“Well as you wish,” he said, strolling off, “but dad has been pretty lenient with you up to date. As you won’t meet us half way, though I’m going to advise him to force you to sell the Golden Butterfly.”
“How?”
“By foreclosing that mortgage without further delay.”
Fanning whipped the words out with a vicious intonation. All his mean nature surged up into his face as he spoke. Roy breathed a little quicker. But outwardly he was calm and cold as ice.
“That’s your privilege,” he said shortly, turning away, but that night he and Peggy had a troubled discussion about ways and means, and it became more than ever evident to them how much depended on winning the five thousand dollar prize.
There were several aspirants in the juvenile class on the grounds as well as fliers of more mature years, for Mr. Higgins had interested some other capitalists, and it had been decided to make quite an event out of the aerial meet.
On the day before the race, which meant so much to them, Peggy and Roy decided to take a practice spin across country in their ’plane. The capable looking machine excited much favorable comment when it was wheeled out of its shed. Several of the other competitors gathered about it while the engine was being tuned up. Among them was a surly looking chap with a dark, roughly-shaven chin and a pair of shifty eyes. He stood beside Fanning Harding, who was also in the crowd about the Golden Butterfly.
The Sandy Bay boy gazed on with a sneering look while our two young aviators got everything in readiness. This took some time for everybody was anxious to take a hand in the work, and it was quite a task to kindly, but steadfastly, reject these offers, well meant as they were.
At last everything appeared to be in good shape and with a buzz and a whirr the engine was tried out. It worked perfectly, and before the crowd had had time to cheer, the aeroplane shot up from the ground in front of its shed with hardly any preliminary run. Then came a belated cheer.
“That’s the craft that wins the big prize,” said a stout, good-natured looking man.