“Good.  Then if you can hold the flames in check for a short time longer we can save your place yet.”

Beckoning to Jimsy, the boy darted off for the Red Dragon.  This machine he selected because, with the exception of the Dart, it was the fastest and lightest of the aeroplanes they had with them.  Farmer Hutchings had hardly closed his mouth from its gaping expression of surprise when a whirr of the motor announced that the Red Dragon was off.  Its lithe body shot into the air with tremendous impetus.

“Ther Corners is off thar to ther westward,” shouted up the farmer, “you can’t miss it.  It’s got a red brick church with a high tower on it right in the middle of a clump of elms.”

Speeding above fields and woodland the red messenger of pending disaster raced through the air.  Five minutes after taking flight Jimsy espied a high red tower.  Eight and one half minutes after the Dragon had shot aloft it fluttered to earth on the village street of Topman’s Corners, amid an amazed group of citizens who had seen it approaching.

It was the first aeroplane ever seen in the remote Pennsylvanian hamlet, and it created commensurate excitement.  But the boys had no time to answer the scores of questions, foolish and otherwise, that were volleyed at them from all sides.

“There’s a fire!” exclaimed Jimsy breathlessly, “a fire at Hutchings’s farm.  How soon can you get the engines there?”

A stalwart-looking young fellow stepped up.

“I’m chief of the department,” he said, “we’re the ‘Valiants.’  I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes if I have to kill the horses.  It’s downhill most of the way, anyhow.  Jim, you run off and ring ther bell.”

A second later the fire bell was loudly clanging and several of the crowd melted away to don their helmets and coats.  In less time than the boys would have thought it possible a good-looking engine came rumbling out of the fire house half a block down the street.  Behind it came a hook and ladder truck.

Fine horses were attached to each, and from the way they leaped off the boys saw that the “Chief” meant to make good his promise.

“Race you to ther fire!” shouted the latter functionary, as, in a storm of cheers, his apparatus swept out of sight down the elm-bordered street.

“You’re on,” laughed Roy, whisking aloft while the Topman’s Cornerites were still wondering within themselves if they were waking or dreaming.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GIRL AVIATORS IN DEADLY PERIL.

The fire was out.  A smoldering, blackened hillock was all that remained of the stack ignited by the lightning bolt; but the others and the main buildings of the farm had been saved.

Such work was a new task for aeroplanes—­but there is no doubt that, had it not been for Peggy’s suggestion, the Hutchings farm would have been burned to the ground.  As it was, when the firemen, their horses in a lather, arrived at the scene, the farm hands, who had been fighting the flames, were almost exhausted.