THE START OF THE SKY CRUISE.
"The first flight is to be to Cape Charles and return, a distance of sixty miles, approximately," announced Jimsy the next morning. He held in his hand a small blue folder which had been issued to all the contestants. It contained the rules and regulations governing the first day's tests.
A hasty breakfast was followed by a quick trip to the grounds in one of the ancient hacks that seem to swarm in Hampton. If the starting field had been a scene of confusion the day before, it was a veritable chaos now. Smoke and the fumes of gasolene hung like a pall above it. Through the bluish cloud could be seen dim figures hurrying with cans of fuel or lubricant, bags of tools and engine parts.
"Reminds me of circus day," commented Jimsy, looking about him; "hullo, there's the Cobweb out already," he exclaimed presently.
Across the field could be seen the silvery wings of the Mortlake aeroplane. Several figures hovered about her, adjusting stays and putting finishing touches to her complicated mechanism.
Presently a hush settled over the scene, and the party of naval officers, detailed to superintend the start and take the times of the competing craft, came through the crowd. They were directing their steps to an unpainted wooden structure at one end of the field. This building was equipped with various instruments for recording time accurately. From it also would presently be given out the wind velocity and any other data of interest to the aviators.
The party in full uniform swung past our three young adventurers. Lieutenant Bradbury was among them. He bowed and was about to pass on when he stopped and fell back.
"Now, don't get nervous, and do your best," he said to Peggy; "I'm sure that we shall all have reason to be proud of the Golden Butterfly before these tests are over."
"I hope so," rejoined Peggy; "we shall do our best, at any rate."
"I know you will, and now if you'll excuse me I must be hurrying on. The board has an immense amount of work to do before ten o'clock, the official starting hour."
The trio, left to themselves, made for the shed which bore the legend "Nameless" above its door. Many curious eyes followed them as they paused before it, and Jimsy inserted a key in the stout padlock. Who could the two pretty girls in natty motor bonnets, with goggles attached, the plain, heavy skirts and dark shirt-waists be? Speculation ran rife. There was a regular stampede of reporters and photographers to the shed of the Nameless. But when they arrived there, to their chagrin, they found that their prospective victims had slipped inside and only the blank doors greeted them.
Among the crowd that hastened to try to solve the mystery of the Nameless was Fanning Harding, whose attention had been attracted by the rush of the crowd. At his side was Regina Mortlake. They arrived just in time to hear somebody say:
"It's two pretty girls and a good-looking boy. They're just kids."
Fanning and Regina exchanged glances. The girl actually turned pale.
"They are here after all," she exclaimed, "and I thought you said they weren't."
"Well, how on earth was I to know that they had hidden their machine under that name. There are so many freak craft here that——"
"You are more of an idiot than I thought you," said the girl, impatiently; "all our work has gone for nothing."
"No; there is time yet. If only Eccles and that other chap hadn't decamped like that last night, we might have put them to work to-night."
"They decamped—as you call it—because your father wouldn't give them any more money," said Regina with flashing eyes, "that was inexcusable folly. They know too many of our secrets to allow them to wander about unwatched."
"Oh, two tramps like that wouldn't have the sense to make any use of what they know," rejoined Fanning easily, "besides——"
But Regina Mortlake's mind was busy on another tack.
"Isn't it against the rules for women or girls to drive machines in this contest?" she asked.
"Say!" Fanning's eyes glistened, "I guess it is. Let's find out. If Peggy Prescott is going to drive that machine we may be able to head them off yet."
The two conspirators hastened across the field to the unpainted wooden shack that housed the committee. A crowd surged about it asking questions and demanding impossible things. It was some time before Fanning, elbowing people right and left as he was, could reach the front. He scanned a printed list of the entries for the contest hung on the wall. As he read it he blamed himself bitterly for not looking at it the day before. Near the bottom was the name "Nameless, entrant Miss Margaret Prescott."
Suddenly the disgruntled youth spied Lieut. Bradbury.
"A moment," he cried. As the young officer turned, Fanning, without a word of greeting, bellowed out:
"Ain't it against the rules for a girl to drive an aeroplane in this contest."
"Not that I am aware of," rejoined the officer. He reached over to a stack of pink booklets.
"Here's a book of rules. Read it."
"Hold on," cried Fanning, as the officer moved off, "I want to make a protest I——"
"Make your protest in writing. No verbal ones will be considered," said the officer briefly.
"But see here——"
"I've no time to talk now, Mr. Harding. Good morning," and the officer passed on.
The crowd began to grin, and soon laughed openly. This enraged Fanning the more. He angrily shoved his way to the outskirts where Regina was awaiting him.
