Front matter

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.”