Had they possessed the time, the young folks would have been glad to tell the curious firemen something about their aeroplanes.  But it was well into the afternoon, and if they intended to keep up their itinerary it was necessary for them to be hurrying on.  A short time after the blaze had been declared “out” the aeroplanes once more soared aloft, and the auto chugged off in the direction of Meadville.

The afternoon sun shone sparklingly on the trees and fields below, all freshened by the downpour of the early afternoon.  The spirits of all rose as did their machines as they raced along.  Before leaving the Hutchings farm the old man had been so moved to generosity by the novel manner in which his farm had been saved from destruction that he had offered to give back $2.50 of the $5 he had demanded for the rent of his field.  Of course they had not taken it, but the evident anguish with which the offer was made afforded much amusement to the young aviators as they soared along.

In Peggy’s machine the talk between herself and Jess was of the strange finding of The Wren, and of the child’s curious ways.  Both girls recalled her odd conduct during the storm and what she had said about the peculiar influence of lightning on her memory.

“Depend on it, Jess,” declared Peggy, with conviction, “that child is no more a gipsy than you or I.”

“Do you think she was stolen from somewhere?” asked Jess, readily guessing the drift of her friend’s thoughts.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure they had no legal right to her,” was the reply.

“Oh, Peg!  Suppose she should turn out to be a missing heiress!” Jess, who loved a romance, clasped her gauntleted hands.

Peggy laughed.

“Missing heiresses are not so common as you might suppose,” she said; “I never met any one who had encountered any, except in story books.”

“Still, it would be great if we had really found a long missing child, or—­or something like that,” concluded Jess, rather lamely.

“I can’t see how we would be benefiting the child or its parents, either, since we have no way of knowing who the latter are,” rejoined the practical Peggy, which remark closed the discussion for the time being.

It was not more than half an hour later when Jess uttered a sharp cry of alarm.  From the forward part of the aeroplane a wisp of smoke had suddenly curled upward.  Like a blue serpent of vapor it dissolved in the air almost so quickly as to make Jess believe, for an instant, that she had been the victim of an hallucination.

But that it was no figment of the imagination was evidenced a few moments later by Peggy herself.  Aroused by Jess’s cry, she had made an inspection of the machine, with alarming results.  What these were speedily became manifest.

“Jess!  The machine is on fire!” she cried afrightedly.

As if in verification of her words there came a puff of flame and a strong reek of gasoline.  It was just then that both girls recalled that the Golden Butterfly carried twenty-five gallons of gasoline, without counting the reserve supply.