efore the race, which meant so much to them, Peggy and Roy
decided to take a practice spin across country in their 'plane. The
capable looking machine excited much favorable comment when it was
wheeled out of its shed. Several of the other competitors gathered about
it while the engine was being tuned up. Among them was a surly looking
chap with a dark, roughly-shaven chin and a pair of shifty eyes. He stood
beside Fanning Harding, who was also in the crowd about the Golden
Butterfly.

The Sandy Bay boy gazed on with a sneering look while our two young
aviators got everything in readiness. This took some time for everybody
was anxious to take a hand in the work, and it was quite a task to
kindly, but steadfastly, reject these offers, well meant as they were.

At last everything appeared to be in good shape and with a buzz and a
whirr the engine was tried out. It worked perfectly, and before the crowd
had had time to cheer, the aeroplane shot up from the ground in front of
its shed with hardly any preliminary run. Then came a belated cheer.

"That's the craft that wins the big prize," said a stout, good-natured
looking man.

"Don't you be so certain," snapped out Fanning Harding, who stood close
by, and to whom the words were gall.

"Why, what's the matter with you, my young friend," asked the jovial man;
"you must be meaning to get it yourself."

"That's right," was the confident reply.

"Well, don't count your aerial chicks before they're hatched," was the
merry rejoinder. A laugh at Fanning's expense went up from the crowd. The
boy flushed angrily and strode off in the direction of his hangar.

"Confound that young Jackanapes of a Roy Prescott," he muttered, as he
went; "he gets ahead of me every time. But I'll fix him. Pop needs that
land, and if Roy wins this race the Prescotts can pay off that mortgage
and be on the road to riches. Well, I guess I'll settle all that. But
I'll have to act quickly."

"You seem to be sore on that Prescott boy," came a voice at his shoulder
suddenly.

Fanning turned quickly to find himself confronted by the unprepossessing
individual who had stood at his side during the start of the Golden
Butterfly, which was by this time almost out of sight in the eastward.

"Why, what do you know about it?" he asked, sharply.

"Well," was the rejoinder, "being an observing sort of an individual I
figured out that you were not best pleased at seeing what a fine
aeroplane that kid has. R