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.