"It's—it's another aeroplane!" cried the officer, with a shout of amazement.

"What!"

Peggy sprang to her feet.

"A large red one?"

"Yes. Come here and look. They're just running it under the same shed as ours—yours, I mean."

The girl aviator sprang toward the door. Through the rain she peered to where, across the meadow, two dim figures, clad in oilskins, could be seen shoving a big aeroplane under the same shelter that already protected the Golden Butterfly.

"Well, if this isn't the ultimate!" she gasped.

"I beg your pardon?" asked the young man at her side.

"The ultimate! That's my way of expressing what the boys call 'the limit.' Why, that's Jess and Jimsy Bancroft, in their new aeroplane—the one Roy built for them. Well, did you ever! Oh, Jess! Oh, Jimsy!"

Peggy raised her voice and shouted. In response they saw the oil-skinned figures turn, and through the driving downpour came an answering shout. Presently, across the dripping meadows, the two figures began advancing. All this time the lightning was ripping in a manner to make Peggy shield her eyes occasionally. The thunder, too, was terrific, and the earth seemed to vibrate to its rolling detonations.

"Well, Peggy!" gasped Jess, her dark eyes peering from under her waterproof hood, as she and her brother arrived at the threshold of the farm-house, "what on earth does this mean?"

"Yes, give an account of yourself at once," demanded Jimsy. "Roy had us on the phone. Asked if you'd flown in our direction. We said no, but we'd take a flight and look for you. In our enthusiasm, we didn't notice the storm coming up. But luckily, being young persons of forethought, we had oilskins in a locker of the machine, and——"

"And here we are," finished Jess, shooting a "killing" glance from under her hood at the good-looking young man at Peggy's side.

"Aren't you going to ask us in?" demanded Jimsy the next minute. "For hospitality, I don't think you rate very high. We——"

"Well, you see, we are here ourselves without knowing if we have any right to be," rejoined Peggy. "But come in and I'll explain. First of all, I want you to meet Mr. Bradbury of the United States Navy. He came to test the Prescott aeroplanes. Mr. Bradbury, this is Miss Bancroft, and her brother——"

"Jimsy," put in that irrepressible youth. "Glad to meet you, sir. Almost as much at sea here as in mid-Atlantic."

Laughing, they all entered the farm-house kitchen, while Peggy hastily explained the state of affairs there.

"Well, so long as they don't put in an appearance before we get dry, I'm sure I don't care," said Jimsy airily. "What a delightful old kitchen. It might have come out of a picture book."

He and the naval officer were soon deep in conversation, leaving Peggy and Jess alone.

"My dear Peggy," exclaimed Jess, with a smile that showed all her white even teeth, "what will you do next? Don't you think it's a bit—er—er—unconventional for one of the foremost members of Sandy Beach's younger set to be flying about the country with a good-looking young naval officer?"

"Nonsense," retorted Peggy sharply, "as the only representative of the Prescott aeroplanes on the ground, I had to do it. If it hadn't been for this old storm, I'd have been home long ago."

"So should we. What a coincidence we should have met here. Is this—this——"

"Lieutenant," prompted Peggy.

"Is this lieutenant going to stay long in Sandy Beach?"

"Dear me, no. He is only on a flying visit—no pun intended. He was to have taken in the establishment of the Mortlake Aeroplane Company this afternoon. You know, they are in that red, barn-like place, down the road from our place, although Roy and I only found it out to-day."

"That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Peggy dear," said Jess, sinking into an old-fashioned Andrew Jackson chair by the hearth. "Dad said at dinner last night that he had heard in New York that a lot of their stock had been floated on Wall Street, and that that hateful old Mr. Harding was back of it."

"They are actually selling stock?" asked Peggy, growing a bit pale.

"Yes. They have half-page advertisements in a lot of papers, I believe. Dad said so. But why do you look so distressed, Peggy?"

"Because they must be very sure of the merits of their machines, if they are going ahead so confidently."

"Rumor has it that their make of aeroplane is the most up-to-date and complete yet constructed, but nobody knows the details so far. They have kept that part of it close."

"They are making a bid for the navy contracts, at any rate," said Peggy presently, after a pause, during which both girls winked and blinked at the lightning and stared at the red glow of the fire.

"So you said. But you stole a march on them by kidnapping your lieutenant in this way."

"You ought to give the weather credit for that," laughed Peggy, "but seriously, Jess, there is no sentiment in things of this kind. If the Mortlake machine is a better machine than ours, the Mortlake will be the type adopted by the government."

"I suppose that's so," agreed Jess, with a wry face. "But I hate to think of that old Harding creature getting any——"

The door flew open suddenly, and a tall, thin-faced woman in a raincoat, and holding up an umbrella, stood in the doorway.

"Well, for the land's sake!" she ejaculated, looking fairly dumfounded, as she comprehended the scene and the young folks enjoying the unrequested hospitality of her kitchen.

But the words had hardly left her lips, and she was still standing there, like an image carved from stone, when a fearful light illumined the whole scene. It was followed almost instantaneously by a clap of thunder so deafening that the girls involuntarily quailed before it.

A fiery ball darted from the chimney and sped across the room, exploding in fragments with a terrific noise on the opposite side, just above the heads of Jimsy and Lieut. Bradbury.

Stunned by the shock, they both collapsed in heaps on the floor, while the farm woman's shrieks filled the air. At the same instant, a pungent, sinister odor filled the atmosphere.

"The house is on fire!" shrieked the woman in a frenzied voice.

Smoke rolled down into the room, and the acrid fumes grew sharper.

"The house is on fire, and my baby is up-stairs!"

"Where?" demanded Peggy.

"In the room above this!" groaned the woman, taking a few steps and then fainting.

"Jess," cried Peggy in a tense voice, "take that bucket and get water from that pump in the corner and then follow me."

"But the boys!" gasped Jess.

"They are only stunned. I saw Jimsy's arm move just now, and the lieutenant is breathing."

With these words, she started from the room, darting up a narrow stairway leading from one end of the kitchen to the upper regions.

"What are you going to do?" shouted Jess, her voice shaky with alarm.

"Save that child if I can," flung back Peggy, plunging bravely up the smoke-laden stairway.

In the unfamiliar house, and half blinded and choked by smoke and sulphurous fumes, Peggy had a hard task before her. But she pluckily plunged forward, feeling her way by the walls, and keeping her head low, where the smoke was not so thick. As she reached what she deemed was the top of the staircase, she thought she heard a tiny voice crying out in alarm.

Following the direction of the sounds, she staggered along a hallway and then reeled into an open door. The smoke was not so thick in the room, but its fumes were heavy enough. In a crib in one corner lay a child of about two years of age. Its rose-leaf of a face was wrinkled up in its efforts to make its terrified little voice heard.

Peggy darted upon it and hugged it close to her. Then, with renewed courage, she started to make her way back again. But more smoke than ever was rolling along the passage, and it was a hard task.

"I must do it—I must," Peggy kept saying to herself, clinging the while to the terrified child.

But at the head of the staircase the conditions appalled her. The smoke was thick as a blanket there. Yet plunge through it, Peggy knew she must. Still holding the child tightly, she bravely entered the dense smother, stooping as low as she dared.

But before she had taken more than two steps in the obscurity, a dreadful feeling, as if a hand was at her throat and choking her, overcame the girl. She tried to call out, but she could not. Her head was reeling, her eyes blinded. All at once something in her head seemed to snap with a loud report. Still clutching her little burden tightly, Peggy plunged forward dizzily—and knew no more.