Fire on an aeroplane is even more terrifying than a similar casualty on any other type of machine.  Hardly had Peggy’s words confirming the alarming news left her lips when there came a cry from Jess.

The girl had just glanced at the barograph.  It showed that they were then 1,500 feet above the surface of the earth.  The girl had hardly made this discovery before, from beneath the “bow” of the monoplane, came a wave of flame; driven from the steering wheel by the heat, Peggy drew back toward her companion.  Her face was ashen white.

Left to itself the aeroplane “yawed” wildly, like a craft without a rudder.  Then suddenly it dashed down toward the earth, smoke and flames leaping from its front part.

Both girls uttered a cry of terror as the aircraft fell like a stone hurled into space.  Faster and faster it dashed earthward without a controlling hand to guide it.  It was at this instant that Roy and Jimsy became aware of what had happened.

[Illustration:  Both girls uttered a cry of terror as the air craft fell like a stone hurled into space.]

Instantly they swung their machine around in time to see the Golden Butterfly make her sickening downward swoop.  Both lads uttered a cry of fear as they saw what appeared to mean certain death for the two Girl Aviators.

Roy’s fingers scarcely grasped the wheel of his machine as he saw the downward drop.  Jimsy was as badly affected.  But almost before they could grasp a full realization of the accident the Golden Butterfly was almost on the ground.  It was in a hilly bit of country, interspersed by small lakes or ponds.

A freak of the wind caught the blazing aeroplane as it fell and drove it right over one of these small bodies of water.

The Golden Butterfly appeared to hesitate for one instant and then plunged right into the water, flinging the two girls out.  Both were expert swimmers, but the shock of the sudden descent, and the abrupt manner in which they had been flung into the water had badly unstrung their nerves.

Jess struck out valiantly, but the next instant uttered a cry: 

“Peg!  Peg!  I’m sinking!”

Peggy pluckily struck out for her chum and succeeded in seizing her.  Then with brisk strokes she made for the shore, luckily only a few yards distant.  It was at this juncture that the boys’ machines came to earth almost simultaneously.  High above Bess’s Dart hovered, and presently it, too, began to drop downward.  Apparently the accident had not been seen from the auto, at any rate the car was not turned back toward the scene of the accident.

As the boys’ aeroplanes struck the earth not far from the bank of the pond toward which Peggy was at that moment valiantly struggling, the two young aviators leaped out and set out at a run to the rescue.  They reached the bank in the nick of time to pull out the two drenched, half-exhausted girls.