MR. MORTLAKE LOSES SOME DRAWINGS.
Dashing along the rough country road, with every sense on the alert, Peggy found mental occupation enough to drive gloomier thoughts from her mind. The Prescott's car was a good one, with a powerful, sixty-horse motor, and splendidly upholstered. It was painted a dark blue, and was known in the surrounding country as "The Blue Bird." It had been purchased with the money made by the brother and sister from their shares in James Bell's desert mine.
Far above them sailed the aeroplane, its two occupants from time to time waving at their pretty sisters below. But in the upper-air currents, it would have been dangerous to drive at a pace slow enough to keep level with the automobile, and so the aeroplane soon dashed on ahead. From time to time, however, it made circles and swoops, which brought it sometimes in seemingly dangerous closeness to the tree-tops.
All at once Peggy stopped the automobile with a jerk which almost threw Jess, who was unprepared for the shock, out of the car.
"Good gracious, Peggy, what are you trying to do?" she gasped.
"Look!" cried Peggy, pointing with wide eyes.
In the center of the road lay a rolled-up bundle of papers secured with a rubber band.
"Somebody has dropped something from another auto or a wagon," cried Jess.
"I think so," said Peggy in excited tones, as she descended from the car, "and I've an idea that these papers have been dropped from Mr. Harding's car. It must have been the only one to pass here recently, as this road runs direct to the farm and nowhere else."
She stooped down in the road and picked up the bundle and then, with a beating heart, she opened it. But for an inward intuition of what its contents would prove to be, Peggy, with her rigid ideas of honor, could not have brought herself to do this. As her eyes fell on the first sheet, and she saw that it was covered with annotations and sketches, she gave a little cry.
"Oh, Jess! The luck! The wonderful, wonderful luck!"
"Why, what is it? A bundle of thousand-dollar bills, or——"
"It isn't that or anything," cried Peggy; "it's—oh, Jess—it's the sketches and plans of our aeroplane that Mortlake and his accomplice Harding were spiriting away."
"They must have dropped them from their automobile," said Jess.
"Or, more likely, from the pockets of one of them. See, the ground is trampled about here. It looks to me as if they had had a break-down, and were fixing it when the papers fell out and were left behind unnoticed. Oh, what a bit of luck! If they had had those papers, it would have meant——"
A shrill cry from Jess interrupted her. At the same moment Peggy became conscious of a presence behind her. She wheeled sharply and found herself facing two bloated-faced individuals, one of whom carried a heavy cudgel. Their clothes and broken boots, and their leering, odious appearance at once proclaimed them of the genus tramp.
"Waal!" growled one of the men, with an ugly leer, "we didn't hardly expec' ter run inter such luck ez this. Foun' suthin' vallerable, hev yer? Reckin' it must hev bin dropped by that auto that jes' went round the corner beyond. We'll hev ter trouble you for it, miss."
He held out a filthy hand, while Peggy, with a beating heart, fell back toward the car.
"Frum what we hearn' yer sayin', I guess the papers is vallerable, all right," chimed in the first speaker's companion. "Come on, now. Fork over. You know it ain't honest ter take wot don't berlong ter ye, an' by yer own confession them papers don't."
"What right have you to demand them?" asked Peggy boldly enough, despite her inward terror; "you had better go on at once, or——"
"Waal, or what?" sneered the other. "We've got ye here on a lonely road. You can't escape us. Come on, hand over them papers. We'll see that ther rightful owners git 'em, and that we git er reward beside. See?"
Peggy's reply was to leap nimbly into the machine. But to her horror the two tramps followed instantly. Jess cowered back in her seat. Her pale lips moved, but she said nothing.
"Tell yer wot," burst out the man with the club, "you gals give us ten bones a piece—the money don't mean much to folks like you—an' we'll let yer go. If not——"
A sudden inspiration came to Peggy—a flash of recollection.
"Why didn't you say that before?" she said cheerfully. "I'll be glad to give you the money. Wait a minute while I get it out."
She raised the cushion of the front "bucket seat," and dived beneath it with one hand. The men watched her with greedy, yet suspicious eyes.
"Ain't tryin' ter fool us, are yer?" growled one of them, "'cos ef you air——"
He raised his club threateningly, just as Peggy's hand withdrew from beneath the cushion. Something bright flashed in it.
"Look out, Mike. She's got a gun!" shouted one of the men, falling back.
The other whipped a hand amidst his rags and was just about to aim a pistol, when:
"Phiz-z-z-z-z-z-z-z!"
From the shiny object Peggy held in her hand, a fine stream of some sort of liquid jetted forcibly.
The fellow with the gun threw his hands up to his face, and dropping the pistol, staggered back with a howl of agony. The other darted off without even looking at him. The air was filled with a pungent scent of ammonia, and a quiet smile of triumph curled Peggy's red lips as she started the car in motion once more.
"Oh, Peggy, how brave you are!" gasped Jess. "Whatever was that you used? I hope the poor man isn't badly hurt, although he was so horrid."
"I just remembered in time, Jess dear," said Peggy, as she sped the car along, "that we had under the seat an ammonia pistol for use on vicious dogs. I used it on another sort of a dog, that's all, and it proved equally effective."
