The engine of the plane continued to throb evenly; it was in perfect condition. At least, Linda thought, her plane was giving her no worry. But then, planes were more like automobiles now; the accidents were oftener due to the pilots themselves than to faulty motors.... But thus far, she had accomplished nothing. There had been no sign of an autogiro, or indeed of any kind of plane, since they left Arizona.
“We may be flying too high,” she remarked, as the hours passed without any success. “I’m afraid to dip too low with this plane.”
“Yes, that must be the trouble,” responded her companion. “They could come down amongst those bushes and camp for the night, and we’d never see them. It seems like a wild-goose chase to me.”
“You don’t want to give up?”
“No, not as long as we can get any news at all. And they can’t go on forever without gas. They’ll have to stop at airports every once in a while to refuel, and then they’ll be caught.”
“Some of these little Mexican places may not have been informed,” observed Linda. “If they didn’t speak English—or didn’t have a radio.”
On and on they flew, over this hot, deserted land, so uncultivated and barren. The sun sank and twilight came on—and still no sign of a town or an airport where the girls might land.
“I’m afraid I’m lost,” Linda admitted to Dot, when it became too dim to distinguish the ground even with the aid of glasses. “I’ll have to fly lower, and look for a landing. I think remember a place a couple of miles back.”
She circled about and began flying in the opposite direction, cautiously gliding a little nearer to the ground.
“Do you mind sleeping out tonight, Dot?” she inquired.
Her companion made a face. She had read enough about Mexican bandits not to relish the prospect.
“I suppose we’ll have to,” she said. “Anyway, we have plenty of food.”
Darkness was coming on fast; there was nothing to do but take a chance at landing. Beyond them stretched great black mountains, deep and forbidding, inhabited, they felt sure, by all sorts of wild animals. These must be avoided at any cost; so Linda went back to the spot she had selected and prepared to make a dangerous landing. How thankful she was that she had had plenty of experience in spot landings!
Keeping the plane still high enough to maintain the glide to the spot, she combined maneuvers to accomplish her purpose. From a glide, she went into a side-slip until she lost altitude, then, as she approached the landing-mark, she gradually reduced speed with the forward slip, straightening out just as she reached the ground. And landed on the exact spot she had selected!
“Good work, Linda!” cried Dot, admiringly.
Linda grinned.
“I was afraid I might be out of practice,” she said. “Spoiled by my Ladybug. It’s a satisfaction to know I can still land an ordinary plane. I guess she’ll be all right, just here.... Now for some food! I’m starved.”
“So am I. And thirsty too.... Where shall we make our camp?”
They looked all about them. In spite of the gathering darkness, they could see bare ground everywhere; only a few clumps of dry bushes in the distance. It was not exactly the spot one would select to camp out, if given a choice.
“Not too near the plane,” said Linda. “Though I guess we don’t need to build a fire. I don’t believe we could find any wood. No; let’s just open a can or two, and eat oranges and biscuits for tonight. Anything would taste good now.”
They prepared their meal and ate it almost in silence, for they were too weary to talk. Then, crawling into their blankets, although the night was exceedingly mild, they went to sleep under the stars.
The first faint rays of light were appearing when Linda was abruptly awakened by a familiar sound over her head. She sat up, reaching instinctively for her revolver at her side, and looking about her for some animal which might be the cause of the noise. But the sound, now more loud than before, was not that of an animal. It grew nearer, almost deafening—over her head. An airplane, of course! Now fully awake, she looked up into the skies. The plane was descending; a flashlight was turned into her face. Blinded for an instant, she looked away. Then, as she turned her gaze upon it again, she saw it on the ground. And, wonder of wonders, it was an autogiro!
Excitedly she turned to her companion. But Dot was still sleeping peacefully. That wasn’t surprising; it had always been hard to waken Dot. Alarms right beside her bed never had any effect.
“Dot!” she whispered, disentangling herself from her blanket, and edging up nearer to her chum. “Dot! Wake up!”
But Linda stopped suddenly; she couldn’t say anything more. With the speed of a bolt of lightning, a man ran at her, and, grasping both Linda’s hands with one of his, he clapped a wet rag over her face with the other. She had just time enough to identify her attacker as Sprague, when she fell to the ground unconscious. And, although she did not see what happened next, the same fate was accorded to Dot.
