But they had not reached Gid Gibbons’s place, or rather a location above it, when an astonishing thing happened. From the ground a red light and a green light set at some distance apart began to rise. Up and up they climbed through the night in long, swinging circles. Between them was dimly visible the dark outlines of some fabric.
“An aeroplane!” cried the boy and girl, simultaneously.
“Fan Harding’s aeroplane!” cried Peggy, an instant later.
“And—oh, Roy—it can fly!” she added, admiringly.
“No doubt of that,” was the rather grudging reply, as the red and green lights soared up and up.
“Keep clear of it, sis, we don’t want a collision,” warned Roy.
“Oh, I’d like to get close and see it,” breathed Peggy. “I never would have credited Fan Harding with being able to do it.”
“Nor I,” exclaimed Roy, his dislike of Fan Harding giving place to admiration—genuine admiration—of the other’s ingenuity.
“Well, he’s beaten me out at my own particular specialty,” he exclaimed presently, after an interval in which the lights had climbed far above the Golden Butterfly. “That’s a better machine than ours, Peg.”
“I guess we’ll have to admit that,” rejoined the girl, with a sigh. “I wonder if he’ll enter for the prize?”