doorway.
+
+"Can I come in?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer in he came.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Homer," cried Jess, fairly pouncing on him, "we're so glad
+you've come; we are in a dreadful fix."
+
+"A dreadful fix? Why, my dear young lady, I read in the local paper that
+I bought on my way from the depot that Roy's machine, judging from the
+trials, was going to have things all her own way."
+
+"So much so," struck in Jimsy, "that it looks as if some of Roy's enemies
+have spirited him away."
+
+"What? I'm afraid I hardly understand."
+
+The aviation instructor looked at Jimsy in a puzzled way, rather as if he
+thought the youth might be having some fun with him.
+
+"No, no, this is serious. I mean it," spoke Jimsy quickly. "Roy has gone!"
+
+"Gone!"
+
+"Yes. He vanished last night. But sit down and we'll tell you all about
+it. Maybe you can help us out."
+
+Absolutely "flabbergasted," to use his own expression, the good-looking
+young flying man sank down on an upturned case, while Jimsy went on to
+relate all that had occurred, with Peggy every now and then striking in
+with additions and corrections.
+
+Another ear also took in the conversation--that of Jukes Dade--who had
+seen the arrival of the well-dressed young aviator, and had instantly
+slipped back to his eavesdropping post to learn what the newcomer's
+business might be.
+
+It might have been an hour later that a chauffeur, summoned by 'phone
+from the grandstand, brought the Bancrofts' car up to the hangar and Hal
+Homer, Jess and Jimsy emerged.
+
+"Drive to the police station," ordered Hal Homer as he stepped in,
+leaving Jess and Jimsy behind.
+
+Jukes Dade, peering around a corner of the hangar, heard the order and
+grew pale.
+
+"Looks bad," he muttered as the car rolled off; "I wonder if they know
+anything. If they do, I'm off. This isn't a healthy part of the country
+for Jukes Dade from the minute that kid is found. He didn't recognize Gid
+or young Harding, but he knew me all right. I could tell it by the way he
+looked at me, and if he's found the first man they'll hunt for is me."
+
+With snake-like caution he glided behind the hangar once more.
+
+It was not long after this that the Golden Butterfly was wheeled out by
+some of the mechanicians attached to the track, whose services were
+furnished free by the aviation officials.
+
+Jess and Jimsy emerged from the hangar at the same time, in company with
+a boyish figure in aviator's clothing, leather trousers cut very baggily,
+fur-lined leather coat and big helmet of leather, well padded, completely
+obscuring the features. After a few words in a low tone with its
+companions, this figure clambered lightly into the aeroplane, leaned
+forward, adjusted some levers, and the next instant, amidst a shout from
+several hastily gathered onlookers, the Golden Butterfly skyrocketed
+upward, her engine roaring like an angry giant hornet.
+
+All this was watched by Fanning Harding, Jukes Dade, and Gid Gibbons.
+
+"A nice mess you've made of it," growled Harding angrily to his
+companions. "You've succeeded in getting me suspected, and in trouble,
+while the boy is safe and sound and on the scene."
+
+"Wonder how he got back," grunted Gid speculatively; "he must have looked
+a sight when he crawled out of that swamp."
+
+"Say, Dade, you'd better be off," said Fanning suddenly; "you were the
+only one of us whose face wasn't covered. He would swear to you."
+
+"Oh, I ain't worrying yet," grinned Dade easily.
+
+"You're not, eh? Well, you are a cool hand," rejoined Gid admiringly. "If
+I were in your shoes I'd clear out before that aeroplane lands again."
+
+"You would, eh?" scoffed Dade. "Well, what would you say if I told you
+that that ain't Roy Prescott in the Golden Butterfly at all?"
+
+"That you were crazy with the heat," was the prompt and impolite answer.
+
+"Then you'd be crazy yourself. That's his sister in that aeroplane, and
+if he don't show up in time for the race she's going to fly it herself
+and win it."
+
+If a bombshell had fallen at Fanning's feet he could not have been more
+thunderstruck. But he recovered in an instant.
+
+"If she does I'll protest to the judges," he said angrily; "they can't
+prove that I know anything about her brother's disappearance, and that
+Golden Butterfly won't win this race if I can help it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER.
+
+
+The first gleam of the summer dawn shining into Roy's place of
+imprisonment at the bottom of the old well revealed to him only too
+clearly into what a trap he had fallen. The well seemed to be about fifty
+feet or more in depth, and the sides were smooth and slippery.
+
+The chill he had felt spreading through his limbs earlier was gone now,
+but a numb sensation was setting in which did not leave them even when
+the boy wriggled his legs about.
+
+"Phew!" thought Roy. "I stand a fair chance of being turned into a
+pollywog or something if I stay here long enough."
+
+Somehow, with the coming of daylight, the buoyant spirits of youth had
+returned to the boy and his predicament did not seem nearly so serious as
+it had during the dark hours.
+
+But it was bad enough, as Roy realized. From time to time he tried
+shouting, but no one came to the edge of the well and peered over,
+although he anxiously kept his eyes riveted on the disc of sky above him.
+How long this went on Roy had no idea, but he had sunk into a sort of
+semi-doze when a sudden sound aroused him.
+
+A tinkling, metallic sound, not unlike the rattling of the chain the
+night before that had, in reality, caused his trouble.
+
+"Help! Help!" shouted Roy.
+
+It was perhaps the five hundredth time he had uttered the cry since he
+had tumbled into the well. But this time there came a response.
+
+"What is it? What's the trouble?"
+
+The voice sounded rather shaky, and as if the utterer of the words was
+somewhat scared.
+
+"It's a boy who has fallen into the well," shouted Roy. "I'm almost
+exhausted. Get me out."
+
+A face suddenly projected over the well curb--a face which Roy recognized
+with astonishment as that of old Peter Bell, the hermit.
+
+"Mr. Bell, it's Roy Prescott," he shouted; "can you get a rope and get me
+out?"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried the hermit; "it's the boy whose sister was so kind
+to me. However did you--but never mind that now. Can you hold on for a
+time?"
+
+"Yes, but my strength is almost gone."
+
+"Well, summon up all your courage. There is a farm house not far off.
+I'll go there and get a rope and be back as quick as I can."
+
+Without wasting more words the old man hastened to his little cart. He
+had been out since dawn gathering herbs and roots and had taken a short
+cut home through the field in which the old well was located. Muttering
+excitedly to himself, he climbed somewhat stiffly into his rickety
+conveyance and urged his old horse forward with gently spoken commands.
+As the animal broke into a trot the little bell about its neck began to
+jangle not unmusically. This was the sound which, fortunately for him,
+had notified Roy that some human being was at hand.
+
+In the near distance, half hidden in trees, could be seen the red-roofed
+gable of a farm house. Toward this old Peter Bell directed his way.
+Farmer Ingalls was only too glad, when he heard of the accident, to
+secure a long rope, used in hoisting hay to the top of his big barns.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "a lad tumbled into my well! Mommer,"
+turning to a motherly-looking, calico-clad woman, "you always told me to
+cover that well up, and I never did, and now thar's a poor young chap
+tumbled into it."
+
+"Hurry," urged old Peter Bell; "he was almost exhausted, poor lad. We
+must get back as quick as possible."
