AN AERIAL POST OFFICE.
Peggy addressed half a dozen cards. Two, of course, went to Jess and
Jimsy, another to Aunt Sallie Prescott; one to the captain of the
_Ruritania_, and one other, which bore the address, "Eugene Mortlake,
Esq."
It was a mischievous freak that made Peggy write this last missive, which
read:
TO MR. EUGENE MORTLAKE,
Per Steamer _Ruritania_--in Mid-air:
Greetings from aeroplane _Golden Butterfly_.
R. & M. PRESCOTT.
That was all, but Peggy knew that it would serve its prankish purpose.
All this time the _Silver Cobweb_ had been out at sea, but now, apparently
detecting the maneuvers of the _Golden Butterfly_, she headed about, and
came racing back. Peggy deftly attached weights--spare bolts from the tool
locker--to each of the cards, and then, snatching up a megaphone, she
hailed the uniformed figures on the bridge of the great vessel below them.
"Will you be good enough to mail some letters for us?"
"With pleasure!" came the reply in a big, bellowing British voice, from
one of the stalwart figures beneath.
"All right; Roy, come down as low as you dare," cried Peggy, catching her
bundle of "mail."
Roy threw over a couple of levers and turned a valve. Instantly the
_Golden Butterfly_ began to drop in long, beautiful arc. She shot by above
the liner's bridge at a height of not more than fifteen feet. At the
correct moment Peggy dropped the weighted bundle overboard, and had the
satisfaction of seeing one of the officers catch it. The gallant officers,
now realizing for the first time that a girl--and a pretty one--was one
of the passengers of the big aeroplane, waved their hats and bowed
profoundly.
And Peggy--what would Aunt Sallie have said!--Peggy blew them a kiss. But
then, as she told Jess later:
"I was in an aeroplane, my dear--a sort of an unattainable possibility, in
fact."
In the meantime, Mortlake, in the _Silver Cobweb_, had been duly mystified
as to what the _Golden Butterfly_ was about when she swooped downward on
the steamer. For one instant the thought flashed across him that they were
disabled. An unholy glee filled him at the thought. If only the _Golden
Butterfly_ were to come to grief right under Lieut. Bradbury's eyes, it
would be a great feather in the cap of the Mortlake-Harding machine.
But, to his chagrin, he saw them rise the next instant, as cleverly as
ever. Lieut. Bradbury, who had been watching the maneuver of the _Golden
Butterfly_, gave an admiring gasp, as he witnessed the daring feat.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, and the evident note of astonishment and
appreciation in his tones did not tend to increase Mortlake's
self-satisfaction.
"The pesky brats," he muttered to himself; "we've got to do something to
put them out of the race. There isn't another American-built aeroplane
that I fear except that bothersome kids' machine."
And there and then Mortlake began to hatch up a scheme that in the near
future was to come very nearly proving disastrous to Peggy and Roy and
their high hopes.
"Magnificently handled, don't you think so, Mortlake?" inquired the naval
officer, the next instant.
"Yes, very clever," agreed Mortlake, far too smart to show his inward
feelings, or to wear his heart upon his sleeve; "very neat. But I can do
the same thing if you'd care to see it?"
The naval officer glanced at the puffy features of his companion and his
thick, bull-like neck.
"No, thanks," he said. "I've got to be getting back. There's another type
of machine I've got to look over out at Mineola. It is really necessary
that I reach there as quickly as possible."
"Very well," said Mortlake, inwardly relieved, as he didn't much fancy
duplicating Roy's feat, "we'll head straight on for the shore."
"If you please."
But what was the _Golden Butterfly_ doing? As the steamer raced onward,
that aerial wonder had swung in a spiral, and was now seemingly hovering
about, awaiting the arrival of the _Silver Cobweb_.
As the two aeroplanes drew abreast, Mortlake muttered something, and bent
over his engines. The _Cobweb_ leaped forward like an unleashed greyhound.
But the _Golden Butterfly_ was close on her heels, and making almost as
good time. Mortlake plunged his hands in among the machinery and
readjusted the air valve of the carburetor. Another increase of speed
resulted. The indicator crawled up to sixty-six, sixty-eight and then to
seventy miles an hour.
"Pressing her a bit, aren't you?" asked the officer, as they seemed to
hurtle through the air, so fast did they rush onward.
"Oh, no. She's built for speed," responded Mortlake, with a gratified
grin; "she'll leave any such old lumber wagon as that Prescott machine
miles behind her any day in the week."
This seemed to be true. The _Golden Butterfly_, making about sixty miles,
was being rapidly left behind.
"I should think you'd be afraid of overheating your cylinders,"
volunteered the lieutenant.
Now, this was just what Mortlake was afraid of. But, as has been said, he
was the sort of man who, in sporting parlance, was willing always "to take
a chance" to beat any one he considered his rival. He was taking a
desperate chance now. Under the artificial means he had used to increase
the speed of his engines, the motor was "turning up" several hundred more
revolutions a minute than she had been built for.
Now they shot above the strip of white beach, and, below them the pleasant
meadow-lands and patches of verdant woods began to show once more.
All at once, the sign for which Mortlake had been watching so anxiously
manifested itself. A tiny curl of smoke ascended from one of the
cylinder-heads. A smell of blistering, burning paint was wafted back to
the nostrils of Lieut. Bradbury.
"I thought so," he said; "overheating already. Better slow down,
Mortlake."