"Well?" she said, lifting her dark eyebrows.
"Well," echoed Fanning in a surly tone, "it's no go."
"No go. What do you mean?"
"I mean that there isn't anything in the rules, apparently, to prevent a woman or a girl driving an aeroplane if she wants to."
"Come and let's see my father," suggested the girl, presently, "he'll want to know about this. It may mean a complete change of our plans."
"You'll have to change 'em to beat the Golden Butterfly," muttered Fanning; "if only those drawings hadn't been lost we'd have had that balancer, and it looks to me as if we might need it before we get to Cape Charles."
"Why?"
"The wind's freshening. Not more than a half dozen of these aeroplanes will venture up. Bother the luck, if it wasn't for the Golden Butterfly, we'd have a clean sweep."
"This is only the first day," counseled Regina; "the points scored to-day will not count for so very much. There's plenty of time."
"Humph," grumbled Fanning, and as this conversation had brought them up to the Silver Cobweb, he broke it off to communicate his intelligence concerning the Prescott aeroplane to Mortlake, who heard it with a lowering brow.
Bang!
A bomb shot upward and exploded, in a cloud of thick yellow smoke, in mid-air.
"The half-hour signal," cried Jimsy; "everything ready?"
"As ready as it ever will be," rejoined Peggy nervously fingering a stay wire.
The navigators of the Nameless were still inside the shed. The doors were still closed. Peggy had decided not to risk having the machine damaged by the crowd by bringing it out before the very last moment. As the bomb sounded Jimsy drew out his watch. He kept it in his hand awaiting the elapse of the preliminary half-hour.
Outside, as Fanning had prophesied, there had been a great and sweeping reduction in the number of aeroplanes that were to start. The puffy wind had scared most of the entrants of the freak types and only five of the more conventional kind of aircraft were on the starting line. The Silver Cobweb was among them.
Fanning was in the driver's seat. As a passenger he carried Regina Mortlake. She looked very stunning in her lurid aviation costume, and her handsome face was as calm as chiseled marble. Her nervousness only displayed itself by a constant tapping of her gauntleted fingers.
Fanning finished oiling the motor and adjusting grease cups and timers, and straightening up, glanced nervously about him. Still no sign of the Nameless.
"I guess they've got scared off by the wind," he grinned to Mortlake, who, with the elder Harding and several machinists, stood by the side of the Cobweb.
"I doubt it," rejoined Mortlake; "it would take more than that to alarm those girls. And just to think that all our trouble to out-maneuver them has gone for nothing."
"You did a bad thing when you let Eccles and that other chap get away," commented Fanning; "I don't like their disappearance at all."
"Why?"
"Well, for one thing, they know a good deal that would make it very awkward for us if they fell into the hands of anyone who disliked us. And again——"
"Pshaw! You are alarming yourself over nothing. They were well paid and they wouldn't dare to make trouble. If they told about us they'd implicate themselves."
"Just the same I don't feel easy. Hullo! there goes the second bomb. That fellow's just going to touch it off, and——"
At the same instant the doors of the Nameless's shed were flung open. From them emerged the glistening form of the golden-winged Butterfly. Half a dozen men whom Jimsy had hired pushed the aerial craft rapidly across the field to the starting line. So engrossed was the crowd in watching the other machines that they hardly noticed the arrival of the added starter.
But not so Mortlake and his companions. They watched, with jaundiced eyes, the forthcoming of their dreaded rival, and if wishes could have disabled her, the Golden Butterfly would never have flown on that day.
B-o-o-m!
The echoes of the second bomb rang deafeningly.
"They're off!" yelled the crowd, as if there might have been some doubt of it.
Up into the puffy air winged six aeroplanes. It was a glorious sight. From the chassis of the various air craft the airmen waved farewells to the cheering crowd.
Flying, wing and wing, they dashed off toward where the sea lay, a deep blue patch, beyond the shore. Presently they faded into dots and then were blotted out altogether.
"There's a thick haze out there," said one of the officers, as the aeroplanes vanished.
The word ran through the crowd and created a momentary sensation. Then the big throng dismissed the flying aeroplanes from its mind, and wandered about the grounds gazing openmouthed at the freak types, whose inventors were willing enough—too willing—to explain their remarkable points.
It might be a long time before the first of the homing craft would come in sight and what was the use of worrying about them. Only in the wooden structure housing the naval officers was there any concern displayed.
"If it's thick weather," said Lieutenant Bradbury, summing up a discussion, "they're going to have some trouble on their hands out there."