CHAPTER VI.
THE GIRL AVIATORS IN DEADLY PERIL.
The fire was out. A smoldering, blackened hillock was all that remained of the stack ignited by the lightning bolt; but the others and the main buildings of the farm had been saved.
Such work was a new task for aëroplanes—but there is no doubt that, had it not been for Peggy's suggestion, the Hutchings farm would have been burned to the ground. As it was, when the firemen, their horses in a lather, arrived at the scene, the farm hands, who had been fighting the flames, were almost exhausted.
Had they possessed the time, the young folks would have been glad to tell the curious firemen something about their aëroplanes. But it was well into the afternoon, and if they intended to keep up their itinerary it was necessary for them to be hurrying on. A short time after the blaze had been declared "out" the aëroplanes once more soared aloft, and the auto chugged off in the direction of Meadville.
The afternoon sun shone sparklingly on the trees and fields below, all freshened by the downpour of the early afternoon. The spirits of all rose as did their machines as they raced along. Before leaving the Hutchings farm the old man had been so moved to generosity by the novel manner in which his farm had been saved from destruction that he had offered to give back $2.50 of the $5 he had demanded for the rent of his field. Of course they had not taken it, but the evident anguish with which the offer was made afforded much amusement to the young aviators as they soared along.
In Peggy's machine the talk between herself and Jess was of the strange finding of The Wren, and of the child's curious ways. Both girls recalled her odd conduct during the storm and what she had said about the peculiar influence of lightning on her memory.
"Depend on it, Jess," declared Peggy, with conviction, "that child is no more a gipsy than you or I."
"Do you think she was stolen from somewhere?" asked Jess, readily guessing the drift of her friend's thoughts.
"I don't know, but I'm sure they had no legal right to her," was the reply.
"Oh, Peg! Suppose she should turn out to be a missing heiress!" Jess, who loved a romance, clasped her gauntleted hands.
Peggy laughed.
"Missing heiresses are not so common as you might suppose," she said; "I never met any one who had encountered any, except in story books."
"Still, it would be great if we had really found a long missing child, or—or something like that," concluded Jess, rather lamely.
"I can't see how we would be benefiting the child or its parents, either, since we have no way of knowing who the latter are," rejoined the practical Peggy, which remark closed the discussion for the time being.
It was not more than half an hour later when Jess uttered a sharp cry of alarm. From the forward part of the aëroplane a wisp of smoke had suddenly curled upward. Like a blue serpent of vapor it dissolved in the air almost so quickly as to make Jess believe, for an instant, that she had been the victim of an hallucination.
But that it was no figment of the imagination was evidenced a few moments later by Peggy herself. Aroused by Jess's cry, she had made an inspection of the machine, with alarming results. What these were speedily became manifest.
"Jess! The machine is on fire!" she cried afrightedly.
As if in verification of her words there came a puff of flame and a strong reek of gasoline. It was just then that both girls recalled that the Golden Butterfly carried twenty-five gallons of gasoline, without counting the reserve supply.
Fire on an aëroplane is even more terrifying than a similar casualty on any other type of machine. Hardly had Peggy's words confirming the alarming news left her lips when there came a cry from Jess.
The girl had just glanced at the barograph. It showed that they were then 1,500 feet above the surface of the earth. The girl had hardly made this discovery before, from beneath the "bow" of the monoplane, came a wave of flame; driven from the steering wheel by the heat, Peggy drew back toward her companion. Her face was ashen white.
Left to itself the aëroplane "yawed" wildly, like a craft without a rudder. Then suddenly it dashed down toward the earth, smoke and flames leaping from its front part.
Both girls uttered a cry of terror as the aircraft fell like a stone hurled into space. Faster and faster it dashed earthward without a controlling hand to guide it. It was at this instant that Roy and Jimsy became aware of what had happened.
Instantly they swung their machine around in time to see the Golden Butterfly make her sickening downward swoop. Both lads uttered a cry of fear as they saw what appeared to mean certain death for the two Girl Aviators.