Mortlake glanced back. The _Golden Butterfly_, much diminished in size now
by the distance, still hung doggedly on his heels.
"I'll give her more air," he vouchsafed stubbornly, "that ought to cool
her off a bit--that and advanced spark."
He manipulated the necessary levers, but before many minutes it became
apparent that, if urged at that rate, the _Silver Cobweb_ would never
reach Sandy Beach without a break-down.
"Hadn't you better shut down a bit? That paint's blistering, as if the
cylinders were red-hot."
Much as he disliked to interfere with the operation of the aeroplane, the
young officer felt that it was necessary that some means should be taken
to compel Mortlake to reduce speed. If the engine became so overheated
that it stopped in mid-air, they might be caught in a nasty position,
where it might be impossible to volplane--or glide--downward, without the
aid of the engine.
"It's all right, I tell you," said Mortlake stubbornly. "We'll beat those
cubs into Sandy Beach, or----"
Or what, was destined never to be known, for at that instant, with a
splutter and a sigh, the overheated engines, almost at a red-heat, stopped
short. The propeller ceased to revolve, and the aeroplane began to plunge
downward with fearful velocity.
But Mortlake, no matter what his other faults, possessed a cool head. The
instant he lost control of the motor, he seized the warping levers, and
began manipulating them. At the same time he set the rudder so as to bring
the _Silver Cobweb_ to earth in a series of long spirals. The maneuver was
that of volplaning, and has been performed successfully by several
aviators whose engines have suddenly ceased to work while in mid-air. The
young officer watched approvingly. Whatever else Mortlake might be--and
Lieut. Bradbury had not taken a violent fancy to him--he was a master of
the aerial craft.
Despite the mishap to the engine--caused by his own carelessness--Mortlake
managed to bring the _Silver Cobweb_ to a gentle landing in a broad, flat
meadow, inhabited by some spotted cows, which fled in undignified panic as
the monster, silent now, swooped down like a bolt from the blue.
The instant the _Silver Cobweb_ came to rest Mortlake's restless eyes
glanced upward. He was hoping against all common sense that the young
Prescotts had not seen his mishap, or at least that they would pass on
above him unnoticing. His first glance showed him the _Golden Butterfly_
still steadily plugging along, and a moment later it became apparent that
they had seen the sudden descent of the _Cobweb_, for the aeroplane was
seen to dip and glide lower, much as a mousing hawk can be seen to do.
"Hard luck," murmured the young naval officer, as Mortlake, who had
clambered out of the machine, stamped and fumed by its side. Inwardly
Lieut. Bradbury was thinking how stubborn men invariably meet with some
mishap or accident.
"Yes, beastly hard luck," agreed Mortlake readily. "I see a farm-house
over there, though, the other side of those trees. I guess I can get a
bucket and some water over there. Once I've cooled those cylinders off,
we'll be all right."
"How long will that take, do you think?" inquired the officer, pulling out
his watch and a time-table.
"Not more than half an hour. It shouldn't take that."
"That means I miss my train. If we don't get into Sandy Beach by eleven
o'clock, I can't possibly make it. And there's not another from there for
two hours. That would make me late for my appointment at Mineola."
Mortlake's face fell. Here was a bit of hard luck with a vengeance. It
might cost him a place in the contests.
"We can make up time, once we get under way," he said tentatively.
"That isn't it. I daren't risk it. I wonder if I can get an automobile or
some sort of a conveyance about here."
"Not a chance. I know this neighborhood. It is very sparsely settled."
A sudden whir above them caused them both to look up. It was the _Golden
Butterfly_, swooping and hovering above the disabled _Cobweb_.
"Had an accident?" shouted down Roy.
"What do you think? You can see we're not flying, can't you?" bellowed
Mortlake, his face crimson with anger and mortification.
"Can we do anything to help you?" came from Peggy, ignoring the fellow's
insulting tones.
"No!"
"Yes!"
The first monosyllable came from Mortlake. The second from Lieut.
Bradbury.
"If you don't mind accepting a passenger, I should be glad of a lift to
Sandy Beach. I've got to make a train," explained the young officer.
In five minutes the _Golden Butterfly_ was on the sward beside the
crippled _Cobweb_. Mortlake's face was black as night. He fulminated
maledictions on the young aviators who had appeared at--for him--such an
inopportune moment.
"Can I help you fix the machine?" asked Roy pleasantly. "There's nothing
serious the matter, is there?"
"Not a thing," asserted Mortlake. "It's all the fault of the men who made
the carburetor. They did a bungling bit of work, and the cylinders have
overheated."
"Can we leave a message for you at your shops, or would you like a lift
home with us?" asked Roy, who felt a kind of pity for the angry and
stranded man.
"You can't do anything for me except leave me alone," snapped out
Mortlake; "you cubs are altogether too inquisitive. You're too nosy."
"But not to the extent of making sketches and notes, Mr. Mortlake?"
inquired Peggy sweetly--"cattily," she said it was, afterward.
Mortlake started and paled. Then, without vouchsafing a reply, he strode
off in the direction of the farm house to get the water he needed.
"Now, Mr. Bradbury," said Roy, extending a hand.
The young officer leaped nimbly into the chassis, and presently a buzzing
whir told that the faithful _Golden Butterfly_ was taking the air once
more.
"Score two for us!" thought Peggy to herself.
From a far corner of the pasture, Mortlake watched his young rivals
climbing the sky. He shook his fist at them and his heavy face darkened.