+
+Summoning his two hired men the farmer set off at a run across the
+fields, easily keeping pace with old Peter's decrepit horse. As they
+neared the well they began shouting, and a feeble cry from the depths
+answered them.
+
+"Cheer up, my lad, we'll have you out of that in a brace-of-shakes,"
+cried Farmer Ingalls encouragingly, as they reached the curb and peered
+over into the dark hole.
+
+"I hope you will," cried Roy. "It's getting pretty monotonous, I can tell
+you."
+
+"Don't know what mon-ount-on-tonous means, but I'd hate to change places
+with you," agreed the farmer.
+
+Presently the rope came snaking down, with a loop in its lower end. Roy
+was directed to place his foot in the loop and hold on tight. When this
+had been done he shouted up:
+
+"All right! Haul away!"
+
+The stalwart farmer and his two assistants began to heave with all their
+might, while old Mr. Bell encouraged them. Before long, by dint of hard
+exertions, they succeeded in dragging Roy to the surface, and dripping
+and shivering he could stand once more in the blessed air and sunlight.
+
+"But how in the world did you come to get in there?" asked the farmer, as
+he paced along by the side of the hermit's little cart, in which the
+half-exhausted Roy had been placed.
+
+"Well," said the lad with a rather shamefaced laugh, "I'm really half
+ashamed to say. But it was this way. Some bad men who have an interest in
+putting me out of an aeroplane contest, of which Mr. Bell knows, had run
+off with me in an automobile. It was wrecked, and I escaped. I struck out
+toward town, as I thought, but as I came through that patch of woods by
+the wall I saw something that startled me so much that I stepped back and
+fell down the well."
+
+"What did you see, my lad?" asked the farmer with half a twinkle in his
+eye.
+
+"Something like a story-book ghost," smiled Roy; "it was tall and all in
+white and clanked a chain."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the farmer; "I half suspected as much. Why, that
+ghost was my old white mule Boxer. He managed somehow to snap his chain
+last night and we found him careening around the fields this morning.
+Don't color up, my boy," for poor Roy's face had turned very red, as the
+hired men guffawed loudly; "older men than you have been startled at far
+less. And now, here's the farm, and I'll bet mommer has a fine breakfast
+all ready for you."
+
+The half-famished boy ate hungrily of the substantial farmhouse fare Mrs.
+Ingalls provided for him, and as he ate he made inquiries about the
+distance to the aviation grounds, which, he found to his dismay, were
+further distant than he had imagined.
+
+"I'll never be able to make it in time without an automobile," moaned Roy
+to himself; "what shall I do?"
+
+He cast about in his mind for some way out of his difficulty, but he
+could find none. Nor could the farmer help him. There were no automobiles
+in that part of the country, and in a horse-drawn vehicle he would never
+be able to make it in time.
+
+All at once a queer sound filled the air. The atmosphere seemed to
+vibrate with it as it does on a still summer day when a threshing machine
+is buzzing away in a distant field.
+
+"Land o' Goshen, what's that?" cried Mrs. Ingalls running to the door.
+
+"Lish! Lish! come here quick!" she shouted the next instant.
+
+Followed by the old hermit and Roy, Mr. Ingalls ran to the door. But his
+exclamations at the sight he saw were drowned by Roy's amazed cry:
+
+"It's the Golden Butterfly!"
+
+"An aeroplane!" shouted the farmer. "By gosh, she's like a pretty bird."
+
+"It's my--our aeroplane," went on Roy; "who can be in it? Oh, if it's
+only Peggy I may not be too late after all."
+
+He ran out into the door yard of the farm house and, snatching off his
+coat, began waving it desperately. Would the occupant of the aeroplane
+see his frantic signals? With a beating heart Roy watched the winged
+machine as it droned far above him.
+
+All at once he gave a delighted shout. The aeroplane was beginning to
+descend. Down it came in big circles, while the farmer, his wife and the
+old hermit gazed open mouthed at it, as if half inclined to run.
+
+But as it drew closer to the ground Roy noted a puzzling thing. A
+helmeted and goggled person was driving it, evidently a boy or man and
+not Peggy at all. Who could it be? For an instant a queer thought flashed
+through his head. Possibly somebody had stolen it and was making off
+across country with it so as to put it out of the race.
+
+More and more rapidly the aeroplane began to drop as it neared the
+ground, and before many minutes it alighted in the patch of meadow in
+front of the farm house, gliding gracefully for several feet before it
+stopped.
+
+But the rubber-tired landing wheels had not ceased revolving before Roy
+was at its side.
+
+"Say, who are you, and what are you doing with my aeroplane?" he demanded
+in heated tones, for the helmeted aviator had not yet even deigned to
+notice him, but seemed to be busy with various levers and valves.
+
+"Well, are you going to answer me?" sputtered Roy, while the farmer, his
+wife, the old hermit and the hired men gazed on curiously.
+
+For answer the mysterious aviator raised his helmet and a cloud of golden
+curls fell about a milk-and-roses face.
+
+"By gum, a gal and a purty one!" cried the farmer capering about.
+
+"Peggy!" shouted Roy.
+
+"Yes, Peggy," cried the girl. "Oh, Roy, what has happened to you? When
+you didn't come back Jess and Jimsy persuaded me to put on your clothes
+and at least try the Butterfly out. But I was so miserable that I could
+not try her out on the track, so I flew off across country. I saw you
+waving far below me and--oh, Roy!"
+
+Peggy could go no further and half collapsed in Roy's arms as he tenderly
+lifted her out.
+
+"Great hopping water millions!" cried the farmer, "if this ain't a day of
+wonders. This must be ther lad's sister he told us about, and ter think
+she come flopping down out of ther sky like a seventeen-y'ar locust."
+
+Peggy was quickly her usual strong, self-reliant self again. With
+indignation blazing in her kind eyes she heard Roy's account of the
+happenings of the night. At its conclusion she announced with decision:
+
+"We must defeat them, Roy."
+
+"Yes, but how? There's only a scant half hour before starting time if you
+said they'd changed it."
+
+"Even so you can make it. You must take these clothes, get into the
+aeroplane and fly back to the track. If you go alone the 'plane will be
+light and you can make it in time."
+
+"But you, Peggy?"
+
+"I guess I can borrow a dress from Mrs. Ingalls here," said the girl
+briskly.
+
+"Of course, you kin," put in Mrs. Ingalls, but surveying her own ample
+form rather doubtfully the while.
+
+"You kin give her one of daughter Jenny's dresses," said the farmer.
+
+"Then that is settled, thanks to you," said Peggy with characteristic
+decision.
+
+They all entered the farm house, from which, a few seconds later, Roy
+emerged, clad in the garments his sister had donned a short time before.
+He climbed into the aeroplane amid the admiring comments of the farm
+hands, who, by this time, had come in from the fields, drawn by the
+wonderful airship, and stood all about it gaping and wondering.
+
+Peggy, in a dress belonging to the farmer's daughter, who was away on a
+visit, stepped quickly to Roy's side as, after glancing at the clock
+attached to the front of the aeroplane, he started the engine.
+
+As it started its uproarious song, the farm hands jumped back in
+affright. But Peggy clasped her brother's hand.
+
+"Win that prize, Roy," she said.
