The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship Part 11

"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 a.s.suming 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 p.r.o.nounced.

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 b.u.t.terfly 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 semaph.o.r.e 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 pa.s.senger makes a lot of difference to an aeroplane, and the b.u.t.terfly 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.