Both girls had been chloroformed!
Dot was the first of the two girls to come to consciousness. With a gasp for breath, she pushed the cloth from her face and sat up. For a moment or two everything swam about her; she didn’t know where she was.
She thought at first that she and Linda were on that deserted island in the Atlantic Ocean where they had been stranded early in the summer. But no; the ground was hard and dry—not a bit sandy—and there was no ocean in view. That couldn’t be the explanation. For there was the Ladybug within a few hundred yards!
She glanced at Linda and saw that she was lying motionless beside her on the barren ground, her blanket thrown aside. With a cloth over her face! In sudden panic Dot pulled it off desperately. Oh, suppose Linda were dead!
“Linda! Darling!” she implored piteously, but there was no reply, no movement from the inert figure. With a tremendous effort Dot forced herself to rise and bend over her chum.
“Tell me you aren’t dead, Linda!” she begged, hysterically.
A faint flutter of her companion’s eyelids came as a response.
With a tremendous effort, Dot reached for the thermos bottle and held water to Linda’s lips. At last the color came faintly back to the aviatrix’s face, and she smiled faintly.
“I’m—all right—Dot,” she managed to whisper. “But what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Dot took a drink of the water herself, and felt more revived.
“Where are we?” asked Linda.
“Somewhere in Mexico. Don’t you remember? We were flying after that girl, in Mr. Eckert’s Sky Rocket, and we came down for the night.”
Linda rubbed her eyes and looked about her. And caught sight of the Ladybug, whose appearance had so amazed Dot a moment before. And rubbed her eyes, and stared again.
“Am I crazy, Dot—or is that really an autogiro over there? Or am I seeing things?”
“It’s the Ladybug,” replied Dot. “I’m positive. We couldn’t both be dreaming.”
“But how did it get here? Is that girl around?”
“I don’t hear her. Unless she’s hiding.” Dot lowered her voice to a whisper. “Have you got your revolver handy, Linda?”
Linda felt at her side, where she had put it the previous night when she went to sleep, and sure enough, it was there. And, with the touch of that revolver, memory of the scene that preceded unconsciousness returned.
“I remember now!” she cried triumphantly. “I was wakened just as it was getting light, by a big noise. I finally identified it as a plane. At first I thought it was bandits, and I recall reaching for my revolver.... Yes.... Then I saw it was an autogiro. It landed ... and a man ... it was Sprague, I’m sure ... came and clapped that rag over my face. That’s all.”
“How ghastly!” cried Dot. “I can’t seem to remember a thing myself. I must have been sound asleep when he did it to me. But where is he now?”
“I know!” exclaimed Linda, with a sudden flash of understanding. “They must have made off in Mr. Eckert’s plane! In the Sky Rocket—for it’s gone.”
“Of course that’s it!” agreed Dot. “But how do you suppose they ever spotted us?”
“Well, you see, the Ladybug can fly much lower than we could in the Sky Rocket,” Linda explained. “They probably saw us in the air—when we didn’t see them—and followed us about till they saw where we made our landing. Then they waited for us to get to sleep, and for early morning light to help them in landing and taking off, and then descended on us with the chloroform.”
“Why do you think they wanted to swap planes?” asked Dot. “Because the Sky Rocket is faster?”
“Yes. And it wouldn’t be so easy to spot in the sky as an autogiro. Besides, by doing this, they know they will be throwing the police off the clue. Pretty clever, I’d say.”
“Those two are about the slickest pair of schemers I’ve ever heard of. There’s nothing they don’t think of.”
“And with each new trick they make a gain. Mr. Eckert’s plane is faster, newer, and more expensive than the Ladybug.”
“True. But aren’t you glad to have the dear old Ladybug back again?” asked Dot.
“I surely am. If she will fly. That’s another thing, Dot. You know that man at the airport said that she had a damaged wing. So naturally, the Spragues would be glad to get hold of a fresh plane.”
“I wonder whether they had trouble taking off,” observed Dot. “It’s not any too easy.”
“No, but the ground’s very hard. I guess they haven’t had any rain here all summer.... Come on, Dot, if you’re able to walk, let’s go over and see the Ladybug. I’m dying to get a look at her again.”
“So am I,” agreed her companion.
