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."
"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 Washington 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 Butterfly
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 pronounced.
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 Butterfly 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
semaphore 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 passenger makes a lot of difference to an
aeroplane, and the Butterfly 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.
Suddenly, from somewhere behind them, they heard a long, moaning whistle.
"The train!" shouted Jess.
In her excitement she gripped Roy's arm tightly and peered back.
All at once, around a curve, the locomotive came into view--black smoke
spouting from its funnel and a column of white steam pouring from its
safety valves.
"She'll beat us," cried Jimsy, despairingly, as the thunder of the
speeding train grew louder. The setting sun flashed on the varnished
sides of the cars.
The engineer thrust his head out of the cab window and gazed upward. His
attention had been attracted by the roaring of the motor overhead.
He broke into a yell and waved his hand as he saw the flying aeroplane
dashing along above him. The next instant his hand sought the whistle
cord.
"Toot! toot! toot!"
The occupants of the aeroplane waved their hands. To their chagrin,
however, they saw that, overloaded as the aeroplane was, the train was
gaining on them in leaps and bounds. Its windows were black with heads
now as passengers, regardless of the danger of encountering some
trackside obstacle, leaned out and gazed up at the Golden Butterfly
roaring along like some great Thunder Lizard of the dark ages.
"Don't they stop anywhere between here and the junction?" gasped Jimsy.
Roy shook his head.
"It's a through train from Montauk," he said; "they make all the speed
they can."
"Two minutes," cried Jess, suddenly; "we won't do it."
But Peggy had suddenly swung off the tracks and was cutting across
country. She had seen that the track took a long curve just before it
entered the junction. By taking a direct "crow flight" across country she
might beat it after all.
And she did. As the train came thundering into the station and stopped
with a mighty screaming of brakes and hiss of escaping steam, the
aeroplane came to earth in the flat park-like space in front of the depot.
"Tumble out quick!" shouted Roy, "she only stops a jiffy."
Jess and Jimsy lost no time in obeying.
"Good-bye, you darlings!" cried Jess, as she sped after her brother
toward the station.
"We'll get our tickets on the train!" shouted Jimsy, as they vanished.
"All ab-o-a-r-d!"
The conductor's voice ran peremptorily out. He had seen the race between
the aeroplane and the train, but even that could not disturb a
conductor's desire to start on time.
As the wheels began to revolve, Jimsy and Jess swung on to the steps of
the rear parlor car. As they did so the passengers broke into an
involuntary cheer. The shouts of approval at the up to date manner in
which the young folks had "made their train," mingled with the puffing of
the locomotive as it sped off.
Among the spectators of the sensational feat had been a broad-shouldered,
bronzed man in a big sombrero hat, who sat in the same parlor car which
Jimsy and Jess had entered. He looked like a Westerner. As the train
gathered headway he suddenly, after an interval of deep thought, struck
one big brawny hand upon his knee and exclaimed to himself:
"It's the very thing--the very thing. With a fleet of those I could
develop the Jupiter and astonish the mining world."
He rose, with the slowness of a powerful man, and made his way back to
where Jimsy and Jess were sitting. Raising his broad-brimmed hat with
old-fashioned courtesy, he addressed himself to Jimsy and was soon deep
in conversation with him.