Just at this moment Peggy turned out to avoid another car that was approaching them from the opposite direction. In a second she saw that it carried Harding and Mortlake. They both looked angry and blank. Peggy guessed at once that they had discovered their loss. But she resolved not to stop unless they did and asked questions. She felt that such a despicable act as they had attempted to perpetrate deserved no help on her part.
"Hey, there!" shouted old Mr. Harding, as his car was slowed down by the chauffeur. "Hey, stop! I want to speak to you!"
"He's polite about it, isn't he?" whispered Jess. "Are you going to tell him, Peggy?"
"Cer-tain-ly not," rejoined Peggy, with a tightening of her lips. "Why should I? He tried to fasten a theft on my brother this morning, and then caps the climax by instigating Mortlake to try to steal the ideas of our aeroplane."
"Hey, girls, seen a package on the road?" bawled old Mr. Harding, as Peggy slowed up and stopped.
"I recovered some of my own property, if that is what you mean," said Peggy slowly, a dull flush rising to her cheeks.
"Well—well! What d'ye mean by that, hey? What d'ye mean by that?"
"You may construe it any way you wish to, Mr. Harding," was the cold rejoinder, and to avoid further questioning, Peggy sped up her machine, and soon vanished in a cloud of dust.
The old financier turned to his companion with a look of disgusted amazement.
"What d'ye think of that, hey, Mortlake?" he snapped out. "What d'ye think of that? Fine young girls, eh? Nice products of the twentieth century, hey?"
"Oh, let's get on and see if we can't find that roll of papers somewhere along here," rejoined Mortlake impatiently. "I don't think it's likely they could have seen it. It must have fallen from my pocket where the car broke down and I got out."
"Hey? Oh, yes, yes. That's it. Drive on, Tom. Drive us to where the car broke down."
In a few seconds they reached the spot just in time to see the two tramps who had molested the girls making off.
"There they go!" shouted Mortlake, "those fellows must have found them. I wouldn't lose those sketches for a thousand dollars. Put on more speed, Tom, and overtake them."
The chauffeur did as he was bid, and the car leaped ahead. In a few chugs it had reached the tramps' side, they having stopped, bewildered, in the meantime.
"Why, blow me, Bill," said one to the other, as the car came up, "if it ain't the self-same gents as drove down the road a while ago."
"Give me those papers, you rascals!" shouted Mortlake, almost flinging himself out of the car, "give them to me or——"
"Hold your horses, guv'ner! Hold your hosses," counseled the hobo who had received the dose of ammonia, and whose eyes were still red from its effects.
"Wot papers might you be lookin' fer?" asked this fellow cautiously, although he knew very well.
"A bundle of papers I dropped," panted Mortlake. "Didn't you find them."
"Naw!" grunted the red-eyed tramp.
"Naw!" echoed the other.
"Be careful what you say. If you are lying, it will go hard with you."
The warning came from old Mr. Harding.
"We know that, guv'ner. But we ain't got 'em. Search us, if yer like."
The knights of the road spread their arms to signify their willingness to be searched. Mortlake groaned. It was evident that neither of the tatterdermalions had the papers. But what had become of them? In his distress and chagrin, Mortlake gave an audible groan.
This the tramps seemed to construe as a favorable sign. One winked to the other, and the red-eyed one spoke.
"Wots it worth if we tell yer where them papers are, guv'ners both?"
"What, you know!" cried Mortlake, while old Mr. Harding spluttered:
"Eh, eh? Hey, what's all this? What's all this?"
"I didn't say we knew," was the cunning reply. "I said what's it worth if we did know."
Mortlake drew out a yellow-backed bill.
"Is this enough?" he asked.
The tramps' eyes rounded as they gazed at the figure.
"Perfec'ly satisfactory, guv'ner," said red eyes.
"Well, where are those papers, then?" snapped Mortlake impatiently.
"Thet thar purty gal wot jest went by in an autermobubble has 'em."
"What!"
"Yes. We saw her pick them up out of the road. We tried to convince her it was dishonest to keep 'em, but she wouldn't listen to us."
"You've done well, and seem to be bright fellows," said Mortlake, handing over the bill to red eyes, who seemed to be the leader of the two, "by the way, you don't belong about here, do you?"
"Oh, no, guv'ner. Our homes is whar we hangs our hats. My permanent address is care of the 'dicky birds.'"
"Well, I may have some work for you to do——"
"Work, guv'ner? Work's only for the workmen."
"I know all that, but this work is on your own line. I'll pay well, too. If you want to talk it over, come to the Mortlake Aeroplane Factory, outside Sandy Beach at ten o'clock to-night. I'll be there to meet you."
"All right, guv'ner; we'll be, thar. Till then we'll bid yer 'oliver oil,' as ther French say. Come on, Joey."
The worthy pair shuffled off up the road, while Mortlake turned to Harding with a shrug.
"There are two tools made to our hand. We may find them very useful."
"I agree with you," was the dry and rasping reply; "at least, they have put us in possession of one valuable bit of knowledge, hey?"