Walking a trifle shakily at first, and feeling extremely weak and queer after their experience, the girls went slowly to the spot where the autogiro was resting. Like her owner, she, too, looked in bad condition, as if she had been mistreated, and had travelled a great distance. And, as Linda expected, the patch on the wing was split open again.
“No wonder they swapped planes!” exclaimed Linda. “I guess that girl was pretty desperate. Well, thank goodness, I keep stuff on hand for repairs.”
“And thank goodness you know how to do it!” added Dot, with admiration. “Any other girl would be in a fine picnic in a fix like this!”
“Speaking of picnics, don’t you think we’d feel better if we ate something? I don’t feel a bit sick at my stomach—only terribly weak. Breakfast might help. They didn’t take our food and water, did they?”
“They didn’t take what we left out for breakfast,” replied the chum. “But unfortunately we left most of our stuff in the plane.”
“Well, we’ll have to eat sparingly. But if I work fast, I ought to be able to get off by noon, and we can surely fly till we find a place to eat.”
“Have we gas?”
“Yes, I just looked. Enough to go a couple of hundred miles.”
Arm in arm they went back to their little encampment and ate the food which Dot had reserved for breakfast and drank the coffee in one of the thermos bottles. The remainder of the water they decided to keep for their flight, and they still had half a dozen oranges which Dot had purposely left out of the Sky Rocket, expecting to eat them during the morning.
Linda wasted no time. As soon as she had finished eating she set right to work on the damaged wing. It was not hard for her, for she knew every tiniest detail of the construction. How thankful she was that it was her own Ladybug that she had to repair, and not a strange plane!
Much to her delight, she found her own license cards on the seat of the cockpit. Evidently the girl had no further use for them.
After the repairs had been made to the outside of the plane, Linda tested the engine. It was not running so smoothly as she liked to hear it. A spark plug was missing. With a sigh, she set to work again.
Dot, who had cleaned up all evidences of their camp, watched her in dismal silence. The day grew hotter and hotter, the sun poured down mercilessly on Linda, bending patiently over her work while the perspiration streamed from her face. But it was fixed at last; everything was to her satisfaction.
“Let’s have an orange,” she suggested, wiping her face with her handkerchief. “Oh, maybe I wouldn’t like a good swim right now!”
“And we haven’t even water enough to wash our faces!” lamented Dot.
“If we only had that gallon jug we put into the Sky Rocket!”
“Oh, well, we will soon find a town, now that it is light enough to find our way.”
Dot brought the oranges, and they tasted good, although they had become exceedingly warm from the hot sun.
“Think we’ll have any trouble taking off?” she inquired, as they finished the fruit.
“I guess not. If the Sky Rocket could get off—and she evidently did—I’m sure the Ladybug can make it. It’s good hard ground all about.”
Linda sounded confident, but Dot’s heart was in her mouth until she saw the Ladybug actually rise from the earth and soar up into the skies—wherein lay safety.
Once again Linda’s heart was singing with rapture. She had enjoyed piloting that swift plane of Mr. Eckert’s, but after all, there was nothing like her beloved Ladybug. Why, the thing was almost human, the way it responded to her touch!
Another great advantage at the present time, when the girls had lost their way, was the autogiro’s ability to fly low. Now they could watch the landscape for towns and airports and landing-fields. Oh, it was good to have the Ladybug back again, if she couldn’t make a hundred and fifty miles an hour!
The country was so strange, so different from anything they were used to, that, in spite of its barrenness, they watched it in fascination. They came to the mountains and Linda nosed her plane upward, over the steep slopes covered with pine forests, until she was rewarded by seeing little villages on the other side. Straw-roofed houses dotted the landscape; there was evidence of farm-life, of some kind of civilization, though just what, the girls couldn’t make out from their height in the air.
Linda consulted her map, and familiarized herself with the names of several of the towns near the mountains, determined to fly on until she could find a good landing. She noticed the tracks of a railroad in the distance, and this she decided to follow, until it should lead to a station, and be identified as a town. Her gas was growing low, but she had no fear of a forced landing. In country like this there would be plenty of opportunities for an autogiro.
Half an hour later she hovered over a small Mexican town that provided an airport, and brought the Ladybug to earth.
A man who was obviously a Mexican came forward to meet them.
“Do you speak English?” asked Linda.
The man nodded, smiling.
