“We’ve beaten them to a standstill this time,” said Mortlake with intense conviction, “I feel that the Motor Hornet has the contest cinched.”

The Motor Hornet was the name that had been bestowed on the machine which Roy had poetically dubbed the Silver Cobweb.

The shed of the mysterious Nameless was the only one of the long row that did not buzz with activity all that day, which was one assigned to preparation for the contests of the morrow.  All the other aeroplane hives fairly radiated activity.  Freakish-looking men hovered about their weird helicopters and lovingly polished brass and tested engines.  The reek of gasolene and burning lubricants hung heavily over the field.  Reporters darted here and there followed by panting photographers bearing elephantine cameras and bulging boxes of plates, for the metropolitan press was “playing up” the tests which were expected to produce a definite aerial type of machine for the United States Navy.

But even the most inquisitive of the news-getters failed to get anything from within the mysterious realms occupied presumably by the Nameless.  Its roller-fitted double doors remained closed, and no sign of activity appeared about it.

This was conceded on all sides to be extraordinary, but all the speculation which was indulged in failed to elucidate the mystery.

“The Nameless is also the Ungetatable,” joked one reporter as he and a companion passed by.

But if anyone had been about late that night, long after the aviators who had quarters at the hotels in town had quitted the field, he would have seen three figures—­two girls and a boy, steal across the field from an auto which had driven up almost noiselessly, and unfasten the formidable padlocks on the doors of the Nameless’s dwelling place.

This done they vanished within the shed for a short time, and presently thereafter a dark and strangely shaped form slowly emerged from the shed.  It was the Golden Butterfly, and the trio of young folks were, as you have already guessed, Peggy, Jess and Jimsy.  They crawled noiselessly on board, and a few minutes later, with a soft whirring of the propellers, the Butterfly shut down for precaution’s sake to half speed, sped almost noiselessly upward.

The night was a calm one.  Hardly a leaf was stirring and the stars shone like steel points in a cloudless sky.  The aeroplane, after it had attained a few hundred feet, seemed to merge into the dark background of night sky.  Unless one had known of its flight it would have taken a sharp pair of eyes to have discerned it.

“Say, this is glorious.  It’s like being pirates or—­or something,” said Jimsy enthusiastically, as soon as they had reached a height where they felt they could talk without difficulty.

“It’s great after being penned up all day at that hotel,” agreed Peggy, who was at the wheel, “how beautiful the stars are.  Poor Roy, I wonder how he is getting along?”