The Girl Aviators Sky Cruise | Page 6

pair of goggles.

Gauntlets encased her hands.
"Looks rather too warm to be comfortable, doesn't it?" she laughed.
"But we shall find it cool enough up above."
"Perhaps the lieutenant----" ventured Miss Prescott.
"Oh, yes. How stupid of me not to have thought of it!" exclaimed
Peggy. "Mr. Bradbury, you will find aviation togs inside there."
"By Jove; she knows enough not to call a naval officer 'lieutenant,'"
thought the young officer, as, with a bow and a word of thanks, he
vanished to equip himself for his aerial excursion.
By the time he was invested in a similar long duster, with weighted
seams, and had donned a cap and goggles, the larger of the two
aeroplanes, named the Golden Butterfly, was ready for its passengers.
Old Sam and his son, who had dragged it out--it moved easily on its
landing wheels--stood by, their awe of the big craft showing plainly on
their faces.
A section of the fence had been made removable, so as to give the
Prescott aeroplanes a free run from their stable to the smooth slope of
the meadows beyond. This was now removed, and Peggy, followed by
the young officer, took her place in the chassis. Peggy made a pretty
figure at the steering wheel.
"The first improvement I should like to call your attention to," she
began, in the most business-like tones she could muster up, "is the
self-starter. It works by pneumatic power, and does away with the
old-fashioned method of starting an aeroplane by twisting the
propeller."
The girl opened a valve connected with a galvanized tank, with a
pressure gauge on top, and pulled back a lever. Instantly, a hissing
sound filled the air. Then, with a dexterous movement, Peggy threw in
the spark and turned on the gasoline which the spark would ignite,
thereby causing an explosion in the cylinders. But first the compressed

air had started the motor turning over. At the right moment Peggy
switched on the power and cut off the air. Instantly there was a roar
from the exhausts and blue flames and smoke spouted from the motor.
The aeroplane shook violently. It would have made an inexperienced
person's teeth chatter. But both the officer and Peggy were sufficiently
familiar with aeroplanes for it not to bother them in the least.
"Magnificent!" cried the young officer enthusiastically, as he saw the
ease with which the compressed air attachment set the motor to
working.
"It will do away with assistants to start the machine," he declared the
next instant. "The importance of that in warfare can hardly be
overestimated."
Peggy was too busy to reply. So far all had gone splendidly. If only she
could carry out the whole test as well!
"Ready?" she asked, flinging back the word over her shoulder to
Lieutenant Bradbury.
"All ready!" came in a hearty voice from behind her.
Peggy, with a quick movement, threw in the clutch that started the
propeller to whirring.
With a drone like that of a huge night-beetle, or prehistoric
thunder-lizard, the machine leaped forward as a race-horse jumps under
the raised barrier.
In a blur of blue smoke it skimmed through the gap in the palings. Out
upon the smooth meadowland it shot, roaring and smoking terrifically.
And then, all at once, the jolting motion of the start ceased. It seemed
as if the occupants of the chassis were riding luxuriously over a road
paved with the softest of eiderdown. The sensation was delightful,
exhilarating.
Peggy shut off the exhaust, turning the explosions of the cylinder into a

muffler. In almost complete silence they winged upward. Up, up,
toward the fleecy clouds she had been lazily watching, but a short time
before, from the hammock.
The Golden Butterfly had never done better.
"You're a darling!" breathed Peggy confidentially to the motor that with
steady pulse drove them upward and onward.
CHAPTER IV.
IN A STORM
Dwarfed to the merest midgets, the figures about the Prescott house
waved enthusiastically, as the golden-winged monoplane made a
graceful swoop high above the elms and maples surrounding it. Other
figures could be glimpsed too, now, running about excitedly outside the
barn-like structure housing the Mortlake aeroplanes.
"Guess they think you are stealing a march on them," drawled Lieut.
Bradbury.
A wild, reckless feeling, born of the thrilling sensation of aerial riding,
came over Peggy. She would do it--she would. With a scarcely
perceptible thrust of her wrist, she altered the angle of the rudder-like
tail, and instantly the obedient Golden Butterfly began racing through
space toward the Mortlake plant.
The naval officer, quick to guess her plan, laughed as happily as a
mischievous boy.
"What a lark!" he exclaimed. "It's contrary to all discipline, but it's jolly
good fun."
Peggy turned a small brass-capped valve--the timer. At once the
aeroplane showed accelerated