+
+"I'll do my best, little sister."
+
+And that was all, but as Peggy Prescott gazed a few minutes later at the
+fast diminishing form of the speeding aeroplane she felt that all she had
+braved and dared that day had not been in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN THE NICK OF TIME.
+
+
+Excitement had reached its topmost pitch on the aviation field. It was
+but a few minutes to starting time for the great contest, and already
+four young aviators had their winged craft in line before the judge's
+stand.
+
+Engines were belching clouds of acrid blue smoke heavily impregnated with
+oily, smelling fumes. The roar of motors shook the air. Folks in the
+grandstand and on the crowded lawns excitedly pointed out to one another
+the different machines, all of which bore large numbers.
+
+Excited officials, red-faced and perspiring, bustled about importantly,
+while from the top of the judge's stand a portly man bellowed occasional
+announcements through a megaphone.
+
+Suddenly he made an announcement that caused a hum of interest.
+
+"Machine number seven--mach-ine num-ber sev-en! Fanning Harding, owner,
+has withdrawn from the race," he announced.
+
+A buzz of comment went through the crowd. Jess, Jimsy and Hal Homer,
+standing in a group by the empty Prescott hangar, exchanged astonished
+glances as they heard the news. What did that mean? Fanning had been
+swaggering about, boasting of his wonderful aeroplane, and now it
+appeared at the eleventh hour he had decided not to enter it.
+
+"Must have had an accident," opined Jimsy.
+
+"Maybe he gave it one of those pleasant looks of his," suggested Jess.
+
+"Wherever can Peggy be," exclaimed the girl the next minute; "she's been
+gone for more than an hour. I do hope nothing has happened to her."
+
+"Not likely," rejoined Jimsy, although he looked a little troubled over
+the non-appearance of the Golden Butterfly.
+
+"The police said they had a dragnet out in every part of the vicinity,"
+volunteered Hal Homer, who had returned only a few minutes before from
+the station house.
+
+Bang!
+
+A bomb had been shot skyward and now exploded in a cloud of yellow smoke.
+
+"Three minutes to starting time," cried Hal Homer anxiously; "where can
+Miss Prescott be?"
+
+"Look!" cried Jess suddenly, dancing about. "Oh, Glory! Here she comes!"
+
+Far off against the sky a speck was visible. Rushing toward them at
+tremendous speed it swiftly grew larger. The crowd saw it now and great
+excitement prevailed. The word flew about that the machine was the
+missing Number Six. Would it arrive in time to participate in the start
+and thus qualify? This was the question on every lip.
+
+Hal Homer jumped into the auto and sped over to the judge's stand.
+
+"Can't you delay the start for five minutes?" he begged.
+
+"Impossible," was the reply.
+
+"But that aeroplane, Number Six, has been delayed by some accident. If
+you start the race on time it may not arrive in time to take part."
+
+"Can't be helped. Young Prescott--that's the name of the owner, isn't
+it?--shouldn't have gone off on a cross country tryout."
+
+Back to the hangar sped Hal, where Jess and Jimsy, almost beside
+themselves with excitement, were watching the homing aeroplane.
+
+"She'll be on time," cried Jimsy as the graceful ship swept over the
+distant confines of the course and came thundering down toward the
+starting point.
+
+A great cheer swept skywards as the aeroplane came on.
+
+"She'll make it."
+
+"She won't."
+
+"Where has the thing been?"
+
+"Why is it so late?"
+
+These and a hundred other questions and remarks went from mouth to mouth
+all through the big crowd.
+
+"It's all off," groaned Jimsy suddenly.
+
+He had seen the signal corps man, whose duty it was to fire the bombs,
+outstretching himself on the ground awaiting the signal to touch off the
+starting sign.
+
+But even as Jimsy spoke, the Golden Butterfly made a swift turn and, amid
+a roar from the crowd, shot whirring past the grandstand and alighted in
+front of the stand on the starting line.
+
+Hardly had the wheels touched the ground before the judge in charge of
+the track raised his hand. A flag fell and the signal corps man jerked
+his arm back, firing the bomb that announced the start.
+
+B-o-o-o-o-m!
+
+As the detonation died out the aeroplanes shot forward, rising into the
+still air almost in a body, like a flock of birds. It was a spectacle
+never to be forgotten, and the crowd appreciated it to the full.
+
+But up in the grandstand, in inconspicuous places, sat three persons who
+did not look as well pleased as those about them.
+
+"So the girl is going to take a chance," muttered Fanning Harding; "well,
+so much the worse for her. If she wins I'll put in a protest and compel
+her to unmask."
+
+"Won't that Prescott and Bancroft bunch be astonished when they find out
+that we are on to their little game," chuckled Jukes Dade; "it'll be as
+good as a play."
+
+"That's what it will," grinned Gid.
+
+"They'll find out that they can't humiliate me and not suffer for it,"
+grated out Fanning.
+
+"Wonder where that girl went to on her tryout spin?" inquired Dade.
+
+"It doesn't make much difference where, but she certainly came back with
+a grandstand play," rejoined Gid.
+
+"Well, if she wins the race it will be our turn," Fanning assured him.
+
+They then turned their attention to the contest, two laps of which had
+been made while they were talking.
+
+Number One, a small white Bleriot type of monoplane, seemed to be making
+the pace for the rest, and word flew about that it had gained half a lap
+on Number Four, its nearest competitor so far.
+
+"But it will be a long contest," said the wiseacres in the crowd, "and
+accidents may happen at any time."
+
+On the fourth lap Number One was seen to descend over by the hangars.
+Something had gone wrong with its lubricating valve. By the time the
+difficulty was adjusted it was hopelessly out of the race. Number Three
+was the next to drop out. This machine was driven by one of the high
+school lads, and his contingent of rooters in the grandstand set up a
+woeful noise as he dropped to earth in the middle of the course. A broken
+stay had made it dangerous for him to remain longer in the air.
+
+This left number Six, the Prescott machine, Numbers Two, Four and Five
+still in the air.
+
+"Number Six has gained a lap on Number Five!" went up the cry presently
+as Number Five, so far the leader, was seen to lose speed on the
+fifteenth lap.
+
+The Golden Butterfly was in truth doing magnificently, but try as her
+operator would it did not seem possible to shake off Number Five, another
+high school boy's machine, which clung persistently to its stern. Number
+Four alighted for more gasolene on the twentieth lap and lost a round of
+the course thereby. A few seconds later Number Two was also forced to
+descend with heated cylinders. This practically left the race between
+Number Five and the Golden Butterfly. Round and round they tore, neither
+of them gaining or losing a foot apparently. The thunder of their engines
+grew deafeningly monotonous and the crowds watched them as if hypnotized
+by the whirring aerial monsters.
+
+All at once, though, a mighty roar proclaimed that something was
+happening, and gazing down toward the further end of the track it could
+be seen that Number Six, the Golden Butterfly, had made a daring attempt
+to gain on the other machine, and had succeeded.
+
+So close did the two aeroplanes edge to the end pylon in the effort to
+secure the inside plane that for an instant it looked as if a crash must
+result.
+
+A thunder of cheers greeted the Golden Butterfly as she swept by the
+grandstand on the next lap.
