awing Jess and
Jimsy aside she related to them, in a voice that shook in spite of
herself, the mysterious occurrences of the night, and Roy's total
disappearance.

"I'm going right over now and ask Fanning if he knows anything about it,"
announced Jimsy indignantly as soon as the girl had concluded.

"Oh, don't, please don't," begged his sister.

"I don't think it would be wise to, now," put in Peggy.

But Jimsy was not to be shaken in his purpose. Fanning was outside his
hangar smoking a cigarette and swaggering about when Jimsy approached
him. Perhaps the self-assertive youth felt a bit alarmed at the look in
Jimsy's eye as he stepped up, but he assumed an impudent expression and
blew out a puff of smoke which he did not try to avert from Jimsy's face.

"Good morning, Fanning," said Jimsy, bottling up his temper at the
other's insulting manners, "can you give me a few minutes of private
conversation?"

"Hum, well I don't know. What's it about?" inquired Harding more
impudently than ever.

"It's about Roy, Fanning," said Jimsy seriously. "I want you to tell me
on your word of honor that you don't know where he is."

"Oh, you do, eh? Well, you have an awful nerve to come to me with such
questions. How do I know where he is?"

This question was somewhat of a poser for Jimsy. That impetuous youth had
approached the other more or less on an impulse, and now that the direct
question was put to him he felt that he could not, for the life of him,
put his suspicions into so many words.

"Well--er--you see," he said somewhat confusedly, "I had an idea that you
might have seen him."

"Well, I haven't, and what's more I don't want to," snapped Fanning
aggressively. He was quite cool now that he saw that Jimsy had nothing
definite against him in his mind, but only a vague suspicion.

"You really mean that, Fanning?" rejoined Jimsy earnestly. "His sister is
terribly worried. He hasn't been seen since last night."

"Is that so?" asked Fanning with a sudden accession of interest; "then he
can't race to-day, can he?"

"I wasn't thinking about the race," said Jimsy; "it was Roy himself I was
worrying about."

"Well, you may as well stop your anxiety," chuckled Fanning; "how do you
know he isn't off on a little spree, and----"

"That's enough, Fanning. Roy Prescott does not do such low-down things.
He----"

"Oh, you mean to imply that I do, eh?"

Fanning came forward pugnaciously.

"I'll tell you what it is, Jim