“But who’ll go?”

The question came from Jimsy.

“We can’t all go, that’s certain,” exclaimed Bess.

“Tell you what we’ll do, we’ll count out,” declared Jess, her eyes dancing.

“A good idea,” hailed the others.

“Roy, you start it; but remember, not more than three can go.”

“Why?” inquired Peggy point blank.

“Because we’ll have to take the car, and someone must be left to look after Aunt Sally and the aeroplanes,” spoke Roy, falling in with Jimsy’s plans.

“Well, come on and count out,” urged Jess.

“Yes, that’s it.  Let’s see who will be it,” cried the others.

“Very well, if I can remember the rhyme,” responded Roy.  “How does it go anyway?”

“Inte, minte,” suggested Jimsy.

“Oh, yes!  That’s it,” responded Roy.  “I’ve got it now.  Inte, minte, cute corn, apple seeds and briar thorn, briar thorn and limber lock, three geese in a flock, one flew east and one flew west, one flew into a cuckoo’s nest, O-U-T out, with a ragged dish clout, out!” ending with Bess.

“Sorry for you, Bess!” cried the lad, “but you’re the first victim to be offered up.”

“Oh, well, it’s too hot to go chasing all over dusty country roads,” declared Bess bravely, although she would dearly have loved to go on the adventurous search for the missing aeroplane.

One after another they were counted out till only Roy, Peggy and Jimsy remained.

“Hurry up and let’s get off,” urged Jimsy as the “elimination trials,” as they might be termed, were concluded.

“Very well.  We’ll get the car—­it’s in the garage at the hotel—­and incidentally, we might get a lunch put up also.  It may be a long chase.”

The officer regarded them with frank amazement.

“My! but you city folks rush things,” he exclaimed.

“I suppose they’ll get busy on this case day after to-morrow,” exclaimed Roy disgustedly, as they hastened away.

It was half an hour later that the big touring car, with Roy at the wheel, rolled out of the hotel yard.  Jake had been told off to guard the livery stable and the aeroplanes while the rest remained with Miss Prescott, who was seriously agitated at the accumulation of troubles her party had met with since setting out.

“I declare,” she said, “I wish I was back at home where I could get a decent cup of tea and be free of worries.”

The trail of the aeroplane was not difficult to follow.  It led down the village main street and thence along a country road till it came to a sort of cross roads.  Here it branched off and followed a by-road for a mile or so.  At a gate in a hedge all signs failed however, although it was plain that the machine had been wheeled through the gap and taken across a field.

Beyond this field lay what appeared to be a wilderness of woods and bushes.

“Stumped!” exclaimed Roy, as he brought the auto to a stop.