Diane of the Green Van | Page 2

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 to have another match."
"Your cigarette is burning splendidly," hinted Diane coolly, "and you've a match in your hand."
For a tense, magnetic instant the keen blue eyes flashed a curious message of pleading and apology, then the aviator fell to whistling softly, struck the match and finding no immediate function for it, dropped it in the water.
"I don't in the least mind floating about," he stammered,