"You would, eh?" scoffed Dade. "Well, what would you say if I told you that that ain't Roy Prescott in the Golden Butterfly at all?"
"That you were crazy with the heat," was the prompt and impolite answer.
"Then you'd be crazy yourself. That's his sister in that aeroplane, and if he don't show up in time for the race she's going to fly it herself and win it."
If a bombshell had fallen at Fanning's feet he could not have been more thunderstruck. But he recovered in an instant.
"If she does I'll protest to the judges," he said angrily; "they can't prove that I know anything about her brother's disappearance, and that Golden Butterfly won't win this race if I can help it."
The first gleam of the summer dawn shining into Roy's place of imprisonment at the bottom of the old well revealed to him only too clearly into what a trap he had fallen. The well seemed to be about fifty feet or more in depth, and the sides were smooth and slippery.
The chill he had felt spreading through his limbs earlier was gone now, but a numb sensation was setting in which did not leave them even when the boy wriggled his legs about.
"Phew!" thought Roy. "I stand a fair chance of being turned into a pollywog or something if I stay here long enough."
Somehow, with the coming of daylight, the buoyant spirits of youth had returned to the boy and his predicament did not seem nearly so serious as it had during the dark hours.
But it was bad enough, as Roy realized. From time to time he tried shouting, but no one came to the edge of the well and peered over, although he anxiously kept his eyes riveted on the disc of sky above him. How long this went on Roy had no idea, but he had sunk into a sort of semi-doze when a sudden sound aroused him.
A tinkling, metallic sound, not unlike the rattling of the chain the night before that had, in reality, caused his trouble.
It was perhaps the five hundredth time he had uttered the cry since he had tumbled into the well. But this time there came a response.
The voice sounded rather shaky, and as if the utterer of the words was somewhat scared.
"It's a boy who has fallen into the well," shouted Roy. "I'm almost exhausted. Get me out."
A face suddenly projected over the well curb--a face which Roy recognized with astonishment as that of old Peter Bell, the hermit.