you alls lie to me; it ain't healthy," he said.

"I'm not in the habit of doing so."

"But you said you flew hyar."

"Well, we did."

"See hyar, young stranger, you jes' tell me the truth 'bout how you came
or by the eternal I'll make it hot fer you."

"I can only show you that I'm speaking nothing but the truth," rejoined
the boy; "if you'll come with me I'll show you what we flew here in."

The man glanced at him suspiciously. It was plain that he feared a trap
of some sort. His eyes were wild and shifty as a wolf's.

"Ain't you frum the guv-ment?" he asked.

"I don't know just what you mean."

"I reckin that's jus' more dum' lyin'."

"Thank you."

"Don' get sassy, young feller, it won't do you no good. But I'll come
with you. Come on, boys, we'll take a look at this flyin' thing. I
reckon that even if it is a trap there's enough of us to take care of a
pack of them."

"That's right, Jeb," agreed the men.

Some of them, who had been hanging back in the bushes, now came forward.
They were all as wild-looking as their leader, Jeb. The old woman
mumbled and talked to herself as they strode off behind Roy and Peggy.

It was one of the strangest adventures of their lives and neither one of
them could hit on any explanation of the hillmen's conduct.

It did not take long to reach the aeroplane, and Roy turned triumphantly
to Jeb.

"Well," he said, "what do you think now?"

"Wa'al, it ain't flyin', is it?"

"Of course not, but I can make it."

"You kin?"

"Certainly."

"Flap its wings and all that like a burd?"

"No, it doesn't flap its wings."

"Then how kin it fly?" propounded Jeb.

A murmur of approval ran through the throng. Jeb's logic appealed to
their primitive intellects.

"Nothing can't fly that don't flap its wings," said one of them.

"But if it didn't fly, how in tarnation did it git here?" asked an old
man with a grizzled beard and blackened stumps of teeth projecting from
shrunken gums.

This appeared to be a poser for even Jeb. He had nothing to say.

"If you like I'll give you a ride in it," proffered Roy to Jeb.

"All right; only no monkey tricks now."

"What do you mean?"

"Wa'al, in course I know it won't fly, but if it does you'll hev to let
me out."

With this sage remark Jeb stepped gingerly into the chassis of the
aeroplane. He sat down where he was told and Roy took the wheel. Jeb's
companions gazed on in awed silence.

"Look out, Jeb," cried one.

"Don't