And so it was arranged. Roy and Peggy turned in early, while Jimsy worked all night getting the big monoplane in readiness. By earliest dawn all was ready and a hasty breakfast eaten. Then the monoplane was stocked with food and water and everything was ready for the dash across the desert.
Peggy and Roy had slipped into their linen coats and donned their hideous masks with the blue sun goggles, when a figure slipped up on the other side of the chassis and clambered unobserved into the box-like structure. It was not till half an hour later, when they were dashing through midair, that the figure revealed itself. Then the form of Wandering William crawled from under a bit of canvas used as an engine cover, and in answer to the amazed exclamations of the young aviators said:
"You'll have to forgive me. It'll be a good ad for my business to be able to say that Professor Wandering William has wandered along the aerial Pike."
CHAPTER XXII
MAROONED ON THE DESERT
There was nothing to be done but to accept the situation, little as either Roy or Peggy relished the eccentric "professor" for an aerial traveling companion. Only Peggy remarked with withering scorn:
"I think you might have waited till you were asked, don't you?"
The professor's reply was characteristic.
"My dear young lady, if I never sold anybody a bottle of my medicine except those that really wanted it I'd have a hard time getting along."
Roy was on the point of exclaiming "Bother your old medicine," when he suddenly recollected that had it not been for this queer personage they might not have been in the aeroplane at all. Instead—but Roy didn't care to think further along those lines.