Reassured, the girls climbed out of the cockpit, and Dot proceeded to tell their story, asking how she could notify the police in Los Angeles in the quickest time, so as to have them pursue the Sky Rocket instead of the autogiro.
“You can send a wire immediately, right from here,” the man replied. “At least—you can when the operator comes back. He’s off for supper now.”
“I am a wireless operator,” announced Linda, calmly. “If you are willing to trust me, I can send my own message.”
“O. K.,” agreed the man, who was beginning to decide that girls could do almost anything now-a-days.
“And I want to leave the autogiro here for the night, and have her filled with gas and oil,” she continued. “And go to some hotel for a meal. Can you recommend one for us?”
“There are several hotels,” he replied, proudly. “But I will send you to the best.”
It proved to be strangely unlike any hotel the girls had ever visited. It was a long, low stucco building, with stone floors on the first story, and bare boards above. The supper, too, was unlike American food, but it tasted good to the hungry girls who had had nothing but a couple of oranges since their breakfast. And the prospect of a roof over their heads, after their disastrous adventure of the night before, was extremely pleasant. After their hearty supper they sat out on the wide, roofless veranda until the night grew cool enough for sleep.
“But where do we go from here?” asked Dot, wondering whether Linda had had enough by now, and was ready to go back to Los Angeles.
“More pursuit,” returned her companion. “I feel under greater obligations than ever to catch that thief now—for she has Mr. Eckert’s plane. I’m responsible for it. We’ll fly around to all the airports for news. Their gas supply ought to be getting low, and they’ll have to stop somewhere to fill up. That’s the clue we’ll have to follow.”
“I wish we could get back into the United States,” remarked Dot. “I don’t like the bugs here in Mexico.”
“I don’t think we can hope for that, till we catch them. They’re going to steer clear of our police.”
“I suppose you’re right,” yawned Dot. “Well, let’s go get some sleep. We can’t tell what adventures may be in front of us tomorrow.”
“No, we can’t possibly tell,” agreed Linda.
“I think,” announced Linda at the breakfast table in the Mexican hotel the following morning, “that we’ll have to cross the mountains today.”
Dot groaned.
“What a pleasant little ray of sunshine you are, Linda!” she said.
“I don’t see why you object so to the mountains—in broad daylight, I mean. If there are bears and snakes in the mountains, they can’t attack us in the air, can they?”
“So long as we just stay up in the air, it’s all right. What I don’t care about is camping out in these wild spots.”
“I don’t expect we’ll have to,” Linda assured her. “But I am taking an extra tank of gasoline, in case we can’t find a place to refuel. Meanwhile, what I want you to see about is the food, if you will.”
“I’m to make a visit to the kitchen, I suppose?” inquired Dot. She made a wry face at the cereal she was eating. “Do you know, Linda, I could bear most anything if only we never had to eat another mouthful of this hotel’s cooking.”
Linda laughed.
“I know it’s not exactly like the Ambassador. Still, it’s a lot better than nothing, and we might be very glad to have it.”
Dot did as she was asked and raided the hotel kitchen, ignoring the indignant protests of the servants. Inside of half an hour the girls were back at the airport where they had left the autogiro, and Linda was giving the Ladybug a thorough inspection, for she did not have much confidence in the mechanic’s knowledge.
“Any news of the Sky Rocket?” she asked, as she completed her work to her satisfaction.
“No, not a thing,” replied the man.
Somewhat discouraged, the girls climbed into the cockpits and Linda taxied a short distance along the runway, but left the ground so quickly that the mechanic stood there staring at the autogiro with his mouth wide open.
Linda directed her course south, aiming to reach a larger airport before noon. Here she made a landing, refueled, and again inquired for news. A yellow biplane, it seemed, had been sighted that morning, flying low, going west towards the coast of the Gulf of California. Whether it was the Sky Rocket or not, no one could say. But at least it was a clue to follow.
“I told you we’d have to cross those mountains,” remarked Linda. “But please don’t start to worry about them yet.”
Linda changed her direction and headed the ship west, and they flew a monotonous course for a couple of hours. The sun glared down upon them, and the earth below looked parched and barren. So different from their own Ohio country in the month of October.
