rously.
Otherwise, the young officer might have been suspicious. What he had seen
of Mortlake had not particularly elevated that gentleman in his opinion.
But if he had desired to wrong the Prescotts, reasoned the officer, such a
resourceful man as he had adjudged Mortlake to be, would have sought a
deeper and more subtle way of going about it.

"And I'd have staked my word on that boy's loyalty; aye, and on his
sister's too," muttered the officer, as he made ready for his hasty trip
to Long Island.

By this it will be seen that Lieut. Bradbury was by no means proof against
the rather common failing of inclining to believe the first evil report we
hear. It is a phase of human nature that is not combatted as it should be.

In the meantime, Roy and Peggy had sustained a surprise, likewise. The day
before that on which Lieut. Bradbury received the disturbing dispatch, an
automobile had whizzed up to their gate and stopped. Roy, Peggy and Jess
and Jimsy were at a game of tennis, when a rather imperious voice summoned
them, from the tonneau of the machine.

They looked up, to see a remarkably pretty young girl, who could scarcely
have been more than eighteen years old. Her eyes were black as sloes, and
flashed like smoldering fires. A great mass of hair of the same color was
piled on the top of her head in grown-up fashion, and her gown, of a
magenta hue, which set off her dark beauty to perfection, was cut in the
most recent--too recent, in fact--style.

"Can you direct me to Mr. Mortlake's aeroplane factory?" she demanded in
an imperious tone. Evidently the flushed, healthy-looking young people,
who had been playing tennis so hard, were very despicable in her eyes.

"There it is, down the road there," volunteered Roy. "It's that barn-like
place."

The appellation was unfortunate. The girl's eyes flashed angrily.

"My name is Regina Mortlake," she said angrily. "I am Mr. Mortlake's
daughter. He is not in the habit of putting up barns, I can assure you."

"I beg your pardon----" began Roy, quite taken aback by the extraordinary
energy with which the reproof to his harmless remark had been given. But
the dark-eyed beauty in the automobile had given a quick order to the
chauffeur, and the car skimmed on down the road.

Later that day the _Silver Cobweb_ ascended for a flight. It had nothing
more the matter with it on the day of the break-down than the heated
cylinders, which, as Mortlake had prophesied, soon cooled.