+
+"That girl can drive all right," grudgingly admitted Fanning Harding.
+
+"Yes, and she's pretty as a picture, too," put in Gid Gibbons; "guess you
+were stuck on her once, weren't you, Fan?"
+
+"Oh, shut up," growled Fanning angrily. "It makes no difference to you,
+does it?"
+
+The aeroplanes had been racing for an hour now, and neither showed any
+signs of slacking speed. On the contrary, as they "warmed up," they
+seemed to go the quicker. All at once an incident occurred which brought
+the crowd to its feet yelling and cheering as if wild.
+
+The driver of Number Five, as the two machines passed the grandstand, had
+made a deliberate attempt to prevent the Golden Butterfly overhauling him
+by jamming his aeroplane over toward a pylon and directly in front of the
+Butterfly. For an instant it looked as if a crash must be inevitable, but
+just as the spectators were beginning to turn pale and the more timid to
+hide their eyes, the Butterfly was seen to make a graceful dip and dive
+clean under the other aeroplane. It was a magnificent bit of aerial
+driving, and the crowd appreciated it to the full. A roar and a shout
+went up, to which the driver of Number Six responded with a wave of a
+gloved hand.
+
+Ten minutes later Number Five, two laps behind, and with a leaking
+radiator, dropped out of the race, leaving the Golden Butterfly the
+winner. Fanning Harding was white as a sheet as he saw an official with a
+black and white checkered flag step out into the field. This was the
+signal to the Golden Butterfly, which was still in the air, that the race
+was over.
+
+As the Prescott aeroplane dropped to earth in front of the grandstand
+amid rapturous plaudits, the son of the Sandy Bay banker deliberately
+arose and made his way toward the judges' stand, to which Hal Homer and
+the Bancrofts, the core of a shouting, yelling mob of enthusiasts, were
+already conducting the daring driver of Number Six.
+
+Special policemen made a path for the aviator and his friends, while
+cries of:
+
+"Take off your helmet!"
+
+"We want to see you!"
+
+"What's the matter with Number Six?" and a hundred other cries arose.
+
+But the driver of Number Six did not respond, and with his helmet still
+on his head was conducted before the judges to receive their
+congratulations. The helmet was still in place when Fanning Harding came
+shoving through the crowd and finally reached the little group.
+
+"As a competitor I demand that Number Six take off his helmet!" he cried.
+
+The judges turned to him in astonishment.
+
+"This is most unseemly, sir," said one of them; "no doubt in good time
+Mr. Prescott will take off his helmet."
+
+"Oh, no, he won't," shouted Fanning, at whom all the group was now
+gazing. "He won't, I tell you, and for a good reason, too. _That's not
+Roy Prescott at all, but his sister Peggy._"
+
+But the words had not left his lips before Jimsy, with a quick motion,
+jerked off the aviator's helmet and disclosed the handsome, perspiring
+features of Roy himself.
+
+In the few minutes he had had, Roy had found time briefly to explain how
+he and his sister had changed garments.
+
+"Well, I guess that settles that question," cried Jimsy triumphantly, as
+a mighty shout went up.
+
+"It certainly does," said one of the officials. "Where is that young
+scamp? Officer, find the young man who made that accusation and bring him
+here to explain himself."
+
+But the disgruntled Fanning had dived off into the crowd the instant he
+saw into what a tremendous blunder he had fallen. And although a strict
+search was made for him he was not to be found.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE PHANTOM AIRSHIP.
+
+
+In the midst of the hum and excitement and the crossfire of questions
+which immediately followed, there occurred a startling interruption. From
+the further side of the grounds there arose a cry, which swelled in
+volume as it advanced.
+
+"Fire! One of the hangars is on fire!"
+
+The group immediately broke up and orders and commands flew thick and
+fast. In the midst of the excitement Roy and his chums found an
+opportunity to slip away.
+
+"There's the fire. Off by our hangar!" shouted Hal Homer, pointing across
+the field.
+
+By the side of the Prescott's green aero shed a big cloud of smoke was
+ascending, mingled with yellow flames. It seemed to be a hot blaze.
+
+"It's Fanning Harding's hangar!" cried Roy suddenly; "come on, let's go
+over and see what the matter is."
+
+"I've got the car right here," said Jimsy. "I'll get you over in a jiffy."
+
+Soon they were speeding across the field toward the blaze. In the
+meantime an emergency fire corps, composed of men employed on the
+grounds, had attached a line of hose to a hydrant and were drenching the
+flames. Such good work did they do that it was not long before they had
+the fire under control.
+
+As soon as it was out our party, which had managed to get through the
+lines formed to keep back the curious, gazed into the ruins with some
+interest.
+
+"Why, say!" cried Jimsy suddenly, "the place was empty."
+
+"So it was!" cried Roy in astonished tones, "except for that big box kite
+over in the corner there. Whatever kind of a game of bluff has Fanning
+Harding been playing?"
+
+"I guess I can imagine it," struck in Hal Homer. "From what you have told
+me his little game was to bluff you into thinking he had a fine airship
+that could beat yours, and in that way induce you to sell out to him."
+
+"By George, I never thought of that!" exclaimed Roy, "but--hullo, here
+comes Peggy in the farmer's wagon!"
+
+He ran through the crowd to the side of the wagon, which had been driven
+in by Farmer Ingalls.
+
+"You dear, dear boy, I've heard all about it already," cried Peggy,
+throwing her white arms about Roy's neck, while Miss Prescott, whom they
+had picked up at the hotel, sat by, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to
+cry, as she expressed it later.
+
+I am not going to describe that reunion by the side of Fanning Harding's
+burned hangar, but each reader can imagine for herself what a joyous one
+it was.
+
+"I know a place in town where they sell the bulliest sodas and sundaes,"
+cried Jimsy suddenly. "Everybody come up there in the car and we'll
+celebrate!"
+
+"In one moment, Jimsy," said Roy. "There's one thing still I don't
+understand about this whole business, and that is this. It is clear
+enough that Fanning Harding was bluffing about having an aeroplane in
+that shed, but how was it that he made a night ascent with red and green
+lanterns?"
+
+"Oh, you mean the time you saw him in the air at night, the time we went
+to Washington?" asked Jimsy.
+
+"That's it. How do you account for it?"
+
+"Give it up," rejoined the other lad.
+
+"Perhaps this may help to explain it."
+
+Hal Homer came up carrying two much scorched lanterns he had found in the
+debris of the hangar. One was red, the other was green.
+
+"I don't quite see," said Peggy, but Hal, with an apology interrupted her.
+
+"It's plain as day to me," he said; "these two lanterns attached to that
+big box kite on a breezy night would certainly give any one the
+impression that an aeroplane was sailing about. Harding knew you would be
+flying home in that vicinity on that night and rigged up this contrivance
+to delude you."
+
+"A phantom airship!" cried Peggy.
+
+"That's about the size of it," put in the slangy Jimsy, "and I think that
+friend Homer here has hit on the correct solution."
+
+"But if that were so, why did Fanning fit up a shop out at Gid Gibbons's
+place?" asked Jess in a puzzled tone.
+
+"I guess that shop had no more in it than this hangar," was Roy's reply.
