The Girl Aviators Sky Cruise | Page 4

our machines?" he grated out, rubbing his hands as if washing
them in some sort of invisible soap.
"Yes, so it seems. At any rate, they notified me that this officer would
be here to-day to inspect the place. It means a great deal for us if the
government consents to adopt our form of machine for the naval
experiments."
"To us! To you, you mean," echoed Mr. Harding, with an unpleasant
laugh. "I've put enough capital into this thing now, Mortlake. I'm not
the man to throw good money after bad. If we are defeated by any other
make of machine at the tests I mean to sell the whole thing and at least
realize what I've put into it."
Mortlake turned a little pale under his swarthy skin. He rubbed his blue
chin nervously.
"Why, you wouldn't chuck us over now, Mr. Harding," he said
deprecatingly. "It was at your solicitation that the plant was put up here,
and I had relied on you for unlimited support. Why did you go into the
manufacture of aerial machines, if you didn't mean to stick it out?"

"I had two reasons," was the rejoinder, in tones as cold as a frigid blast
of wind, "one was that I thought it was certain we should capture the
government contract, and the other was--well, I had a little grudge I
wished to satisfy."
"But we will capture the government business. I am not afraid. There is
no machine to touch the Mortlake that I know of----"
"Yes, there is," interrupted Mr. Harding; "a machine that may be able
to discount it in every way."
"Nonsense! Where is such an aeroplane?" "Within a quarter of a mile
from here. To be accurate, young Prescott's--you know whom I mean?"
The other nodded abstractedly.
"Well, that youth has a monoplane that has already caused me a lot of
trouble." The old man's yellow skin darkened with anger, and his blue
pinpoints of eyes grew flinty. "It was partly out of revenge that I
decided to start up an opposition business to his. He was in the West till
a few days ago, and I never dreamed that he would return till I had
secured the government contract. But I am now informed--oh, I have
ears everywhere in Sandy Beach--that this boy and his sister, who is in
a kind of partnership with him have had the audacity to offer their
machine for the government tests also."
"Audacity," muttered Mortlake under his breath, but Harding's keen
ears caught the remark.
"It is audacity," agreed the leathern-faced old financier; "and it's
audacity that we must find some way to checkmate. I've never had a
business rival yet that I haven't broken into submission or crushed, and
a boy and a girl are not going to outwit me now. They did it once, I
admit, but this time I shall arrange things differently."
"You mean----"
"That I intend to cinch that government business."

"But what if, as you fear, the Prescotts have a superior aeroplane?"
"My dear Mortlake," the pin-point eyes almost closed, and the thin,
bloodless lips drew together in a tight line, "if they have a superior
machine, we must arrange so that nobody but ourselves is ever aware of
the fact."
With a throaty gurgle, that might, or might not, have been meant for a
chuckle, the old man glided through the doors, which, by this time, he
had reached, and sliding rather than stepping into his machine, gave the
chauffeur some orders. Mortlake, a peculiar expression on his face,
looked after the car as it chugged off and then turned and re-entered the
shop. His head was bent, and he seemed to be lost in deep thought.
CHAPTER III.
A NAVAL VISITOR
Roy had departed, on an errand, for town. Peggy, indolently enjoying
the perfect drowsiness of noonday, was reclining in a gayly colored
hammock suspended between two regal maple trees on the lawn. In her
hand was a book. On a taboret by her side was a big pink box full of
chocolates.
The girl was not reading, however. Her blue eyes were staring straight
up through the delicate green tracery of the big maples, at the sky
above. She watched, with lazy fascination, tiny white clouds drifting
slowly across the blue, like tiny argosies of the heavens. Her mind was
far away from Sandy Beach and its peaceful surroundings. The young
girl's thoughts were of the desert, the bleak, arid wastes of alkali, which
lay so far behind them now. Almost like events that had happened in
another life.
Suddenly she was aroused from her reverie by a voice--a remarkably
pleasant voice:
"I beg your pardon. Is this the Prescott house?"

"Good gracious, a man!" exclaimed Peggy to herself, getting out of the
hammock as