“He has blown up the building and every one in it!” gasped the startled youth. “I wonder whether the child has been hurt; Pendar can take care of himself.”
Harvey hesitated whether to run to the spot, and had made up his mind to do so, when he was checked by an incident that in its way was as startling as the explosion.
It will be remembered that he had brought his aeroplane to rest in the large clearing in front of the humble home of Uncle Tommy Waters, the weather prophet. Had the circumstances been different, he would have given attention to the house and its occupants, but the thrilling incidents in course of happening elsewhere kept his eyes turned in the opposite direction, and the cabin might as well have been a hundred miles distant for all he knew of it for the time.
That which caught his attention with the suddenness of a snap of a whip in his ear and caused him to whirl the other way was a childish voice:
“Oh, isn’t that a funny thing?”
Harvey Hamilton was struck speechless for a moment by the sight that greeted his eyes. Two little girls, one freckled, homely, and poorly dressed, the other pretty, with clustering curls and in fine clothes, stood side by side, no more than a dozen paces distant, staring wonderingly at him and the aeroplane. The third member of the group was an immense shaggy dog as black as midnight, which stood wagging his tail as if pleased with what he saw. In the door of the cabin behind them was the pudgy wife of Uncle Tommy, also staring and seemingly at a loss to comprehend the strange doings and sights. Uncle Tommy was not visible, having gone to Chesterton earlier in the day, with the time of his return uncertain.
Harvey beckoned the children to draw near. With some timidity they did so, the dog following as if to see that no harm befell either. The two halted a few steps away and smiled, the homely one with her forefinger between her lips and her head to one side. Her companion showed no embarrassment.
“Your name is Grace Hastings, isn’t it?” asked the young aviator, in a kindly voice and with a rapidly beating heart.
“Yes,—what’s your name?” she asked with winsome confidence.
“Harvey Hamilton; wouldn’t you like to go home to mamma?”