The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship Part 2

"What time did that aviator fellow say he would show up?" then demanded Jimsy, abruptly.

"He should be here now," rejoined Roy. "I've half a mind to start anyhow.

I can manage the machine I am very certain."

"Oh, Roy!" cried Peggy, reprovingly, "you know you promised aunty that you wouldn't do anything till Mr. Hal Homer got here."

"All right, sis," put in Roy, hastily, "don't be scared. I'll stick to my word."

"Hullo!" cried Jimsy, suddenly, "there comes an auto now."

"So it is," exclaimed the others, as a black touring car came whizzing down the road below them. It soon halted, and a figure in leather garments with gaitered legs alighted and hastened across the fields toward the party cl.u.s.tered about the aeroplane. The car was left in charge of the chauffeur.

As Jimsy had guessed, the new arrival proved to be Hal Homer, the well-known cross country flier, from whom Roy had taken some vacation time aviation lessons.

"He's awfully good looking," whispered Jess to Peggy, after introductions to the dapper young aviator had been extended by Roy.

"Oh, so--so," rejoined Peggy, with a toss of her head.

"Maybe you know some one who is handsomer?" questioned Jess with a mischievous side glance of her fine eyes.

Peggy flushed under her fair skin. But Jess laughed with good-humored raillery.

"Jimsy surely is a good-looking boy," she said, "if he hadn't a pug nose."

"A pug nose!" flared up Peggy. "Oh, Jess, how can----"

Then she stopped short in confusion while Jess laughed the more at her discomfiture.

Young Mr. Homer lost no time in starting operations. He ordered his helpers to secure the machine to a small tree growing nearby by means of a stout rope Roy had brought with him. This done, and the monoplane thus secured from flying away when her engine was started, he set the sparking and gasolene levers and threw in the switch. Roy and Jimsy, the latter acting under Roy's instructions, flew to the propeller.

The Golden b.u.t.terfly being a monoplane, this was in front of the machine.

"Be careful when you feel it start, to leap aside," warned Roy, "or you might be beheaded."

"I never lose my head in an emergency," joked Jimsy.

But just the same his heart beat, as did those of all of them but Hal Homer's, as he and Roy started to swing the great shiny wooden driving appliance.

Once, twice, three times they swung it round, exerting all their force.

The fourth time they were rewarded by a feeble sigh from the engine--a sixty horse power motor.

All at once--Bang!

"Let go!" yelled Roy, jumping backward.

Jimsy in his hurry to obey stumbled and fell backward in a heap. He rolled some distance down the hill unnoticed, before he succeeded in stopping his motion. In the meantime the others--even Peggy--were too absorbed in the sight before them to watch Jimsy.

Simultaneously with the sharp report the propeller had whirled around swiftly. The next instant it was a mere gray blur, while a furious wind from its revolving blades swept the onlookers. Blue smoke spurted from the exhausts, mingled with flame, and the uproar was terrific.

The Golden b.u.t.terfly, like a thing of life, struggled at her moorings.

The rope stretched and strained, taut as a violin string, under the pull.

But it held fast, and after a while Aviator Homer slowed down the engine and finally stopped it, after adjusting a miss-fire in one of the cylinders. As the propeller became once more visible and then came to a stop, the boys broke into cheers, while the girls, too, voiced their enthusiasm.

"Oh, Peggy, isn't it a darling!" cried Jess.

"Aeroplanes are not usually called 'darlings,'" responded Peggy with a.s.sumed severity, "but--oh, Jess, it's--it's--a jewel and----"

"I'm dying for a ride in it!" burst in Jess.

"Then if you will consent to live a little longer I hope to have the pleasure of saving your life," put in Roy, gallantly.

"Oh, Roy! I can ride in it now!" gasped Jess, while Peggy clasped her hands and snuggled up close to her chum.

"Well, no, hardly just yet," laughed Roy, "but after Homer has tested her thoroughly out I guess you girls can take a spin."

"You know I'm going to learn to handle one," declared Peggy, as Roy made off once more. "I know a good deal about the theoretical part of it already."

"Well, theory wouldn't do you much good in a mile-long tumble," quoth Jess, sagely.

"Nonsense," rejoined Peggy. "Mr. Homer says one is as safe in an aeroplane, if one is careful, as in an auto."

"Safer I guess, the way that brother of mine drives sometimes," replied Jess. "He calls it 'burning up the road.' But--oh, look, they're casting off, or whatever it is you do to an airship when you turn her loose. Oh!"

s.n.a.t.c.hing off her motoring bonnet Jess began waving it furiously. While they had been talking the rope had been cast loose, and now, with Mr.

Homer himself at the driving wheel, in cap and goggles, the engine was being started once more.

In wrapt excitement both girls stood breathless. So intent were they on the scene transpiring before them that they had not noticed the approach of a second auto on the road below. From it Fan Harding had alighted and hastened up the hill, after "parking" his machine, as if in fear that he would be too late to view the proceedings.

A sneering look was on his rather handsome face as he rapidly climbed the hill. He reached a position behind the two girls just as the aviator gave the signal to let go of the machine--to the rear structure of which Lem Sidney and Jeff Stokes were perspiringly clinging, their heels digging into the soft turf to steady themselves.

As Mr. Homer's hand swung backward and downward they let go. Instantly, like an arrow from a bow, the monoplane--the work of Peggy and Roy--was off. How it scudded across the hill top! Blue smoke and flame shot from its exhaust. Its operator sat hunched over his machinery looking, with his goggles, like some creature of the lower regions. Peggy clasped her hands and stood a-tiptoe breathlessly as it scudded along.

"Oh, will it rise?" she breathed, her color coming and going in her excitement.

"I'll bet ten dollars it won't fly any more than an earthworm."

Peggy turned swiftly, indignantly. Her color flamed and her eyes blazed angrily. Jess, hardly less indignant at the sneering tone and words, also faced about.

"Good morning, girls," said Fan Harding, easily, raising his motoring cap nonchalantly, "I came to see the ascension, but I'm afraid that it's going to be a descension."

"I think you're hateful to talk like that," cried Peggy, angrily, stamping her foot. "Our aeroplane will rise. It just will, I tell you--oh, gracious!"

She broke off in confusion and stood aghast for a moment. The swiftly scudding aeroplane had stopped its skittering over the gra.s.s and had come to an abrupt stop at a distance of about five hundred yards.

Already the boys were running across the turf toward it at top speed. The girls could see Mr. Homer clambering out of the cha.s.sis as the machine came to a standstill.

"Ha! Ha! just as I thought," chuckled Fan Harding, viciously, "that thing is a dead failure."

Poor Peggy, tears in her eyes at this seeming disaster, was stung fairly out of herself. She switched round on Fan Harding with a suddenness that made her skirt fly out and that young gentleman step precipitately backward.