THE YELLOW DOVE
her final instructions, until at last they reached a path, the same, he told her, by which they had come from the farm last night. They started up a frightened deer, which fled away from them, but they didn’t pause until the path cut sharply to the right and through the bushes they could see the buildings of Blaufelden. There they stopped and Hammersley went forward to investigate.
In the direction of the farmhouse was no sign of animation except the thread of smoke that rose from the kitchen chimney. The back of the hangar was just in front of them, a bare wall of wood, a hundred and fifty feet long. The opening was upon the other side, to the west, a huge canvas flap, toggled at the bottom to rings in the sill. Hammersley came back and whispered to Doris to follow him. Until the starting of the engine, this was the most hazardous part of the proceeding, for, if they were seen from the house, there would be no time for Hammersley to put the engines in order. He led her south to a point in the woods where the storehouse hid them from the main buildings, when, crouching low to avoid possible detection from the Windenberg road, they covered the fifty yards to the storehouse and waited again, completely hidden from all points except the forest behind them, while Cyril looked around the edge of the building, and then beckoned to her to follow. In a moment they had slipped between the end of the canvas flap and the door, and were within the dusky interior of the shed.
Before them stretched the wide expanse of the Yellow Dove, a huge biplane with a spread, as nearly as Doris could figure it, of a hundred and twenty feet from tip to tip. She stood before it in wonder and awe, admiring its fine lines and sturdy appearance. A
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