Diane of the Green Van | Page 2

face and his eyes, blue, steady, calm as the waters of the lake he
rode.
The aviator met her astonished glance with one of laughing deference
even as she marveled at his genial air of staunch philosophy.
"I beg your pardon," stammered Diane, "but--but are you by any chance
waiting--to be rescued?"
"Why--I--I believe I am!" exclaimed the young man readily, apparently
greatly pleased at her common sense. "At your convenience, of
course!"
"Are you--er--sinking or merely there?"
"Merely here!" nodded the young man with a charming smile of
reassurance. "This contraption is a--er--I--I think Dick calls it an
hydro-aeroplane. It has pontoons and things growing all over it for
duck stunts and if the water wasn't so infernally still, I'd be floating and
smoking and likely in time I'd make shore. That's a delightful pastime
for you now," he added with a lazy smile of the utmost good humor, "to
float and smoke on a summer day and grab at the shore."
"I was under the impression," commented Diane critically, "that in an
hydro-aeroplane one could rise from the water like a bird. I've read so
recently."
"One can," smiled the shipwrecked philosopher readily, "provided his
motor isn't deaf and dumb and insanely indifferent to suggestion. When
it grows shy and silent, one swims eventually and drips home, unless a
dog barks and a rescuer emerges from the trees equipped with
sympathy and common sense. I've a mechanician back there," he added
sociably. "He--he's in a tree, I think. I--er--mislaid him in a very
dangerous air current."

"Are you aware," inquired the girl, biting her lip, "that you're
trespassing?"
"Lord, no!" exclaimed the aviator. "You don't mean it. Have you by
any chance a reputable rope anywhere about you?"
"No," said Diane maliciously, "I haven't. As a rule, I do go about
equipped with ropes and hooks and things to--rescue trespassing
hydroaviators, but--" she regarded him thoughtfully. "Do you like to
float about and smoke?"
The sun-browned skin of the young aviator reddened a trifle, but his
eyes laughed.
"I'm an incurable optimist," he lightly countered, "or I wouldn't have
tried to fly over a private lake in a borrowed aeroplane."
"I believe," said Diane disapprovingly, "that you were cutting giddy
circles over the water and dipping and skimming, weren't you?"
"I did cut a monkeyshine or two," admitted the young man. "I was
having a devil of a time until you--until the--er--catastrophe occurred."
"And Miss Westfall, the owner," murmured Diane with sympathy, "is
addicted to firearms. Hadn't you heard? She hunts! The Westfalls are
all very erratic and quick-tempered. Didn't you know she was at the
farm?"
The young man looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Great guns, no!" he exclaimed. "I presumed she was safe in New
York. . . . And this is her lake and her water and her waves, when there
are any, and no matter how I engineer it, I've got to poach some of her
property. Some of it," he added conversationally, "is in my shoe. Lord,
I am in a pickle! Are you a guest of hers?"
"Yes," said Diane calmly.
"I'm staying over yonder on the hill there with Dick Sherrill," offered

the young man cordially. "They are opening their place with a party of
men, some crack amateur aviators--and myself. Do you know the
Sherrills?"
"Perhaps I do," said Diane discouragingly. "Why didn't you float about
and smoke on Mr. Sherrill's lake?" she added curiously. "It's ever so
much bigger than this."
"Circumstances," began the young man with dignity, and lighted
another cigarette. "My mechanician," he added volubly, after an
uncomfortable interval of silence, "is an exceedingly bold young man.
He'll fly over anything, even a cow. Isn't really mine either; he's
borrowed, too. Dick keeps a few extra mechanicians on hand, like extra
cigars. It's Dick's fault I'm out alone. He lent my mechanician to
another chap and nobody else would come with me."
"I thought," flashed Diane pointedly, "I thought your mechanician was
somewhere in a tree."
The aviator coughed and reddened uncomfortably.
"Doubtless he is," he said lamely. "He--he most always is. Do you
know, he spends a large part of his spare time in trees--and
swamps--and once, I believe, he was discovered in a chimney. I--I'd
like to tell you more about him," he went on affably. "Once--"
"Thank you," said Diane politely, "but you've really entertained me
more now than one could expect from a gentleman in your distressing
plight. Come, Rex." She turned back again at the hemlocks which
flanked the forest path. "I'll ask Miss Westfall to send some men," she
added and halted.
For Diane had surprised a look of such keen regret in the young
aviator's face that they both colored hotly.
"Beastly luck!" stammered the young man lamely. "I am disappointed.
I--I don't seem