“So, you see, Jess,” she concluded sadly, “this could not have happened at a worse time for us.”
“I see that,” gently rejoined the other girl, “but listen, dear, you may have a chance to win it after all if you will trust to us to find Roy.”
“Trust to you?” repeated Peggy in a puzzled tone. “Trust to you to find Roy?”
“Yes, my dear, while you—go in and win the race!”
“Why, what are you talking about?” gasped Peggy.
“A brilliant idea that has just occurred to me. You are about Roy’s height, and if your hair was cut short you’d look enough like him to be his twin brother instead of his sister. But that doesn’t matter, for you wear goggles and a helmet in driving that thing, anyway, don’t you?”
“Yes. But,—oh, Jess, I couldn’t do that.”
“Not even for your aunt’s sake, Peggy, and to show those whom you suspect that they could not put a Prescott out of the race, however hard they tried? Come into the shed with me. I am going to persuade you, if I can, to do a brave thing.”
With their arms about each other’s waists the girls walked toward the hangar and entered it. As they did so the figure of Jukes Dade glided from a place of concealment close at hand, and slipping behind some low bushes he gained the rear of the Prescott shed unperceived. Once there he placed an ear to a crack in the structure, from within which could be heard the murmur of girlish voices.
Whatever he heard seemed to strike him with astonishment at first and then with a malicious glee.