The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly Part 29

"There's a little hut off yonder, maybe we could get a bucket or something there."

"Let's see if there are any berries first," said the practical Peggy.

From out of the hut shuffled an old woman. She was a wrinkled and hideous old hag, brown as a seasoned meerschaum pipe and in her mouth was a reeking corn cob.

Her feet were bare, and altogether she was a most repulsive old crone.

She saw Roy and Peggy almost as soon as they saw her. For an instant she stood looking at them and then raised her voice in a sort of shrill shriek.

Instantly from the woods around several men appeared--wild-looking, bearded fellows, each of whom carried a rifle.

"What you alls want hyar?" demanded one who seemed to be the leader.

"We were just taking a walk," explained Roy.

"Wa'al, we all don't like strangers particlar."

"So it would seem," rejoined Roy, with a bold voice, although his heart was beating rather fast.

"How'd you alls get hyar?" was the next question from the inquisitor.

"We flew here," rejoined Roy truthfully.

But the man's face grew black with wrath.

"Don' you alls lie to me; it ain't healthy," he said.

"I'm not in the habit of doing so."

"But you said you flew hyar."

"Well, we did."

"See hyar, young stranger, you jes' tell me the truth 'bout how you came or by the eternal I'll make it hot fer you."

"I can only show you that I'm speaking nothing but the truth," rejoined the boy; "if you'll come with me I'll show you what we flew here in."

The man glanced at him suspiciously. It was plain that he feared a trap of some sort. His eyes were wild and shifty as a wolf's.

"Ain't you frum the guv-ment?" he asked.

"I don't know just what you mean."

"I reckin that's jus' more dum' lyin'."

"Thank you."

"Don' get sa.s.sy, young feller, it won't do you no good. But I'll come with you. Come on, boys, we'll take a look at this flyin' thing. I reckon that even if it is a trap there's enough of us to take care of a pack of them."

"That's right, Jeb," agreed the men.

Some of them, who had been hanging back in the bushes, now came forward.

They were all as wild-looking as their leader, Jeb. The old woman mumbled and talked to herself as they strode off behind Roy and Peggy.

It was one of the strangest adventures of their lives and neither one of them could hit on any explanation of the hillmen's conduct.

It did not take long to reach the aeroplane, and Roy turned triumphantly to Jeb.

"Well," he said, "what do you think now?"

"Wa'al, it ain't flyin', is it?"

"Of course not, but I can make it."

"You kin?"

"Certainly."

"Flap its wings and all that like a burd?"

"No, it doesn't flap its wings."

"Then how kin it fly?" propounded Jeb.

A murmur of approval ran through the throng. Jeb's logic appealed to their primitive intellects.

"Nothing can't fly that don't flap its wings," said one of them.

"But if it didn't fly, how in tarnation did it git here?" asked an old man with a grizzled beard and blackened stumps of teeth projecting from shrunken gums.

This appeared to be a poser for even Jeb. He had nothing to say.

"If you like I'll give you a ride in it," proffered Roy to Jeb.

"All right; only no monkey tricks now."

"What do you mean?"

"Wa'al, in course I know it won't fly, but if it does you'll hev to let me out."

With this sage remark Jeb stepped gingerly into the cha.s.sis of the aeroplane. He sat down where he was told and Roy took the wheel. Jeb's companions gazed on in awed silence.

"Look out, Jeb," cried one.

"Don't hit the sky," yelled another.

"Bring me back a star," howled the facetious old man.

"Me a bit of the moon," called another.