"Oh, Jess! The luck! The wonderful, wonderful luck!"
"Why, what is it? A bundle of thousand-dollar bills, or——"
"It isn't that or anything," cried Peggy; "it's—oh, Jess—it's the sketches and plans of our aeroplane that Mortlake and his accomplice Harding were spiriting away."
"They must have dropped them from their automobile," said Jess.
"Or, more likely, from the pockets of one of them. See, the ground is trampled about here. It looks to me as if they had had a break-down, and were fixing it when the papers fell out and were left behind unnoticed. Oh, what a bit of luck! If they had had those papers, it would have meant——"
A shrill cry from Jess interrupted her. At the same moment Peggy became conscious of a presence behind her. She wheeled sharply and found herself facing two bloated-faced individuals, one of whom carried a heavy cudgel. Their clothes and broken boots, and their leering, odious appearance at once proclaimed them of the genus tramp.
"Waal!" growled one of the men, with an ugly leer, "we didn't hardly expec' ter run inter such luck ez this. Foun' suthin' vallerable, hev yer? Reckin' it must hev bin dropped by that auto that jes' went round the corner beyond. We'll hev ter trouble you for it, miss."
He held out a filthy hand, while Peggy, with a beating heart, fell back toward the car.
"Frum what we hearn' yer sayin', I guess the papers is vallerable, all right," chimed in the first speaker's companion. "Come on, now. Fork over. You know it ain't honest ter take wot don't berlong ter ye, an' by yer own confession them papers don't."
"What right have you to demand them?" asked Peggy boldly enough, despite her inward terror; "you had better go on at once, or——"