Roy looked perplexed.
"What am I to do, Aunt Sally?" he appealed, turning to Miss
Prescott.
To Peggy's astonishment, as much as anyone else's, Miss Prescott did not veto their going.
"I think it would be great folly for you to go on an expedition of this kind alone," she said, addressing Roy. "As Peggy says, if anything went wrong what could you do alone?"
"Oh, aunt, you're a dear!" cried Peggy, giving the kindly old lady a bear hug.
"But I make one condition," continued Miss Prescott, "and that is, that whatever you find, you do not delay, but report back here as soon as possible. I could not bear much more anxiety."
This was readily promised, and ten minutes later the three young aviators were in the chassis of the big monoplane. After a moment's fiddling with levers and adjustments Roy started the motor. Heavily laden as it was the staunch aeroplane shot upward steadily after a short run. As it grew rapidly smaller, and finally became a mere black shoe button in the distance, Miss Prescott turned to old Peter Bell with a sigh.
"Heaven grant they all come back safe and sound," she exclaimed.
"Amen to that, ma'am," was the response, and then unconsciously lapsing into his rhythmical way of expressing himself, the old man added: "Though flying through the air so high they'll come back safely by and by."
And then, while old Peter shuffled off to water the stock, Miss Prescott fell to continuing her fancy work which the good lady had brought with her from the Fast. An odd picture she made, sitting there in that dreary grove in the desert, with her New England suggestion of primness and house-wifely qualities showing in striking contrast to the strange setting of the rest of the picture.