over aerial possibilities, and he had always listened
with interest to what the inventor had to say. But that he should
actually be riding in such a marvellous craft seemed like a dream to this
venerable man of science.

After his first feeling of alarm had worn off the physician found that
riding in an aeroplane after the preliminary run with its bumps and
jouncings is over, is very like drifting gently over the fleeciest of
clouds in a gossamer car, if such a thing can be imagined. In other
words, the Golden Butterfly seemed not to be moving fast, but to be
floating in the crystal clear atmosphere. But a glance over the edge of
the high-sided chassis soon showed the physician that she was tearing
along at a great rate at a height of about five hundred feet. Fields,
woods, streams and small farmhouses swam by beneath their keel.

"Well, doctor, how do you like it?" Roy ventured, after a few moments.

"Like it!" repeated the physician; "my lad, it's--it's--it's bully!"

And thus did his dignity fall like a mantle from Doctor Mays after a few
moments in Peggy Prescott's, the girl aviator's, Golden Butterfly.

A few moments later they came in sight of the field in which they had
left poor Jess lying by the side of the wrecked automobile.

Hardly had they alighted before Jimsy, a rather worried look on his face,
was at the side of the aeroplane.

"Say, Roy," he exclaimed, "you didn't happen to put that jewel case in
your pocket for safe keeping after the accident, did you?"

"Why, no. Jess had it and slipped it under the seat while she was
driving," cried Roy. "Why?"

"Because it's gone!" exclaimed Jimsy, somewhat blankly.

"Gone! Impossible!" protested Roy.

"But it is. I've searched the field thoroughly in the vicinity of the
car, and I can't find a single trace of it."

"It couldn't have been stolen."

It was Peggy who spoke.

Roy thought a moment. All at once the recollection of Fanning Harding's
queer actions when they had seen him on the road below them flashed into
his mind. The road, as he had observed, led past the scene of the
accident.

Would it have been possible for Fanning to enter the field while they lay
unconscious there? After an instant's figuring Roy had to dismiss the
idea. Had such been the case, the son of the banker would have been much
further off when they observed him from the aeroplane than he had been.
The speed he was making would have carried him far from the wrecked auto
ha