utiful the stars are. Poor Roy, I wonder how
he is getting along?"

"You know he was doing splendidly when we left, and he has our telegrams
by this time," said Jess; "oh, Peggy, I'm so glad that the board of naval
aviation said you could fly the _Golden Butterfly_."

"Oh, weren't they taken aback, though, at the idea?" chuckled Jimsy; "I
thought that dignified old officer would fall out of his chair at the idea
of a girl daring to run an aeroplane. I'll bet if there'd been anything
in the rules about it, Peggy, they'd have barred you."

"I think so, too," laughed Peggy, "but, luckily, there wasn't. As Lieut.
Bradbury pointed out, it was a case of an emergency. It isn't as if I'd
tried to 'butt in,' as you say, Jimsy."

"Well, I'm sure I don't see why a girl shouldn't run an aeroplane just as
well as a boy. You certainly showed that you could, Peggy, when you raced
that train back in Nevada."

"In years to come," prophesied Peggy, "I dare say women as aviators will
be as common as men. I don't see why not. Ten years ago a woman who ran an
automobile would have been laughed at, if not insulted. But now, why lots
of women run their own cars and nobody thinks of even turning his head."

"Hear! hear!" cried Jimsy, "I declare I feel like a lone man at a
suffragette meeting."

"Then conduct yourself as if you were actually in that dangerous
position," laughed Peggy.

The girl's spirits were rising now under the excitement of the night
ride. On the advice of Lieut. Bradbury the party from Sandy Beach had kept
closely to their rooms at the hotel all that day. It was at the officer's
advice, too, that their shed had been labeled the Nameless.

"If Mortlake was, as I begin to think, concerned in these attacks on you,"
the officer had said, "I think it would be advisable not to appear any
more than necessary. Let him think that you are out of the race."

Accordingly, the _Butterfly_ had been transported secretly and placed in
her shed at night. The secret had been well guarded and, as we know,
neither Mortlake nor Fanning Harding had even an inkling that the Prescott
machine was far--very far from being out of the race.

On and on through the night throbbed the _Golden Butterfly_, making fast
time. At last they decided that it was time to return. The object of the
trip, to see that all was in running order, had been accomplished. Nothing
remained to do now but to wait for the morrow and what it would bring
forth. The n