Margaret Burnham

“ In the midst of their merry feast the sound of wheels was heard and a rig from the station drove up. Out of it stepped a venerable old gentleman in a well-fitting dark suit, with well blackened shoes and an altogether neat and prosperous appearance.
Peggy and Jess who had run to the window at the sound of wheels saw him assisted to the ground by a younger man whom they both recognized with a cry of astonishment.
“Mr. Jim Bell. But who is the old gentleman?”
“Why it’s—it’s the hermit!” cried Roy.
“Good gracious, is that fashionable looking old man a hermit?” gasped Jimsy. ”

“ Miss Prescott began with dignity, when Alverado, who, like the rest, had been watching the advancing cavalcade eagerly, suddenly announced:
"They vaqueros—cowboys!"
"Cowboys!" shrilled Miss Prescott. "That's worse. Oh, dear, I wish
I'd never come to the land of the cowboys!"
"You speak as if they were some sort of animal, aunt," laughed Peggy. "I daresay there is no reason to be alarmed at them. I've always heard that they were very courteous and deferential to ladies."
"What would cowboys be doing away out here where there isn't a cow or a calf or even an old mule in sight?" inquired Jess. ”

“ As it topped the rise Peggy turned on full power. The Golden Butterfly dashed forward and then, after what seemed a long interval, began to rise. Up it soared, its motor laboring bravely under its heavy burden. In the dusk blue flames could be seen occasionally spurting from the exhausts. It would have been a weird, perhaps a terrifying sight to any one unused to it—the flight of this roaring, flaming, sky monster, through the evening gloom.
“We’ve got half an hour to make the twenty miles,” shouted Roy, from his seat beside his sister. Peggy set her little white even teeth and nodded. ”

“ Like a darting, pouncing swallow, seeking its food in mid-air, the Golden Butterfly swooped, soared and dived in long, graceful gradients above the Mortlake plant. Once Peggy brought the aeroplane so close to the ground in a long, swinging sweep, that it seemed as if it could never recover enough "way" to rise again. Even the officer, trained in a strict school to repress his emotions, tightened his lips, and then opened them to emit a relieved gasp. ”

“ That is what I mean when I say 'a dry storm."'
"I can't bear lightning," cried Jess; "I always go in the cellar at home when it comes."
"Never mind, Jess, Roy and I will dig you one if the storm hits us," put in her brother gallantly.
"And one for me, too, please!" cried Miss Prescott; "I'm dreadfully afraid of lightning."
"Well, let us hope that we shall none of us have any cause for alarm," put in Peter Bell, the former hermit. "When I lived my solitary life I often used to wander out in the height of a storm. It was beautiful to watch the lightning ripping and tearing across the sky. ”

“ Beneath them wound a road, along which, but at some distance behind, the touring car could be seen coming in a cloud of yellow dust.
The wind began to grow puffy, and it required all the skill of the young aviators to keep their flock of motor-driven birds on even wings. Before long, just as the distant, but fast approaching, cloud curtain began to be ripped and slashed by vivid scimitars of lightning, Roy espied, beneath them, a field, at one end of which stood a prosperous-looking farmhouse, surrounded by buildings and hay stacks. ”

“ Jimsy shouted something, but his words were drowned in the roar of the motor as Roy clambered into the Golden Butterfly and Peggy started the engine.
The aeroplane dashed forward over the smooth turf and then seemed to take the air as lightly and easily as a bit of gossamer. Straight up it soared, high above the tree tops, and was speedily reduced to a fast diminishing speck in the northwest in which direction lay Doctor Mays’ home. Looking downward from the speeding flyer the boy and girl aviators could see, spread out below them like a checkerboard, the fertile Long Island landscape. ”

“ Eddies of hot wind caught up larger grains and dried cactus stems and drove them in terrestrial water spouts across the face of the desert. The moon was quite obscured now, and it was as black as a country church at midnight.
All at once Peggy's pony sank down, and with a long sigh stretched itself out upon the alkali. Roy's almost immediately did the same. As they did so the wind came more furiously. Half blinded and with nostrils, eyes and mouths full of sand particles, the two young travelers reeled about in the darkness. ”

