Partially dressing herself the girl noiselessly tiptoed down the stairs and out into the moonlit night.

For one instant she was startled as she thought she saw a dark form dodge swiftly behind a corner of the workshop as she appeared.

"I must be getting as nervous as poor Roy when the mule frightened him down the well," she thought to herself as she advanced toward the shed.

Reaching it she raised her hand to shut the door when, to her astonishment, she discovered that it had apparently been locked,--at least a broken bit of the padlock dangling from the portal seemed to indicate this.

"Somebody's filed that through," was Peggy's thought. But before she could make any further investigation a pair of hands grasped her from behind, pinioning her arms to her side. At the same instant an old coat was flung over her head and pulled close, stifling her outcries.

"We won't hurt you if you keep quiet," hissed a voice in her ear, "but if you don't, look out for trouble."

"What are you going to do?" cried Peggy, through the m.u.f.fling medium of the coat.

"You'll soon find out," was the rejoinder. "Jukes, bring her inside the shed and keep her quiet."

Jukes! The name struck a familiar chord in Peggy's memory. She knew now why the face and form of the man hanging about Fanning's "Phantom" hangar at the aviation field had seemed so familiar to her. It _was_ Jukes Dade, the man her father had peremptorily discharged. Peggy could not repress a shudder as she thought of the desperate character of the man.

Suddenly, as her captors half dragged, half carried her into the workshop, her body grew limp, and she fell in an insensible heap forward.

She would have struck the ground had not a pair of hands caught her.

"She's fainted," cried Jukes, alarmedly.

"So much the better," growled out his companion; "she won't give us any trouble now. We can do what we've got to do and get away. Got the files?"

"Here they are," responded Jukes; "just let me lay her down here while I hand 'em to you."

He deposited Peggy's limp form on a long box on which some sacks had been strewn. The next instant the sharp rasping of a file could be heard in the silent workshop.

"I guess this Golden b.u.t.terfly will have its wings clipped for some time to come," chuckled Jukes' companion, whom Peggy, of course, had not yet seen.

"I guess that's right," laughed the other; "just wait a jiffy while I lay down this gun of mine and I'll give you a hand."

He stepped over and put down a wicked-looking pistol on the rough bench on which Peggy lay. Then he turned and began to help his companion. The two worked by the light of a dark lantern which they had brought with them on their rascally expedition to ruin the Golden b.u.t.terfly.

But suddenly a slight noise behind him made Jukes turn his head. As he did so he gave a startled yell. Peggy, her eyes bright and wild-looking, was standing up behind them. In her hand was the pistol which Jukes had laid down beside her when she had seemed to faint a few moments before.

But Peggy's faint had been a simulated one. Realizing that harm was meant to the Golden b.u.t.terfly, she had imitated unconsciousness as a means to possible escape and giving the alarm.

"Don't move, either of you," said Peggy, in a firm voice. "I'm only a girl, but I can use a pistol."

But Jukes and his companion, with a wild yell, made a dash for the door.

"Good gracious, I can't shoot them," thought Peggy.

"Help! help!" she began to cry at the top of her voice.

But the next instant the whirr and roar of a motor from the road apprised her that the two rascals had made their escape in an auto and that pursuit was useless. Thus it was that when the aroused household came pouring excitedly out of the house they found a brave, if a rather tremulous, girl awaiting them with a pistol in her hand on the stock of which were engraved the initials "F. H."

"So that's who Jukes's companion was," exclaimed Roy, angrily. "Oh, if you had only awakened me, sis."

"My dear Roy," rejoined Peggy, with dignity, "don't you think that I am capable of taking care of myself?"

CHAPTER XXIV.

HESTER MAKES AMENDS--CONCLUSION.

A few days later Peggy borrowed Jess's car and went out for a long, lonely spin along the country roads. She wanted to think. Roy and Jimsy were at home repairing the damage wrought to the Golden b.u.t.terfly, which, it turned out, was very slight.

She was driving along a pretty stretch of road when she came across a veritable fairyland of delicate pink wild roses intertwined with honeysuckle and woodbine.

"Oh," cried Peggy, who simply worshipped flowers, "how beautiful; I must take some of these home. They'll make all our garden things look mean and shabby."

Stopping the car she alighted and was soon deep in her occupation of gathering the fragrant posies. Suddenly she was startled by the sound of a sobbing voice close at hand, and the next minute an angry male voice could be heard also.

"I tell you I'll do nothing of the sort," the man was saying; "why should I go and own up that I'm a thief or the next thing to it? At any rate they'd have me put in jail for all the attempts I've made to interfere with their aeroplane."

"It's Fanning Harding!" gasped Peggy, amazedly, "and Hester Gibbons," she added the next instant as the girl's voice sobbed out:

"Well, if you won't, I will. I've been weak and foolish but I'm not wicked. I'm going to tell Peggy Prescott all about it to-day and ask her to forgive me."

"You'd better not," Fanning Harding's tone was threatening now.

"Well, what if I do?"

"You won't, I tell you. I'll have you locked up and charged with the theft yourself."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, yes, I would. You've got that ruby and that is pretty good proof that you stole it."

"It isn't so and you know it. I have been a weak, silly girl, that's all, but I see it all now. And just to think if I hadn't overheard you and my father talking that I might have gone on admiring you."

"Tell me you won't go to the Prescotts with the story or I'll----"

"Help! Help!"

The shrill cry came in Hester's tones.

Without quite realizing what she was doing, Peggy stooped and picked up a heavy bit of stick that lay in the road beside her. Then she stepped forward around a bend which had hitherto hidden the other two from her sight. As she appeared Fanning had his hand on Hester's wrist and was wrenching it cruelly.

"Oh! oh! Fanning, please let go!" Hester was crying.

"I will if you'll promise not to tell."

"There's no need for her to promise that, Fanning," said Peggy, "for I have already heard enough for me to know that she has some connection with the disappearance of the Bancroft diamonds."