Nan found her tent about as she had left it. The inmates were still asleep. “How strange,” she said to herself, “that I should have been to the top of Helicon and taken flight with Bellerophon on Pegasus while these girls have slept on not knowing a thing about it! I wonder where their astral bodies have been! Douglas looks so happy, poor dear, I fancy hers has been in heaven.”
Aloud she cried: “Get up, girls! Wake up! It is awfully late—the camp is stirring and there is a lot to do. I have found a new boarder! He dropped from the clouds and is starved to death.”
CHAPTER XII
PLEASE REMIT
Of course everyone was vastly interested in Mr. Tom Smith and his aeroplane. That young man, however, exhibited a modest demeanor which was very pleasant to members of his sex. He promised to take any and all of the campers flying if his machine was in good order. He thought it needed a little tinkering, however, as he had noticed a little clicking sound above the usual clack and hum of the motor.
“How on earth did you happen to land here?” asked someone.
“Airman’s instinct, I reckon. I was looking for the camp and had heard there was a mountain with a smooth plateau around here somewhere. A place to land is our biggest problem. The time will come when there will be landing stations for flyers just as they have tea houses for automobilists now. There is great danger of becoming entangled in trees and telegraph wires. A place looks pretty good for lighting when you are up in the clouds and then when you get down you find what seemed to be a smooth, grassy plain is perhaps the top of a scrub oak forest.”
After breakfast the whole camp of week-enders marched to the top of the mountain to view the great bird, but the Carter girls had to stay behind to prepare for the picnic. Many sandwiches must be made and the baskets packed. Nan had her usual bowl of mayonnaise to stir. She looked very demure in her great apron but her eyes were dancing with the remembrance of her morning’s escapade.
“You look very perky this morning, honey,” said Douglas, as she packed a basket of turnovers and cheese cakes with great care not to crush those wonders of culinary art.