“Put your money back,” said Jimsy quietly after a telegraphic exchange of looks with Peggy, “we’ll take you to Hampton; but hurry!”

Fifteen minutes later a golden-hued aeroplane flashed past the Cape Charles light.  The announcer posted there, instantly sent in a wireless flash to Hampton.

“Number Six has just passed.  Two minutes behind Number Five (The Silver Cobweb), four persons on board.”

Mortlake was among the crowd that read the bulletin which was instantly posted upon the field outside Hampton.

“I wonder who the fourth can be?” he thought, little guessing that through the air fate was winging its way toward him.

“Anyway,” he added to himself the next instant, “the Mortlake is leading.  Now if only——­”

But what was that roar, at first a sullen boom, gradually deepening into the excited skirling cheers of a vast throng.

Mortlake looked round, startled.  Out of the distance two tiny dots, momentarily growing larger, like homing birds, had come into view.  Hark!  What was that the crowd were shouting?  Those with field glasses threw the cry out first, and then came a mighty roar, as it was caught up by hundreds of throats.

“The Nameless!  The Nameless wins!”

Mortlake paled, and caught at a post erected to hold up a telephone line.  He gazed at the oncoming aeroplanes.  There were three of them now, but one was far behind, laboring slowly.  But the first was unquestionably the Golden Butterfly.  He could catch the yellow glint of her wings.  And that second craft—­its silvery sheen betrayed it—­was the Mortlake Cobweb, as Roy had called it.

“Come on!  Come on!” shouted Mortlake, uselessly as he knew, “what’s the matter with you?”

But alas, the Cobweb didn’t “come on.”  Some three or four minutes after the Golden Butterfly had alighted and been swallowed up in a surging, yelling throng of enthusiasm-crazed aero fans, the Cobweb fluttered wearily to the ground, unnoticed almost amid the excitement over the Golden Butterfly’s feat.

Mortlake raged, old Mr. Harding almost wept, and Fanning sulkily explained that it wasn’t his fault, the cylinders having overheated again.  But not all of this could wipe out those figures that had just been put up on the board, which proclaimed a victory for the Prescott aeroplane by a margin of three and twenty-one hundredths minutes!

CHAPTER XXIV.

FRIENDS AND FOES—­CONCLUSION.

The winning of the “Sky Cruise,” as the newspapers had dubbed it, was the talk of Hampton that night.  Not a small part of the zest with which it was discussed was caused by the fact that a young girl had driven the machine through its daring dash.  The wires from New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and Richmond were kept hot with instructions from editors to their representatives demanding interviews with the Girl Aviators.  But to the chagrin of the newspaper representatives, after seeing their machine housed, the party had vanished.