Roy's fingers scarcely grasped the wheel of his machine as he saw the downward drop. Jimsy was as badly affected. But almost before they could grasp a full realization of the accident the Golden Butterfly was almost on the ground. It was in a hilly bit of country, interspersed by small lakes or ponds.
A freak of the wind caught the blazing aëroplane as it fell and drove it right over one of these small bodies of water.
The Golden Butterfly appeared to hesitate for one instant and then plunged right into the water, flinging the two girls out. Both were expert swimmers, but the shock of the sudden descent, and the abrupt manner in which they had been flung into the water had badly unstrung their nerves.
Jess struck out valiantly, but the next instant uttered a cry:
"Peg! Peg! I'm sinking!"
Peggy pluckily struck out for her chum and succeeded in seizing her. Then with brisk strokes she made for the shore, luckily only a few yards distant. It was at this juncture that the boys' machines came to earth almost simultaneously. High above Bess's Dart hovered, and presently it, too, began to drop downward. Apparently the accident had not been seen from the auto, at any rate the car was not turned back toward the scene of the accident.
As the boys' aëroplanes struck the earth not far from the bank of the pond toward which Peggy was at that moment valiantly struggling, the two young aviators leaped out and set out at a run to the rescue. They reached the bank in the nick of time to pull out the two drenched, half-exhausted girls.
"At any rate the fall was a lucky one in a way!" gasped the optimistic Peggy, as soon as she caught her breath, "it put out the fire."
And so it had. Not only that, but the aëroplane, buoyed up by its broad wings, was still floating. On board the Red Dragon was a long bit of rope. Jimsy produced this and then swam out to the drifting Butterfly. The rope was made fast to it and the craft dragged ashore. But when they got it to the bank the problem arose as to how they were going to drag it up the steep acclivity.
Again and again they tried; Bess, who had by this time alighted, aiding them. But it was all to no purpose. Even their united strength failed to move the heavy apparatus.
"I've got an idea!" shouted Jimsy suddenly, during a pause in their laborious operations.
"Good! Don't let it get away, I beg of you!" implored Peggy.
"Oh, Peg! Don't tease, besides, you don't look a bit cute with your hair all wet and draggled, and as for your dress—goodness!"
This came from Jess, herself sadly "rumpled" and in addition wet through. Before Peggy could reply to her chum's half rallying remark Jimsy, unabashed, continued:
"We'll hitch this rope to the Red Dragon and then start her up for all she's worth."
"Jimsy, you're a genius!"
"A modern marvel!"
"A solid promontory of pure gray matter!"
In turn the remarks came from each of the party. But Jimsy, bothering not at all at the laughing encomiums, proceeded to secure the rope to the Red Dragon. This done, he started up the engine and clambered into his seat.
"All ashore that's going ashore!" he yelled, in mocking imitation of the stewards of an ocean liner.
There wasn't an instant's hesitation as he threw the load upon the engine. Then the rope tautened. It grew tight as a fiddle string.
"Goodness! It'll snap and the Dragon will be broken!" cried Jess, in alarm.
But no such thing happened. Instead, as the Dragon's powerful propeller blades "bit" into the air, the Golden Butterfly obediently mounted the steep bank of the pond. Five minutes later the pretty craft stood on dry land and the party of young aviators were eagerly making an investigation of the damage done.
The cause of the fire was soon found. A tiny leak in the tank had allowed some gasoline to drip into the bottom of the chassis, or passenger carrier. Collecting here, it was plain that a back fire from the carburetor had ignited it.
Neither of the girls could repress a shudder as they thought of what might have occurred had they been higher in the air and no convenient pond handy for them to drop into. In such a case the flames might have reached the gasoline tank before they could be extinguished and inevitably a fearful explosion would have followed.
"I think you are the two luckiest girls in the world," declared Roy solemnly, as he concluded his examination and announced his conclusions. Naturally they fully agreed with him.