“ The next day, just as Peggy and Roy were starting out for a run to the Bancroft place, Fanning Harding and Regina Mortlake came whizzing up to the gate in the latter's big touring car—the one in which she had arrived in Sandy Beach. The machine was the gift of her father. It was a commodious, maroon-colored car, with a roomy tonneau and fore-doors and torpedo body of the latest type.
Beside it the Blue Bird looked somewhat small and insignificant. But Roy and Peggy felt no embarrassment. On the contrary, they were quite certain the Blue Bird was the better car. ”

“ Stunned for an instant, and half blinded, not one of the young folks in the touring car uttered a word.
The storm, too, appeared to be "holding its breath" after that terrific bombardment.
"That struck close by," declared Roy, the first to recover his speech.
"Oh! oh!" moaned Miss Prescott, "then the next will hit us!"
"Don't be a goose, Aunt Sally," comforted Peggy; "don't you know that lightning never strikes twice in the same place?" ”

“ We shall all be killed! I know it! Oh, this is terrible!"
"It will soon be over, aunt, dear," exclaimed Peggy bravely, though her own head ached and her eyes burned cruelly from the glare and uproar.
"Yes, dear Miss Prescott," chimed in Jess; "it can't last; it—"
There was a sudden blinding glare, followed by a crash that seemed as if the skies must have been rent open. With it mingled a loud scream from Miss Prescott and cries and shouts from outside the tent.
"Something in the camp has been struck!" exclaimed Peggy rushing to the tent door.
"It's Juan's burro!" ”

“ Above the roar of the on-dashing car could be heard the sharp puffing of the approaching locomotive. Roy tugged as if he would tear his muscle out at the brake lever, but it refused to budge. A sort of desperate coolness came over him. But Jess, who had uncovered her eyes for an instant, gave a sudden shrill scream.
“Oh, we’ll be killed! Look,—the train! We’ll crash into it!” ”

“ Poor fellows, in their mistaken loyalty to me, perhaps they thought that they were doing me a good turn by trying to discredit my young friend—I am proud to call him so—my young friend, Prescott."
For the first time, Roy was moved to speak.
"I hardly think that your workmen were responsible, Mr. Mortlake," he said slowly and distinctly.
"You do not? Who, then?"
"I don't know, yet, but I shall, you can depend upon that."
"Really? How very clever we are. Smart as a steel trap, hey?" grated out old Harding, rubbing his hands. "Smart as a steel trap, with teeth that bite and hold, hey, hey, hey?" ”

“ So saying, off he went to sleep again, while Jimsy, overjoyed, hastily peeled a dollar from his "roll" and departed. The last sound he heard was the steady snoring of the garage man.
"Well, there's one fellow that money can't keep awake, even if it does talk," said Jimsy laughingly to himself as, with a cry of triumph, he rejoined the party, waving the plug like a banner or an emblem of victory.
No time was lost in starting the auto up again and they whirled back through Millbrook in a cloud of dust. Passing through the village they retraced their way along the road by which they had come. ”

“ Consequently, when the aeroplane once more took the air it was to fly lower than usual under its additional burden, but in the hearts of all three of its American occupants there rang the joy of having saved a human life from the unsparing alkali.
"Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! Everything's all right and we've got a patient for you," was Peggy's rather uncomplimentary greeting as the aeroplane alighted and came spinning across the dusty expanse toward the willow clump.
Miss Prescott threw up her hands and old Mr. Peter Bell hastened from amidst his beloved horses. ”

“ Peggy shook her head in response to Jess’s question.
“No, dear, not one word,” she said; “isn’t it queer? However, I guess we shall, before long. Oh, I do hope that that poor old hermit turns out to be Mr. Jim Bell’s brother.”
“So do I, too,” agreed Jimsy. “It would be jolly for you and Roy to think that you and your aeroplane had been the means of righting such a succession of mishaps.”
“Indeed it would,” agreed Peggy, warmly; “but now come into the house and have some ice cream. It’s one sign of our new prosperity that we are never without it now.” ”