A stalwart-looking young fellow stepped up.

"I'm chief of the department," he said, "we're the 'Valiants.' I'll be there in twenty-five minutes if I have to kill the horses. It's downhill most of the way, anyhow. Jim, you run off and ring ther bell."

A second later the fire bell was loudly clanging and several of the crowd melted away to don their helmets and coats. In less time than the boys would have thought it possible a good-looking engine came rumbling out of the fire house half a block down the street. Behind it came a hook and ladder truck.

Fine horses were attached to each, and from the way they leaped off the boys saw that the "Chief" meant to make good his promise.

"Race you to ther fire!" shouted the latter functionary, as, in a storm of cheers, his apparatus swept out of sight down the elm-bordered street.

"You're on," laughed Roy, whisking aloft while the Topman's Cornerites were still wondering within themselves if they were waking or dreaming.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GIRL AVIATORS IN DEADLY PERIL.

The fire was out. A smoldering, blackened hillock was all that remained of the stack ignited by the lightning bolt; but the others and the main buildings of the farm had been saved.

Such work was a new task for aeroplanes--but there is no doubt that, had it not been for Peggy's suggestion, the Hutchings farm would have been burned to the ground. As it was, when the firemen, their horses in a lather, arrived at the scene, the farm hands, who had been fighting the flames, were almost exhausted.

Had they possessed the time, the young folks would have been glad to tell the curious firemen something about their aeroplanes. But it was well into the afternoon, and if they intended to keep up their itinerary it was necessary for them to be hurrying on. A short time after the blaze had been declared "out" the aeroplanes once more soared aloft, and the auto chugged off in the direction of Meadville.

The afternoon sun shone sparklingly on the trees and fields below, all freshened by the downpour of the early afternoon. The spirits of all rose as did their machines as they raced along. Before leaving the Hutchings farm the old man had been so moved to generosity by the novel manner in which his farm had been saved from destruction that he had offered to give back $2.50 of the $5 he had demanded for the rent of his field. Of course they had not taken it, but the evident anguish with which the offer was made afforded much amus.e.m.e.nt to the young aviators as they soared along.

In Peggy's machine the talk between herself and Jess was of the strange finding of The Wren, and of the child's curious ways. Both girls recalled her odd conduct during the storm and what she had said about the peculiar influence of lightning on her memory.

"Depend on it, Jess," declared Peggy, with conviction, "that child is no more a gipsy than you or I."

"Do you think she was stolen from somewhere?" asked Jess, readily guessing the drift of her friend's thoughts.

"I don't know, but I'm sure they had no legal right to her," was the reply.

"Oh, Peg! Suppose she should turn out to be a missing heiress!" Jess, who loved a romance, clasped her gauntleted hands.

Peggy laughed.

"Missing heiresses are not so common as you might suppose," she said; "I never met any one who had encountered any, except in story books."

"Still, it would be great if we had really found a long missing child, or--or something like that," concluded Jess, rather lamely.

"I can't see how we would be benefiting the child or its parents, either, since we have no way of knowing who the latter are," rejoined the practical Peggy, which remark closed the discussion for the time being.

It was not more than half an hour later when Jess uttered a sharp cry of alarm. From the forward part of the aeroplane a wisp of smoke had suddenly curled upward. Like a blue serpent of vapor it dissolved in the air almost so quickly as to make Jess believe, for an instant, that she had been the victim of an hallucination.

But that it was no figment of the imagination was evidenced a few moments later by Peggy herself. Aroused by Jess's cry, she had made an inspection of the machine, with alarming results. What these were speedily became manifest.

"Jess! The machine is on fire!" she cried afrightedly.

As if in verification of her words there came a puff of flame and a strong reek of gasoline. It was just then that both girls recalled that the _Golden b.u.t.terfly_ carried twenty-five gallons of gasoline, without counting the reserve supply.

Fire on an aeroplane is even more terrifying than a similar casualty on any other type of machine. Hardly had Peggy's words confirming the alarming news left her lips when there came a cry from Jess.

The girl had just glanced at the barograph. It showed that they were then 1,500 feet above the surface of the earth. The girl had hardly made this discovery before, from beneath the "bow" of the monoplane, came a wave of flame; driven from the steering wheel by the heat, Peggy drew back toward her companion. Her face was ashen white.

Left to itself the aeroplane "yawed" wildly, like a craft without a rudder. Then suddenly it dashed down toward the earth, smoke and flames leaping from its front part.

Both girls uttered a cry of terror as the aircraft fell like a stone hurled into s.p.a.ce. Faster and faster it dashed earthward without a controlling hand to guide it. It was at this instant that Roy and Jimsy became aware of what had happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Both girls uttered a cry of terror as the air craft fell like a stone hurled into s.p.a.ce.]

Instantly they swung their machine around in time to see the _Golden b.u.t.terfly_ make her sickening downward swoop. Both lads uttered a cry of fear as they saw what appeared to mean certain death for the two Girl Aviators.

Roy's fingers scarcely grasped the wheel of his machine as he saw the downward drop. Jimsy was as badly affected. But almost before they could grasp a full realization of the accident the _Golden b.u.t.terfly_ was almost on the ground. It was in a hilly bit of country, interspersed by small lakes or ponds.

A freak of the wind caught the blazing aeroplane as it fell and drove it right over one of these small bodies of water.

The _Golden b.u.t.terfly_ appeared to hesitate for one instant and then plunged right into the water, flinging the two girls out. Both were expert swimmers, but the shock of the sudden descent, and the abrupt manner in which they had been flung into the water had badly unstrung their nerves.

Jess struck out valiantly, but the next instant uttered a cry:

"Peg! Peg! I'm sinking!"

Peggy pluckily struck out for her chum and succeeded in seizing her.

Then with brisk strokes she made for the sh.o.r.e, luckily only a few yards distant. It was at this juncture that the boys' machines came to earth almost simultaneously. High above Bess's _Dart_ hovered, and presently it, too, began to drop downward. Apparently the accident had not been seen from the auto, at any rate the car was not turned back toward the scene of the accident.

As the boys' aeroplanes struck the earth not far from the bank of the pond toward which Peggy was at that moment valiantly struggling, the two young aviators leaped out and set out at a run to the rescue. They reached the bank in the nick of time to pull out the two drenched, half-exhausted girls.

"At any rate the fall was a lucky one in a way!" gasped the optimistic Peggy, as soon as she caught her breath, "it put out the fire."

And so it had. Not only that, but the aeroplane, buoyed up by its broad wings, was still floating. On board the _Red Dragon_ was a long bit of rope. Jimsy produced this and then swam out to the drifting _b.u.t.terfly_.

The rope was made fast to it and the craft dragged ash.o.r.e. But when they got it to the bank the problem arose as to how they were going to drag it up the steep acclivity.

Again and again they tried; Bess, who had by this time alighted, aiding them. But it was all to no purpose. Even their united strength failed to move the heavy apparatus.

"I've got an idea!" shouted Jimsy suddenly, during a pause in their laborious operations.

"Good! Don't let it get away, I beg of you!" implored Peggy.

"Oh, Peg! Don't tease, besides, you don't look a bit cute with your hair all wet and draggled, and as for your dress--goodness!"

This came from Jess, herself sadly "rumpled" and in addition wet through. Before Peggy could reply to her chum's half rallying remark Jimsy, unabashed, continued:

"We'll hitch this rope to the _Red Dragon_ and then start her up for all she's worth."

"Jimsy, you're a genius!"