Part 11 (1/2)

”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 cha.s.sis 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 b.u.t.ton 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.

CHAPTER IX

AGAINST HEAVY ODDS

”Any sign of them yet, Roy?”

Peggy leaned forward and gently touched her brother's arm.

”I can't see a solitary speck that even remotely resembles them,” he said. ”It looks bad,” he added with considerable anxiety in his tones.

Peggy took a peep at the plan which was spread out before Roy on a little shelf designed to hold aerial charts. Then she glanced at the compa.s.s and the distance indicator.

”We must be close to the place now,” she said; ”it's somewhere off there, isn't it?”

”There” was a range of low hills cut and slashed by steep-walled gullies and canyons. In some of these canyons there appeared to be traces of vegetation, giving rise to the suspicion that water might be obtained there by digging.

Roy nodded.

”That's the place, and there's that high cone shaped hill that the plan indicates as the location of the mine.”

”But there's not a trace of them-oh, Jimsy!”

Jess's tones were vibrant with cruel anxiety. Her face was pale and troubled. As for Peggy, her heart began to beat uncomfortably fast.

But she wisely gave no outer sign.

”Don't worry, girlie,” she said in as cheerful and brisk a tone as she could call up on the spur of the moment, ”it will be all right.

I'm sure of it.”

Circling high above the range of barren hills they took a thorough survey of them. There was no sign of the missing aeroplane or her occupants, but all at once beneath them they saw something that caused them all to utter an astonished shout.

In one of the shallower gullies there was suddenly revealed the forms of an immense pack of animals of a gray color and not unlike dogs.

”Wolves!” cried Peggy.

”No, they are coyotes,” declared Roy; ”I recollect now hearing Mr.

Bell say that these hills were frequented by them.”