+"Gid Gibbons is a bad character who would do anything for money, and I
+think it likely that he fell in with Harding's schemes because he had no
+great liking for any of us."
+
+"Looks that way," agreed Jimsy.
+
+"But that doesn't explain that ruby which Hester was wearing," thought
+Peggy to herself as the laughing party of young folks drove off up the
+town, followed by Farmer Ingalls and his good wife, who had been invited
+to take part in the little celebration of their triumph. Here and there
+they were recognized and cheered, but among the crowds on the sidewalks
+all discussing the thrilling race, there were three that took no part in
+the good-natured jubilation. Who these were we can guess.
+
+Jukes Dade at Fanning's side had to listen to some savage abuse as they
+slunk along, avoiding as far as possible the crowds.
+
+"I told you to burn up the hangar so that there would be no trace left of
+the bluff we had been putting up," he growled.
+
+"Well, didn't I soak the place with gasolene," protested Dade; "how was I
+to know a kid would come along and give the alarm before it got fairly
+alight?"
+
+"It's been a dismal failure all the way through," lamented Harding, as if
+he had been engaged on some praiseworthy enterprise.
+
+"Incidentally," purred Jukes Dade, but with a menace under his silky
+tones, "I'd like to see some of that money you've been promising me all
+along."
+
+"You'll have to wait till I see my father," snapped out Fanning savagely.
+
+"Well, see him quick then, or I may have to take other means of getting
+it," snarled Dade.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, by telling a few things I know. About the loss of a certain lady's
+jewels, for instance."
+
+Fanning went white as ashes.
+
+"You sneak! You've been listening at keyholes!" he cried.
+
+Dade returned him look for look defiantly.
+
+"Well, what if I have?" he snarled. "I've got a hold on you now, Master
+Harding. I've got you where I want you and I'm going to keep you there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+JIM BELL OF THE WEST.
+
+
+Some days after the events described in the last chapter, and following
+the receipt by Roy of a pink check for $5,000.00, a strange visitor
+arrived at the Prescott home--their very own home now, for the mortgage
+had been paid off, much to Mr. Harding's disgust.
+
+The stranger was a bronzed man and wore a broad-brimmed sombrero which
+would have marked him anywhere as a Westerner. Of Miss Prescott, who, in
+a new lavender silk dress, came to the door, he inquired if he could see
+Mr. Roy Prescott.
+
+Miss Prescott smiled at this ceremonial way of mentioning her young
+nephew, but directed the stranger with the breezy Western manner to the
+workshop at the rear of the house, where Roy and Peggy were "fussing," as
+Jess called it, with their beloved Golden Butterfly.
+
+"Good morning," he said, doffing his sombrero with a sweep and a
+flourish; "can I have a word with you?"
+
+"Certainly. Two or three if you want them," rejoined Roy, while Peggy
+gazed in some surprise at the queer-mannered newcomer.
+
+"The fact is," went on the stranger, "that I'm in the market for
+aeroplanes such as yours. I happened to be on the train some nights ago
+when you came flying through the air with two belated young passengers.
+Well, sir, thinks I, if such a machine can make a train on schedule time
+it ought to be good for other purposes. I took the liberty of making some
+inquiries about you from your two young friends after the train had
+started, but asked them not to mention the matter to you yet awhile.
+
+"In New York I looked up my partner and we discussed the plan and he
+agreed with me that it was a good one. Now, I'm down here this morning to
+offer you $10,000 outright for the use of half a dozen of your
+aeroplanes, and a salary of $5,000 as instructor to the aviators I shall
+have to have to run them. How does the offer strike you?"
+
+"I--er--well, I hardly know what to say," responded Roy; "you see, it's a
+bit sudden. It rather takes my breath away."
+
+"Well, that's a way we have in the West," was the response, "but maybe
+I'd better tell you a little more about myself. My name is Jim Bell. I'm
+worth a couple of million or thereabouts. You can verify that by
+referring to the First National Bank of 'Frisco, or the East Coast Bank
+of New York City. I've got interests in cattle, wool and mines, but the
+very best mining proposition I ever struck I ran across out on the Nevada
+alkali desert in a range of barren hills. We were prospecting there when
+I was told about it. After untold hardships I found the spot and staked
+it out. But there arose the difficulty of transportation. There was the
+gold all right, but how was I to get it out?"
+
+"I came East to see if I couldn't get some sort of automobile built that
+would travel the desert, but when I saw that aeroplane of yours droop
+down at that jerkwater junction, I realized I had found what I wanted.
+Now, are you on?"
+
+"You'll have to give us a little time to think, sir," rejoined Roy; "it's
+a very flattering offer and I'd like to accept it, but I'll have to think
+it over."
+
+"Quite right, quite right," rejoined the other, "nothing like thinking it
+over. If every one did that fewer accidents and mishaps would occur in
+life. Take my own life, for instance. I've often thought I'd go back to
+see the old folks, but in that case I thought it over too long, for when
+I went to the old home the other day it was all gone. Not a stick or
+stone remained. My parents were dead and my only brother was
+no-one-knew-where."
+
+Jim Bell's voice shook strangely. He blinked his eyes once or twice and
+then resumed briskly: "You see, I left home in a mighty queer way. I was
+out in a boat with my brother when it got overturned. He was drowned, I
+guess, but anyway I found myself drifting about on the Sound. I managed
+to seize hold of a bit of floating driftwood and in that way kept my head
+above water till a ship came along and picked me up.
+
+"She was a big vessel bound for China and her captain was a brute. On our
+arrival in the Far East he bound me out as a sort of apprentice to a rich
+Chinaman living in the interior. I was with him for ten years before I
+escaped. I worked my way to the coast, got another ship and headed for
+California.
+
+"On the way across there was a mutiny and I saved the life of a wealthy
+passenger, who turned out to be a mining man and who, when he died two
+years later, left me most of his property. That gave me my start in life,
+and now I'm a millionaire. But I'd give it all if I could get some news
+of poor brother Peter and find out if he is dead or alive."
+
+"Maybe we can help you," cried Peggy, her eyes shining and her white
+hands clasped excitedly.
+
+While the rugged Westerner had been talking the story of the old hermit
+came back to her.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the other; "do you know where my brother is?"
+
+"I'm not certain," cried Peggy, "but the old hermit, Peter Bell, is he
+almost beyond a doubt."
+
+"My brother a hermit!" cried the wealthy mining man.
+
+"If it is your brother," put in Roy, "I hope for your sake it is. But his
+story tallies absolutely with yours. He told us that after he had missed
+you in the water he thought that you were drowned. Returning home he was
+shunned on every side, for the villagers accused him of having deserted
+you to save his own life."
+
+"My poor Peter," breathed the miner.
+
+"Miserable and made morose by the contempt he met with on every side he
+became a hermit and now lives in a hut near the town of Acatonick."
+
+"How long does it take to get there? I must lose no time in finding out,"
+exclaimed Jim Bell.
+
+"You can get there in two or three hours from here if you can catch a
+train," said Roy. "If you like I'll phone for you and find out."
+
+"Say, boy, that would be mighty white of you. I tell you it hurts to
+think of poor Peter living all alone like that in poverty while I've been
+rich all these years. But it wasn't for lack of trying to locate him, for
+I've advertised and had detectives searching every likely place."
