"I was a simp, then, Jo. I had never been in love."

"Well," pursued Jo, "why didn't you tell her you loved her in the first place? Maybe it would have helped. It isn't much of a compliment to a girl to hang around and not say anything."

"Think, Jo. I supposed until Marta came, that Pen was _your_ girl. I brought her up here to see if she could be reformed for _you_. I sent you away to Westcott's until I could tell if she were worthy of you."

"Say, Kurt, I am the simp. I never thought of that. She didn't think you really cared. Leave it to me. I'll tell her."

"But where is she? Don't let the boys know, but Betty leaked the fact that she was going to France. I can't think she was in earnest."

Jo whistled.

"I am beginning to get glimpses on a dark subject. I'll bet that is where he is making for, too."

"He? Who?" he asked quickly. "Hebler?"

"Hebler! She'd rather dodge him than you. No; I mean that aviator who landed over toward Westcott's a little while ago. I heard one of those fliers had been in town giving an exhibition. He was down to earth just about long enough to pick some one up. That was what she meant in the note she left for me when she said she was going by the Excelsior route."

"How would she know him, and how would she get word to him to come out here?"

"She told me she spent the day in town--let me see--day before yesterday, I think it was. Said she met a man there she used to know."

"She told me, too, she had been to town, but I thought she was only joking. I didn't believe her."

"There's a lot you could hear about her, Kurt, that you wouldn't believe right off the bat; but it's not me who's going to put you wise. Talk to Mrs. Kingdon about her. You'll not get the chance to interview Penny Ante very soon, I imagine. In the craft she must be traveling in, there's nothing about this ranch that can overtake her, but I'll do my level best.

Let me see! She won't go to town. She'll want to keep out of Hebler's reach, of course."

"Why?" asked Kurt. "Do you know?"

"I know more than you do about her. A girl has to have some one to confide in and Little Penny Ante chose me. You scared her out, you know."

Kurt winced.

"They will naturally go in an opposite direction," pursued Jo. "They may fly over to the next station and take the east-bound. I'll take your car."

"No; you take the children to town, and I'll go in pursuit--"

"That'll never do. She won't try to dodge me."

CHAPTER XV

In the little valley by Westcott's, Pen stood waiting and staring upward.

At last she heard the sharp sound of an engine and saw the plane describing a sweeping circle. It came gently down, the little wheels rolling along the gra.s.s.

"I'm in debt to Hebler," said Larry. "It was only your fear of him that overcame your fear of flying."

Then looking at her, he continued, confidingly, "I wouldn't take up the average girl, Pen, and especially one who owned up to being afraid. But I know you. You'll forget fear in the thrills. All you've got to do is to sit still, hold on and look out on the level. We won't do any swivels; just straight stuff, and you'll be as safe as you would any place."

She put on the hood and goggles and was adjusted to the seat.

"Now where do you want to go?" he asked.

"Anywhere to lose myself. Hebby is in town and so--are others. Let us take the opposite direction and you can land me at some place where the east-bound stops and I can get some more luggage. Then we'll make plans."

"Suits me. First thing we'll do is to have a grand flight. Then I'll leave you at a nice, little, sky-high inn I know up in the clouds. I'll fly back to town, pay my bill, pack my traps and join you by train."

He started the engine. The plane skipped along for a few paces, then arose, it seemed to Pen, to great and dizzy heights. In spite of her instructions she ventured to look down. Everything earthly was disappearing. They dodged the clouds, went above them and then slid down to the splendors of the sunlight. Over the hills at full speed they swept along, Larry's air-wise, lightning-swift sensibilities making naught of change of currents and drafts. Then came the joy and thrill of a sixty-mile straightaway spurt.

It was wonderful, but the most wonderful part of it to Pen was that she had not even a second of fear, although always this thought of being shot up suddenly straight into an unknown realm had been most terrifying.

Up there above the hills and in the clouds, she felt entranced, spiritualized. It was with a feeling of depression that she saw they were spinning down until they hovered over a field, scudding smoothly and slowly along.

"You weren't afraid!" exclaimed Larry triumphantly, as they walked along toward a little inn resting at the base of one of the undulating hills.

"No;" she answered, "only awed."

"Was it anything like you expected?"

"No," she replied.

A man came out of the inn to meet them.

"Halloa, Larry! Too bad I couldn't have had a full house to see. The last tourist left on the train to-day."

"Then you'll have more room for us. This is Miss Lamont, Nat. Mr. Yates, the proprietor," he explained to Pen. "Can you give us supper and put Miss Lamont up for the night? I have to fly back to my hotel. I'll return by train in the morning."

"Sure thing! House is yours."

He showed Pen to a neat little room and told her "supper'd be on in a jiffy."

She sat down dazedly. Presently she was roused to her surroundings by Larry's "Oh, Pen!" from below.

When she came down to the dining-room, Larry's clear young eyes looked at her keenly.

"Not down to earth yet, Pen? I know how you feel. First time I made the sky route, I went off by myself for a day."

"Larry, I can't talk about it yet. I will tell you now why I joined you. I thought I would like to go to France--with you. I thought I might be useful some way, but now--"

"We won't think of plans now. We'll talk it all over in the morning when I am back. You'll be safe here. Nat would as lief shoot Hebby or anyone else who trailed you. Supper's on the table, so come on."

Throughout the meal Larry did most of the talking, Pen scarcely responding. Then he was off, steering in great circles toward town, Pen watching with the quickening of pulse and a renewal of the elation she had felt when taking the air. When he was but a mere speck in the sky, she went up to her little room.

"You'll never look quite so high or so wonderful to me again," she thought, as she looked out on the hills. "It's because I've looked down on you, I suppose--the law of contrast. I learned a great deal up there--in the vapors. I put out my feelers, something I never did before. I see I've always faked my sensations. But my wings are pin feathers as yet. I have to look at everything from a new angle of vision. All my life I've been longing for thrills--real thrills, my own thrills; not other peoples. I had a few little shivers when I was riding to Top Hill that morning; a few more last night--but my first true thrill of rapture came when I was challenging the sky, an argonaut."

It was a hard struggle for Pen to adjust her new self that she had found up in the high alt.i.tudes where all the tepid, petty things of life had dropped from her--where she had found the famous fleece, the truth. In the vastness of that uncharted land, like a flash in the dark something had leaped at her. Her dream of a dream had come true. She had learned the great human miracle, the meaning of a love that had the strength to renounce. A G.o.d-made love, sweet and strong, conceived on earth, but brought forth on high where the call of destiny had sounded with clarion clearness. She knew now what she had missed; that he was not of the world of miniature men who exact and never return.