[Illustration: AT THE CORRECT MOMENT PEGGY DROPPED THE WEIGHTED BUNDLE
OVERBOARD.--Page 103.]
THE GIRL AVIATORS' SKY CRUISE
BY
MARGARET BURNHAM
AUTHOR OF "THE GIRL AVIATORS AND THE PHANTOM AIRSHIP," "THE GIRL AVIATORS
ON GOLDEN WINGS," ETC.
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
1911
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A NEW VENTURE IN SANDY BEACH
II. MR. HARDING DECLARES HIMSELF
III. A NAVAL VISITOR
IV. ALOFT IN A STORM
V. PEGGY A HEROINE
VI. FARMER GALLOWAY'S "SAFE DEPOSIT"
VII. A CASE FOR THE AUTHORITIES
VIII. MR. MORTLAKE LOSES SOME DRAWINGS
IX. THE FLIGHT OF THE "SILVER COBWEB"
X. AN AERIAL POST OFFICE
XI. THE MARKED BILL
XII. WHAT HAPPENED TO ROY
XIII. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
XIV. HOW THEY WORKED OUT
XV. WHAT MORTLAKE DID
XVI. THE MISSING SIDE-COMB
XVII. JIMSY'S SUSPICIONS ARE ROUSED
XVIII. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
XIX. THE GATHERING OF THE MAN-BIRDS
XX. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
XXI. THE START OF THE SKY CRUISE
XXII. THE WHITE PERIL
XXIII. OUT OF THE CLOUDS
XXIV. FRIENDS AND FOES--CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I.
A NEW VENTURE IN SANDY BEACH.
"It isn't to be a barn; that's one thing certain. Who ever saw a barn with
skylights on it?"
Peggy Prescott, in a pretty, fluffy morning dress of pale green, which set
off her blonde beauty to perfection, laid down her racket, and, leaving
the tennis-court, joined her brother Roy at the picket fence. The lad,
bronzed and toughened by his trip to the Nevada desert, was leaning upon
the paling, gazing down the dusty road.
About a quarter of a mile away was the object of his contemplation--a big,
new structure, painted a staring red. It had no windows, but in front
were great sliding doors. On its flat roof the forms of a dozen or more
glazed skylights upreared themselves jauntily.
"No, it's a work-shop of some sort. But what? Old man Harding is
interested in it, that's one thing sure. I heard, too, that while we were
away, cases of machinery had arrived and been delivered there, and that
active work of some sort had been going forward ever since," rejoined Roy,
who was clad in white tennis flannels, with white shoes and an outing
shirt, set off by a dark-red necktie.
"See Roy," cried Peggy suddenly, "they're putting up some sort of sign on
it, or else I'm very much mistaken."
"So they are. I see men on some ladders, and now, look Peg, they are
carrying up a big board with something painted on it. Perhaps at last the
mystery will be solved, as they say in the dime novels."
"Can you read the printing on that sign?" inquired Peggy.
"Not a word. I can see the letters to know that they are printed
characters, but that's all. Tell you what, Peg, just run and get those
glasses we used on the desert--there's a good fellow--and we'll soon find
out."
"Isn't that just like a brother? Always sending his long-suffering sister
on his errands."
"Why, you know you are dying with curiosity yourself, to know what's on
that signboard," parried Roy.
"And I suppose you're not," pouted Peggy in mock indignation. "However,
I'll get the field glasses to oblige you--just once."
"As if you won't try to secure the first peek through them!" laughed Roy,
as sunny Peggy tripped off across the lawn to a big shed in the rear of
the Prescott home, where the aeroplanes and their appurtenances were kept.
She soon was back with the field glasses, and, as Roy had prophesied,
raised them to her eyes first. Having adjusted the focus, she scrutinized
the sign carefully. By this time the big board had been raised
horizontally above the doors and was being fixed in position.
Suddenly Peggy gave a little squeal of astonishment and lowered the
magnifiers.
"Well, what is it?" chaffed Roy; "an anarchist bomb factory or an
establishment for raising goats, or something that will "butt in" just as
much on our peace and quiet, or----"
"Roy Prescott," enunciated Peggy, severely shaking one pink-tipped finger
under Roy's freckled nose, "this is not a subject for jesting."
"Never more serious in my life, Sis. If you could have seen your own face
as you peeked through those glasses----"
Peggy stuffed the binoculars into her brother's brown hands.