+
+Roy found that there would be a train to Acatonick in about half an hour,
+and their new found friend hastened off, after warm farewells, to catch
+it. He promised to be back within a few days and let them know of his
+success, and also inform them of any further arrangements he might be
+prepared to make about his offer.
+
+"Well," said Roy, after he had gone, "the skies are beginning to clear,
+sis."
+
+Peggy sighed.
+
+"Yes, but there is still one thing to be cleared up, Roy," she said.
+
+"I know--the disappearance of those jewels," rejoined Roy. "Oh, if only
+we had something more to go upon than mere suspicions."
+
+"Perhaps we will have before long," said Peggy, musingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+LIKE THIEVES IN THE NIGHT.
+
+
+"Heard anything of Fanning Harding?" asked Jimsy, one bright morning, as
+he stopped his car at the Prescotts' gate and he and Jess got out.
+
+"Not a thing since that day at Acatonick," responded Roy, who with his
+sister had hastened to meet the other two. "Why, Jess, how charming you
+look this morning."
+
+"Meaning that you notice the contrast with other mornings," laughed Jess
+merrily; "oh, Roy, you are not a courtier."
+
+"No, I guess not yet--whatever a courtier may be," was the laughing
+rejoinder; "but I always like to pay deserved compliments."
+
+"Oh, that's better," cried Jess; "but have you heard anything more from
+Mr. Bell?"
+
+For, of course, Jimsy and Jess by this time knew about the visit of the
+mining man. Mr. Bancroft had looked up his standing and character and had
+found both of the highest. On his advice Roy had about decided to accept
+the unique offer made him by the Western millionaire.
+
+Peggy shook her head in response to Jess's question.
+
+"No, dear, not one word," she said; "isn't it queer? However, I guess we
+shall, before long. Oh, I do hope that that poor old hermit turns out to
+be Mr. Jim Bell's brother."
+
+"So do I, too," agreed Jimsy. "It would be jolly for you and Roy to think
+that you and your aeroplane had been the means of righting such a
+succession of mishaps."
+
+"Indeed it would," agreed Peggy, warmly; "but now come into the house and
+have some ice cream. It's one sign of our new prosperity that we are
+never without it now."
+
+"I've eaten so much of it I'm ashamed to look a freezer in the face,"
+laughed Roy, as they trooped in, to be warmly welcomed by Miss Prescott.
+
+In the midst of their merry feast the sound of wheels was heard and a rig
+from the station drove up. Out of it stepped a venerable old gentleman in
+a well-fitting dark suit, with well blackened shoes and an altogether
+neat and prosperous appearance.
+
+Peggy and Jess who had run to the window at the sound of wheels saw him
+assisted to the ground by a younger man whom they both recognized with a
+cry of astonishment.
+
+"Mr. Jim Bell. But who is the old gentleman?"
+
+"Why it's--it's the hermit!" cried Roy.
+
+"Good gracious, is that fashionable looking old man a hermit?" gasped
+Jimsy.
+
+"He was, I guess, but he won't be any more," laughed Peggy, happily, as
+she tripped to the door to welcome the visitors. The Prescotts had a maid
+now; but Peggy preferred to be the first to greet the newly united
+brothers for it was evident that Jim Bell's quest had been successful.
+
+What greetings there were to be sure, when the two brothers were inside
+the cool, shady house! The old hermit's eyes gleamed delightedly as he
+gallantly handed Miss Prescott to a chair. As for Jim Bell, he was happy
+enough to "dance a jig," he said.
+
+"I'll play for you, sir," volunteered Jimsy, going toward the piano.
+
+"No, no," laughed Jim Bell; "I'm too old for that now. But not too old
+for Peter and I to have many happy days together yet, eh, Peter?"
+
+He turned tenderly toward the old man whose eyes grew dim and moist.
+
+"I wish dad and mother could see us now," he said, sadly, as his thoughts
+wandered back over the long bitter years he had spent in solitude.
+
+"Perhaps they can," breathed Peggy, softly; "let us hope so."
+
+"Thank you," said the old hermit, with a sigh.
+
+But the conversation soon turned to a merrier vein. And then it drifted
+into business. Mr. Bancroft happened to stop in on his way into town and
+after a long talk with Jim Bell he seriously advised Roy to accept the
+mining man's proposal.
+
+"I'll put you up a factory any place you say," said the millionaire, "and
+you can turn out all that we require. I've a notion, too, that they might
+be used as general freight carriers over arid stretches of country where
+there are no railroads, and feed and water for stock is scarce."
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Bancroft.
+
+Before he left the preliminary papers had been drawn up and signed, and
+Roy Prescott found himself fairly launched in business. But in all this
+success he did not forget how much he owed to Peggy. Recent events had
+softened the boy's character and reduced his conceit wonderfully.
+
+"I owe it all to you, little sis," he said that evening.
+
+"I don't know about all," cried Jimsy, who was present; "but you do owe a
+whole lot to her, old man, and I'm glad to see you acknowledge it at
+last."
+
+"I always have," cried Roy, turning rather red, though.
+
+"Hum," commented Jimsy; "I'm not so sure about that."
+
+But Peggy put her hand over his mouth and it took Jimsy what seemed an
+unduly long time to remove it. As for Jess, she stalwartly declared that
+if it hadn't been for Peggy there would have been no Golden Butterfly, no
+five thousand dollar prize, and, as she said, "no nothing." But to this
+loyal little Peggy would not assent. In her eyes Roy would always remain
+the most wonderful brother in the world.
+
+Soon after this Jimsy and Jess took their leave and it was not long
+before the last light was extinguished in the happy little household and
+deep silence reigned. About midnight, as nearly as she could judge, Peggy
+awoke to find the moonlight streaming into her room and upon her face.
+
+"Good gracious, I'll get moonstruck," she thought, and throwing on a wrap
+she went to the window to pull down the shade which had been raised to
+admit the cool air.
+
+The window commanded a view of the workshop, in which the Golden
+Butterfly was kept, and Peggy, as she looked out, was astonished to see
+that the door of the work shop which housed the precious craft was open.
+
+"Goodness!" thought the girl, "how careless of whoever left it that way.
+The night air will rust the stay-wires and the steel parts of the motor
+terribly. I guess I had better slip downstairs and close it."
+
+Partially dressing herself the girl noiselessly tiptoed down the stairs
+and out into the moonlit night.
+
+For one instant she was startled as she thought she saw a dark form dodge
+swiftly behind a corner of the workshop as she appeared.
+
+"I must be getting as nervous as poor Roy when the mule frightened him
+down the well," she thought to herself as she advanced toward the shed.
+Reaching it she raised her hand to shut the door when, to her
+astonishment, she discovered that it had apparently been locked,--at
+least a broken bit of the padlock dangling from the portal seemed to
+indicate this.
+
+"Somebody's filed that through," was Peggy's thought. But before she
+could make any further investigation a pair of hands grasped her from
+behind, pinioning her arms to her side. At the same instant an old coat
+was flung over her head and pulled close, stifling her outcries.
+
+"We won't hurt you if you keep quiet," hissed a voice in her ear, "but if
+you don't, look out for trouble."
+
+"What are you going to do?" cried Peggy, through the muffling medium of
+the coat.
