p Jess and we found this officer and came down here."

"What gift of second sight have you?" demanded Roy, gazing at the
smoking, blackened pile that had threatened the destruction of the
inflammable premises.

"I don't know. Womanly intuition, perhaps. Oh, Roy!"

The girl burst into a half-hysterical sob and threw her arms about her
brother's neck.

"You arrived in the nick of time, sis," he said, gently disengaging
himself from her clasp, "a little more and--"

He did not finish the sentence. There was no need for him to.

"Begorry, the ould place 'ud hev bin a pile of cinders in an hour's
time," declared the policeman.

It was Jess's turn to give an hysterical little sob.

Roy turned to Jimsy.

"Did you see anything? The place is reeking with kerosene. It was a plot
to destroy the aeroplanes and perhaps ourselves."

"I--I--"

Jimsy stammered. The words seemed to choke up in his throat. How was
he to confess that he had failed in his trust--had slept while danger
threatened?

"Well?"

Roy waited, plainly surprised. It was not like Jimsy to hesitate and
stammer in this way.

At last it came out with a rush.

"I--I--you'll never forgive me, any of you--I was asleep."

"Asleep! Oh, Jimsy!"

There was a world of reproach in Jess's voice. But Peggy interrupted
her.

"How was it, Jimsy?" she asked softly.

"I don't know. I give you my word I don't know."

Jimsy's voice held a world of self-reproach.

"I was reading," he went on, hurrying over the words as if anxious
to get his confession over with, "that book of Grotz's on monoplane
navigation. I felt sleepy and--and the next thing I knew I woke up
to hear you pounding on the door and shouting."

"A good thing the young ladies found me," put in the policeman; "shure
I was after laughing at them at first, but then, begorry, I decided to
come along with them. It's glad I am that I did."

"Who can have done this?" asked Roy, who had not a word of reproach for
his chum, although Jimsy had failed dismally in a position of trust.

"Begorry, they might have burned you alive!" cried the policeman
indignantly.

"No question about that," rejoined Roy; "it was a diabolical plot. Who
could have attempted such a thing?"

"Wait till I call up and have detectives sent down here," said Officer
McCarthy. "I'm after thinking this is too deep for us to solve."

Nevertheless, each of that little group but the policeman had his or her
own idea on the matter.