"Here, look for yourself," she ordered. Her voice was so imperious that
Roy obeyed immediately.
An instant later his sister's expression of dumfounded amazement was
mirrored on his own straightforward, good-looking countenance.
"Well, as Bud used to say out West, 'if that ain't the beatingest'!" he
gasped.
"What did you read?" demanded Peggy breathlessly. "Repeat it so that I may
be sure my eyes didn't play me a trick."
"Not likely, Sis; the letters are big enough. They show up on that red
painted barn of a place like a big freckle on a pretty girl's chin."
Then he repeated slowly, mimicking a boy reciting a lesson:
"The Mortlake Aeroplane Company. Well, wouldn't that jar you?"
"Roy!" reproved Peggy.
"There's no other way to express it, Sis," protested the boy. "Why, that's
the concern that's been advertising so much recently. Just to think, it
was right at our door, and we never knew it."
"And that hateful old Mr. Harding is interested in it, too, oh!"
The exclamation and its intonation expressed Peggy's dislike of the
gentleman mentioned.
"It's a scheme oh his part to make trouble for us, I'll bet on it," burst
out Roy. "But this time I guess it's no phantom airship, but the real
thing. What time is that naval lieutenant coming to look over the Prescott
aeroplane, Peggy?"
"Some time to-day. He mentioned no particular hour."
"Do you think it possible that he is also going to take in that outfit
down the road?"
"It wouldn't surprise me. Maybe that's why they are just putting up the
sign. They evidently have refrained from doing so till now in order to
keep the nature of their business secret. If we hadn't come back from
Nevada sooner than we expected, we might not have known anything about it
till the navy had investigated and--approved."
Far down the road, beyond the big red building, came a whirl of dust. From
it presently emerged a big maroon car. Peggy scrutinized it through the
glasses.
"Mr. Harding is in that auto," she said, rather quietly for Peggy, as the
car came to a stop in front of the Mortlake Aeroplane Manufacturing
Company's plant.
Shortly before Peggy and Roy Prescott, their aunt, Miss Sallie Prescott,
with whom they made their home, and their chums, Jess and Jimsy Bancroft,
had returned from the Nevada alkali wastes, the red building which engaged
their attention that morning had caused a good deal of speculation in the
humdrum Long Island village of Sandy Beach. In the first place, coincident
with the completion of the building, a new element had been introduced
into the little community by the arrival of several keen-eyed,
close-mouthed men, who boarded at the local hotel and were understood to
be employees at the new building. But what the nature of their employment
was to be, even the keenest of the village "cross examiners" had failed to
elicit.
Before long, within the freshly painted wooden walls, still sticky with
pigment, there could be heard, all day, and sometimes far into the night,
the buzz and whir of machinery and other more mystic sounds. The village
was on tenter-hooks of curiosity, but there being no side windows to peer
through, and a watchman of ferocious aspect stationed at the door, their
inquisitiveness was, perforce, unsatisfied. Not even a sign appeared on
the building to indicate the nature of the industry carried on within, and
its employees continued to observe the stoniest of silences. They herded
together, ignoring all attempts to draw them into conversation. What Peggy
and Roy had observed that day had been the first outward sign of the
inward business.
From the throbbing automobile, which the boy and girl had observed draw up
in front of the Mortlake plant, a man of advanced age alighted, whose
yellow skin was stretched tightly, like a drumhead, over his bony face.
From the new building, at the same time, there emerged a short, stout
personage, garbed in overalls. But the fine quality of his linen, and a
diamond pin, which nestled in the silken folds of his capacious necktie,
showed as clearly as did his self-assertive manner, that the newcomer was
by no means an ordinary workman.
His face was pouchy and heavy, although the whole appearance of the man
was by no means ill-looking. His cheeks and chin were clean shaven, the
close-cut beard showing bluely under the coarse skin. For the rest, his
hair was black and thick, slightly streaked with gray, and heavy eyebrows
as dark in hue as his hair, overhung a pair of shrewd, gray eyes like
small pent-houses. The man was Eugene Mortlake, the brains of the Mortlake
Company. The individual who had just descended from the automobile,
throwing a word to the chauffeur over his shoulder, was a person we have
met before--Mr. Harding, the banker and local magnate of Sandy Beach,
whose money it was that had financed the new aeroplane concern.