+
+"You'll soon find out," was the rejoinder. "Jukes, bring her inside the
+shed and keep her quiet."
+
+Jukes! The name struck a familiar chord in Peggy's memory. She knew now
+why the face and form of the man hanging about Fanning's "Phantom" hangar
+at the aviation field had seemed so familiar to her. It _was_ Jukes Dade,
+the man her father had peremptorily discharged. Peggy could not repress a
+shudder as she thought of the desperate character of the man.
+
+Suddenly, as her captors half dragged, half carried her into the
+workshop, her body grew limp, and she fell in an insensible heap forward.
+She would have struck the ground had not a pair of hands caught her.
+
+"She's fainted," cried Jukes, alarmedly.
+
+"So much the better," growled out his companion; "she won't give us any
+trouble now. We can do what we've got to do and get away. Got the files?"
+
+"Here they are," responded Jukes; "just let me lay her down here while I
+hand 'em to you."
+
+He deposited Peggy's limp form on a long box on which some sacks had been
+strewn. The next instant the sharp rasping of a file could be heard in
+the silent workshop.
+
+"I guess this Golden Butterfly will have its wings clipped for some time
+to come," chuckled Jukes' companion, whom Peggy, of course, had not yet
+seen.
+
+"I guess that's right," laughed the other; "just wait a jiffy while I lay
+down this gun of mine and I'll give you a hand."
+
+He stepped over and put down a wicked-looking pistol on the rough bench
+on which Peggy lay. Then he turned and began to help his companion. The
+two worked by the light of a dark lantern which they had brought with
+them on their rascally expedition to ruin the Golden Butterfly.
+
+But suddenly a slight noise behind him made Jukes turn his head. As he
+did so he gave a startled yell. Peggy, her eyes bright and wild-looking,
+was standing up behind them. In her hand was the pistol which Jukes had
+laid down beside her when she had seemed to faint a few moments before.
+But Peggy's faint had been a simulated one. Realizing that harm was meant
+to the Golden Butterfly, she had imitated unconsciousness as a means to
+possible escape and giving the alarm.
+
+"Don't move, either of you," said Peggy, in a firm voice. "I'm only a
+girl, but I can use a pistol."
+
+But Jukes and his companion, with a wild yell, made a dash for the door.
+
+"Good gracious, I can't shoot them," thought Peggy.
+
+"Help! help!" she began to cry at the top of her voice.
+
+But the next instant the whirr and roar of a motor from the road apprised
+her that the two rascals had made their escape in an auto and that
+pursuit was useless. Thus it was that when the aroused household came
+pouring excitedly out of the house they found a brave, if a rather
+tremulous, girl awaiting them with a pistol in her hand on the stock of
+which were engraved the initials "F. H."
+
+"So that's who Jukes's companion was," exclaimed Roy, angrily. "Oh, if
+you had only awakened me, sis."
+
+"My dear Roy," rejoined Peggy, with dignity, "don't you think that I am
+capable of taking care of myself?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HESTER MAKES AMENDS--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+A few days later Peggy borrowed Jess's car and went out for a long,
+lonely spin along the country roads. She wanted to think. Roy and Jimsy
+were at home repairing the damage wrought to the Golden Butterfly, which,
+it turned out, was very slight.
+
+She was driving along a pretty stretch of road when she came across a
+veritable fairyland of delicate pink wild roses intertwined with
+honeysuckle and woodbine.
+
+"Oh," cried Peggy, who simply worshipped flowers, "how beautiful; I must
+take some of these home. They'll make all our garden things look mean and
+shabby."
+
+Stopping the car she alighted and was soon deep in her occupation of
+gathering the fragrant posies. Suddenly she was startled by the sound of
+a sobbing voice close at hand, and the next minute an angry male voice
+could be heard also.
+
+"I tell you I'll do nothing of the sort," the man was saying; "why should
+I go and own up that I'm a thief or the next thing to it? At any rate
+they'd have me put in jail for all the attempts I've made to interfere
+with their aeroplane."
+
+"It's Fanning Harding!" gasped Peggy, amazedly, "and Hester Gibbons," she
+added the next instant as the girl's voice sobbed out:
+
+"Well, if you won't, I will. I've been weak and foolish but I'm not
+wicked. I'm going to tell Peggy Prescott all about it to-day and ask her
+to forgive me."
+
+"You'd better not," Fanning Harding's tone was threatening now.
+
+"Well, what if I do?"
+
+"You won't, I tell you. I'll have you locked up and charged with the
+theft yourself."
+
+"You wouldn't dare."
+
+"Oh, yes, I would. You've got that ruby and that is pretty good proof
+that you stole it."
+
+"It isn't so and you know it. I have been a weak, silly girl, that's all,
+but I see it all now. And just to think if I hadn't overheard you and my
+father talking that I might have gone on admiring you."
+
+"Tell me you won't go to the Prescotts with the story or I'll----"
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+The shrill cry came in Hester's tones.
+
+Without quite realizing what she was doing, Peggy stooped and picked up a
+heavy bit of stick that lay in the road beside her. Then she stepped
+forward around a bend which had hitherto hidden the other two from her
+sight. As she appeared Fanning had his hand on Hester's wrist and was
+wrenching it cruelly.
+
+"Oh! oh! Fanning, please let go!" Hester was crying.
+
+"I will if you'll promise not to tell."
+
+"There's no need for her to promise that, Fanning," said Peggy, "for I
+have already heard enough for me to know that she has some connection
+with the disappearance of the Bancroft diamonds."
+
+"Oh, Peggy!" cried Hester, running to her side.
+
+"See here," began Fanning, swaggering forward threateningly toward the
+two girls.
+
+"My brother is just 'round that corner," said Peggy, boldly; "he'll be
+here in a minute. If you don't wish to be arrested for what you did the
+other night you had better get away from here, Fanning Harding."
+
+A scared look crossed Fanning's face and he turned and fairly took to his
+heels.
+
+"Now, Hester," said Peggy, kindly, "come with me to my car. It's just
+'round the corner."
+
+"Oh, Peggy, I've been a bad, wicked girl, but I'm not a thief. Truly I'm
+not."
+
+"I believe that," said Peggy, "but what do you know about the
+disappearance of the diamonds?"
+
+"That I have them all here. Not one is gone," was the amazing reply, and
+Hester, drawing a handkerchief from her bosom, unfolded it and displayed
+to Peggy's amazed eyes a glittering collection of gems. In the midst of
+the flashing gems gleamed the big ruby which Peggy had once seen Hester
+so carefully conceal.
+
+"Hester, you have a duty before you," said Peggy slowly; "get in my car
+and come with me to my home and then tell me all about this mystery which
+has puzzled us so long."
+
+But the girl shrank back.
+
+"I can't. Oh, Peggy, with you it's different, but before, the others.
+Your brother----"
+
+"Poor fellow, he has been under unjust suspicion on account of these very
+jewels," Peggy reminded the agitated girl.
+
+"Oh, give me time. Not now. I----"
+
+"No, it must be now," said Peggy, with gentle insistence. "Come!"
+
+Something in her manner seemed to strike the girl.
+
+"You'll promise no harm will come to me or my father through this?" she
+said.
