The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings Part 27

"Yes, I should say there was. The plans of the mine and its location as prepared for filing have been taken from my tent!"

"Stolen--oh!"

Peggy's voice quivered.

"Stolen," repeated Mr. Bell, "and undoubtedly by the same band of scoundrels that cut the ponies loose, knowing that we could not pursue them."

"But we can overtake them in an aeroplane."

It was Peggy who spoke. Her bosom heaved and her cheeks burned red with excitement.

"True, my brave girl," rejoined Mr. Bell, "but of what use would that be? They have the papers and will file them. Without the papers you could do nothing, and I have no memoranda to draw up fresh ones."

"But in my pocket--I'm cutting no capers--I have a set of duplicate papers!"

Old Peter Bell, triumphant and poetical, stepped forward, at the same time drawing from his inner-coat pocket a bundle. It was the duplicate set which Mr. Bell had given Peggy to deliver to the former hermit, and which, up to that moment, had been forgotten in the excitement.

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Bell, s.n.a.t.c.hing at them; "Peter, you're a brick. Hooray, now we have a chance to beat the scoundrels at their own game."

"You mean if we can file those papers first they stand good in law?"

asked Roy.

"That's just what I do mean, and I think that with the aeroplane we can do it."

"You can depend on it, Mr. Bell, that if there is a chance those papers get into Blue Creek first," cried Peggy ablaze with excitement.

"But we can't start to-night."

Roy's voice held a note of despair.

"That's all right, my boy. You need a good rest anyway. Red Bill--if it is his gang that has taken them--cannot get to Blue Creek for two days anyway. If you start at dawn to-morrow you can outwit them."

And so it was arranged. Roy and Peggy turned in early, while Jimsy worked all night getting the big monoplane in readiness. By earliest dawn all was ready and a hasty breakfast eaten. Then the monoplane was stocked with food and water and everything was ready for the dash across the desert.

Peggy and Roy had slipped into their linen coats and donned their hideous masks with the blue sun goggles, when a figure slipped up on the other side of the cha.s.sis and clambered un.o.bserved into the box-like structure. It was not till half an hour later, when they were dashing through midair, that the figure revealed itself. Then the form of Wandering William crawled from under a bit of canvas used as an engine cover, and in answer to the amazed exclamations of the young aviators said:

"You'll have to forgive me. It'll be a good ad for my business to be able to say that Professor Wandering William has wandered along the aerial Pike."

CHAPTER XXII

MAROONED ON THE DESERT

There was nothing to be done but to accept the situation, little as either Roy or Peggy relished the eccentric "professor" for an aerial traveling companion. Only Peggy remarked with withering scorn:

"I think you might have waited till you were asked, don't you?"

The professor's reply was characteristic.

"My dear young lady, if I never sold anybody a bottle of my medicine except those that really wanted it I'd have a hard time getting along."

Roy was on the point of exclaiming "Bother your old medicine," when he suddenly recollected that had it not been for this queer personage they might not have been in the aeroplane at all.

Instead--but Roy didn't care to think further along those lines.

Far below them suddenly appeared a giant halo of light. It hung above the desert, wheeling and gyrating about five feet above the glaring white of the alkali.

"A halo," remarked Professor Wandering William gazing over the edge of the cha.s.sis.

"A halo? Whose--Roy's?" inquired Peggy.

"No, it is one of those halos peculiar to the desert," was the professor's rejoinder; "it is caused by heat refraction or something of the sort. I recall I did read a lengthy explanation of it somewhere once, but I've forgotten it now."

"Does it portend anything?" asked Roy, turning round for a moment from his levers.

"No. not that I know of, at least--except that it's hot."

"Good gracious, we don't need a halo to tell us that," cried Peggy, and then regarding Professor Wandering William with that frank, straight "between the eyes" look, as Jimsy called it, Peggy remarked, "Do you know, Professor Wandering William, that you are a very odd person?"

"Odd, my dear young lady. How so?"

"Why at times you are quite different to--to what you are at others," stumbled Peggy lamely. It wasn't just what she wanted to say, but as she told herself it expressed it tolerably.

"Almost human sometimes, eh?" chuckled Professor Wandering William with a very odd winkle of his gray eyes; "well, you are not the first person who has said that."

To herself Peggy thought, "I'm sure that if he'd cut his hair and take off that dreadful goatee he'd be quite good looking. And his eyes, too, they twinkle and flash sometimes in a way very much out of keeping with his general appearance." But Professor Wandering William, seemingly quite oblivious to Peggy's frank gaze, was humming "Annie Laurie" to himself and gazing down at the flying desert as it flashed by below.

"At this rate we'll be in Blue Creek long before those other varmints," he observed at length; "that is, if all goes right.

Wonderful things these aeroplanes. Great scheme for selling patent medicine. Why I could scatter my advertis.e.m.e.nts over a whole county in a day's time if I had one of these. That is unless I scattered myself first."

There was a sudden loud hissing sound from the motor. At the same instant the propeller ceased to revolve and the monoplane dashed downward with fearful force.

Roy worked at his levers desperately, while Peggy, white faced but silent, clung tightly to the sides of the cha.s.sis. Professor Wandering William did not utter a word, but his lips moved, as, from a pleasing rapid forward motion their course suddenly changed to that fearful downward plunge through s.p.a.ce.

It seemed that in the molecule of time that intervened between the sudden stopping of the propeller and the moment that they reached the proximity of the ground that a whole lifetime flashed in front of Peggy. "Is this the end?" she caught herself thinking.

But it was not. Roy's skill averted that. He handled the disabled aeroplane so that as it struck the alkali its landing wheels sustained the shock. But even with all his skill he could not entirely ward off the shock. The monoplane struck the alkali in a shower of white dust that hurtled high above it like a breaking sea wave.

Peggy and the professor managed to hold on and resist the grinding shock, but Roy did not fare so well. Like a projectile from a catapult the shock flung him far. He came grinding down into the sand on one shoulder, ploughing a little furrow. Then he lay very still, while Peggy wondered vaguely if she was going to faint.

To scramble from the stranded machine was the work of an instant for the erratic professor, and he extended his hand to Peggy. With a supreme effort she pulled herself together and accepted his proffered help. But agitated as she: was, she did not fail to notice a surprising fact, and that was that the professor's hair was on one side! The next instant he caught the girl's startled eyes fixed upon it, but in that s.p.a.ce of time he readjusted it, so that he appeared exactly as usual. But to Peggy the recollection of that deranged hair was unforgettable.

"It's--it's a wig!" she gasped to herself, and then, casting all other thoughts aside, sped to Roy's side.

"Roy! Roy! are you badly hurt, dear?" she breathed, going down on her knees in the rough surface of the desert.