ng with
it when we do get it," spoke Jimsy presently.

"Whom do you mean by they?" asked Roy.

"As if you didn't know. Is there any doubt in your mind that that fellow
Cassell is at the bottom of all this?"

"Not very much, I'll admit," replied Roy; "I wonder if that accounts for
the inactivity of the police."

"In just what way?"

"Well, the fellow's a local politician and has a lot of 'pull'."

"He _must_ have, to get away with anything like this," was Jimsy's
indignant outburst.

"Well, don't let us waste time speculating," put in Peggy, in her brisk
manner; "the thing to do now is to get back the _Golden Butterfly_."

"You're right, Peg," came from both boys.

By this time they were out of the car, which they left standing at the
roadside while they examined the vicinity for tracks. But the grass in
the field was fairly long and no traces remained. Yet, inasmuch as the
tracks of the _Butterfly_ ended at the gap in the hedge, it was manifest
that that was the point at which it had been wheeled off the road.

"What next?" asked Jimsy, as it became certain that there was little use
in searching for a trail in the meadow.

"It's like looking for a needle in that proverbial haystack," struck
in Peggy.

"In my opinion we need the patience of Job and the years of old
Methuselah," opined Jimsy.

Roy alone was not discouraged.

"It can't be so very far off," he urged; "it stands to reason that they
can't have come much further than this since midnight, supposing the
machine to have been stolen about that hour."

The others agreed with him.

"We'll search all around here, including those woods," declared Peggy.

"Well, they can't have taken it very far into the woods," declared
Jimsy; "the spread of its wings would prevent that."

"That's so," agreed Roy; "I think we are getting pretty 'warm' right
now."

"All I am afraid of is that they may have damaged it," breathed Peggy
anxiously.

"It would be in line with their other tactics," agreed Roy; "men who
would try to burn down a stable with two boys in it, just to obtain
revenge for a fancied insult or injury, are capable of anything."

Without further waste of time they crossed the meadow and came to the
edge of the wood. At the outskirts of the woods the trees grew thinly
and it was plain that it would have been possible to wheel an aeroplane
into their shadow, despite the breadth of its wing-spread.

They passed under the outlying trees and pres