+
+"Is your father very deeply implicated in the matter?" asked Peggy
+seriously, looking straight into the other's eyes.
+
+"No. On my word of honor, no," was the response.
+
+"Then I'll promise," said Peggy.
+
+"Very well, then, I'll tell you all I know about the matter," said
+Hester, as the girls got into the car.
+
+An hour later, in the library of the Prescott's home, Peggy, Roy, Jimsy
+and Jess were gathered listening to Hester's story. Her eyes were red
+from crying and she hesitated frequently, but her manner showed that she
+was telling the truth.
+
+On a table lay the glistening jewels. Jess had counted them and found
+that they were all there.
+
+"I didn't find out about the jewels till one night Fanning, who has
+always said he admired me," said Hester, with downcast eyes, "gave me
+that big ruby there. At least he didn't give it to me but he said I could
+wear it. Of course I had heard about the disappearance of the jewels from
+the auto, but somehow I didn't associate this token of Fanning's with it.
+
+"It was not till a week ago that I learned the true state of affairs. I
+overheard a conversation of Fanning's with my father in which he
+threatened him with arrest if he, father, didn't give him some money
+Fanning said he had hoarded up. I knew dad didn't have any and I asked
+him after Fanning had gone to tell me all about it.
+
+"He isn't such a bad man at bottom and when I pleaded with him he told me
+the whole story. On the day of the jewel robbery, for it was a robbery,
+Morgan and Giles----"
+
+"Our butler and groom!" cried Jess.
+
+"Yes. Well, they were taking a stroll in the fields and happened along
+just as the car was wrecked. They knew from servants' gossip that you had
+been to town to get the gems and when they saw you lying unconscious and
+the wallet near at hand, the temptation was too much for them and they
+stole it.
+
+"They determined to hide it in some woods near my father's place; but as
+they entered them Fanning Harding came along on his bicycle. He saw them
+enter the woods and became suspicious. Leaning his bicycle against a tree
+he followed them and saw them bury the gems under a tree which they
+marked.
+
+"He noted the tree, too, and then, without their seeing him he remounted
+his motor-cycle and came on to see my father about that business of the
+hoax aeroplane. He said he wanted to bluff you into selling the Butterfly
+to him.
+
+"Well, father agreed, for a fair sum of money, to help him, and we
+started right into town. At that time I thought it was a good joke, and
+we were both laughing as we came in sight of the scene of the accident."
+
+"So that's what they were laughing at," thought Roy, recollecting how
+mystified he had been when he saw them together.
+
+"I don't know whether it was Fanning's manner or what," said Hester
+resuming, "but my father began to suspect that he might know something
+about the jewels, and one day he followed him into the woods when he went
+to see if the jewels were still under the tree. Father made him own up
+when he caught him red-handed like that, but in the meantime Morgan and
+Giles also had arrived. Well, the four of them were all equally guilty,
+so they agreed to stick together and say nothing till the excitement
+about the loss had blown over. But Fanning in the meantime said that he
+must have the ruby to let me wear.
+
+"I guess he wanted to show me that he was as rich as he was always
+pretending to be.
+
+"A few days later they had a terrible fright. Morgan, who carried the
+leather wallet in his pocket for lack of a better place to put it,
+dropped it on the porch of the Bancrofts' house where, as you know, it
+was found before he realized his loss and could recover it.
+
+"When Fanning came back from the aviation meet and began boasting of the
+mean tricks he had played you and how he had kidnapped Roy, I began to
+see what a despicable fellow he was. Then, too, he was always threatening
+dad, and so I decided to make a clean breast of it all and save poor dad
+any more trouble, for Fanning has dictated to him ever since they shared
+the secret.
+
+"I went to the wood and found the marked tree I had heard them talk about
+so often and with the jewels in my hand I started for your home, Peggy,
+for I didn't dare to go to the Bancrofts'. But Fanning, it seems, had got
+suspicious, and followed me. He overtook me at the spot where you
+encountered us."
+
+"Does he know you have the jewels?" asked Roy.
+
+"Not yet," rejoined Hester; "I believe if he had he would have been
+violent."
+
+"Well, Hester," said Peggy, as the girl concluded her strange narrative,
+"you have cleared up a puzzling mystery."
+
+"Did you ever hear such a yarn in all your born days?" asked Jimsy.
+
+"And every one of the jewels is there," cried Jess. "I tell you what I'll
+do, I'll just call up the house and tell mother about it. Won't she be
+pleased?"
+
+But Mrs. Bancroft was not at home, and----
+
+"Oh, miss," gasped the servant, who answered the 'phone, "we're all
+upset. Morgan has run off, miss, and so has Giles. They took some of the
+silver with them. Mary and me tried to stop 'em but they pointed a pistol
+at us and scared us inter high strikes."
+
+"I'll 'phone the police at once," cried Jess, indignantly. "They might
+have got off if it hadn't been for that."
+
+But although a good description was furnished, Morgan and Giles were not
+captured and Mr. Bancroft was not ill pleased.
+
+"They will not venture into this part of the country again," he said,
+"and we are well rid of such rascals."
+
+Hester, in whom Mrs. Bancroft took an interest after the girl had told
+her with her own lips her strange story, is now at a girls' boarding
+school, having been sent there at Mrs. Bancroft's expense.
+
+As for Fanning Harding, his father sent him West soon after the lad's
+innate rascality had been revealed, and from reports Fanning is working
+hard to redeem the past and make himself a good and useful man.
+
+"And so the mystery of the phantom airship and the missing jewels is all
+cleared up," said Peggy to Jess one day a short time after the events
+just described had transpired.
+
+"Yes," rejoined her chum, "and the air seems clearer and fresher somehow.
+It is terrible to have a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over one."
+
+"It is, indeed," rejoined Peggy; "and now, as Roy leaves in a few days
+for the West, let's all take a good long spin. You and I will go in the
+Golden Butterfly while the boys can run along below us in the auto."
+
+But Jess looked a bit doubtful.
+
+"Wouldn't Roy like to go in the aeroplane?" she said.
+
+Peggy broke into merry laughter.
+
+"Oh, you sly puss," she exclaimed. "Very well, then you and Roy in the
+Golden Eagle and Jimsy and I in the auto."
+
+"Suits me," cried Jimsy, throwing his arm around his sister's waist, "but
+I thought you were the girl aviator of the family, Peggy."
+
+"So I am," laughed Peggy, "but I am willing to yield my place for once."
+
+"Well, if you'll excuse my horrid slang," laughed Jimsy, "I think I may
+say we've all been 'up in the air' for the last few weeks. But it's all
+over now and we'll settle down to humdrum life once more."
+
+"It's been jolly, though," protested Peggy.
+
+"With some parts left out," put in Jess.
+
+But although no adventures just like those we have related happened again
+to the Girl Aviators, they were due to encounter some more strange
+experiences. In fact, both Peggy and Roy and their friends were on the
+brink of some odd happenings, the narration of which must be postponed to
+another volume of this series.
+
+What these complications and adventures, both merry and perilous, proved
+to be will be set down in full detail in "The Girl Aviators on Golden
+Wings," a breezy tale of our aerial maids.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl Aviators and the Phantom
+Airship, by Margaret Burnham
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL AVIATORS ***
+
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