“The second cylinder is missing fire,” she pronounced.
Roy bent over the refractory part of the motor and soon had it adjusted. Then the motor settled down to a steady tune, the regular humming throb that delights the heart of the aviator.
“All ready?” inquired Peggy, adjusting her hood and goggles and turning about.
“Right Oh!” hailed Jimsy.
“Now, boys and girls, prepare for a long run,” warned Peggy; “with this load it will take a long time to rise.”
The aeroplane was speeded up and soon traversed the slope leading from the back of the shed to the summit of the little hill at the rear of the Prescott place. As it topped the rise Peggy turned on full power. The Golden Butterfly dashed forward and then, after what seemed a long interval, began to rise. Up it soared, its motor laboring bravely under its heavy burden. In the dusk blue flames could be seen occasionally spurting from the exhausts. It would have been a weird, perhaps a terrifying sight to any one unused to it—the flight of this roaring, flaming, sky monster, through the evening gloom.
“We’ve got half an hour to make the twenty miles,” shouted Roy, from his seat beside his sister. Peggy set her little white even teeth and nodded.
“I’m going to make for the tracks and follow them. That’s the quickest way,” she said.
It seemed only a few seconds later that the red and green lights of a semaphore signal flashed up below them.
“Bradley’s Crossing,” announced Roy.