They reached the mountains at last, and after assuring herself that there was plenty of gas in her reserve tanks, Linda flew dauntlessly towards them. As she approached, she noted a heavy cloud bank hovering directly above the mountains, and extending so far on either side that she gave up all thought of going around it. Instead she put the ship into a sharp climb and headed resolutely into it. She held the climb until she was several thousand feet higher to make sure of clearing the mountain safely, but as they had failed at this height to rise above the cloud, she leveled off.
Grayness was all about them, enveloping them like a blanket, and cutting off their view of either the mountains or the sun. In her powerlessness to see in this unknown region, Linda suddenly experienced a queer choking sensation, brought on by her helplessness. Scolding herself for this momentary weakness, she pulled back the joy-stick and nosed the Ladybug still higher up. But climb as she might, she could not get away from that cloud.
Dot, however, did not appear to be frightened at all. Wasn’t Linda always able to get the best of almost any bad situation, even if it were an unknown mountain range in a mist? She was singing cheerfully to herself, when all of a sudden, the words died on her lips.
Another plane was approaching—was almost on top of them! They had not been able to see it, because of the cloud, or to hear it, because of the noise of their own motor. But there it was, rushing headlong at them with the relentless speed of an infuriated animal. Dot held her breath and shut her eyes.
Linda saw it too, and flashed on her lights as a signal. But it was too late for signals; only a miracle could save them. With a sudden sharp turn she banked to the left, and went into a side-slip, dropping the plane fifty feet. The other plane passed over their heads, barely missing the rotor blades.
The perspiration had collected on her face in beads, and her hands were hot and moist. It had been a narrow escape!
But it evidently wasn’t over. Or could it be another plane? For the thing was almost upon her again, as if it, too, had dropped on purpose. She couldn’t believe her ears. Was it that girl—and had she recognized the rotor blades of the autogiro, and was trying to force Linda to land?
Her heart in her mouth, she banked again, dropping for the second time, determined to land now at any cost. The strain had been awful the first time, but now it actually unnerved her. Inside of that cloud—on the dangerous mountain side! No; she could not take another chance, not only with her own life, but with Dot’s. Wherever she came down, it couldn’t be as dangerous as this.
Gradually throttling her engine down to a slower speed, she began her descent by a series of glides. All the while watching for a glimpse of the solid earth beneath her.
Down, down they came, but still there was no ground visible. They must have passed over the mountains, she decided, and were descending into a valley. Or level ground, perhaps. That thought was encouraging.
“There it is!” shouted Dot, almost hysterically. “The earth, I mean!”
Linda breathed a deep sigh of relief. Never before had she been so thankful to see it, unless perhaps the first time she had made a parachute jump.
“It must be the plateau!” she cried, joyfully. “We must have passed over the mountains!”
Gently the autogiro settled down to a landing on the level ground beneath them. It was a fertile spot in comparison with the other places in Mexico where they had landed. The earth was not nearly so parched or barren, and here and there, between the underbrush and the bare spots, a kind of coarse grass was growing. Perhaps, Linda thought, the land was used by someone for grazing.
“Quite a pleasant spot,” remarked Dot gaily, as if they had been on a picnic instead of face to face with death.
“See the mountains over there?” asked Linda, for they were out of the range of the cloud through which they had just passed.
“Yes. But they’re far enough away that I really don’t mind. If a bear wanders over to visit us, we’ll feed him some Mexican food.”
They climbed out of the cockpits, carrying their box of provisions in their arms, when they saw a sight that made them stand breathless in horror. About five hundred yards away they beheld a great mass of flame, shooting up to the sky.
“It’s a plane!” exclaimed Linda. “It must be the one we almost crashed against.”
With one thought in mind, the girls both dropped their box and started to run. Oh, if a human being were caged in that burning cockpit! It was too dreadful to think of—a death like that.
But before they had covered fifty yards of the intervening distance, they saw a parachute floating down to the earth. They stopped instantly, waiting in breathless suspense. Suppose it were Sprague, with his supply of chloroform? Tensely alert, Linda pulled her revolver from her belt.
But it was not Sprague. The man who floated down let out a cry of horror when he recognized Linda and Dot. Though why he should be so horrified, the girls did not know.
The man was Bertram Chase!
He disentangled himself from his ropes, glanced at his burning plane, and let out a groan.
“You!” he cried. “And to think, I almost killed you!”
“You couldn’t help that,” said Linda gently. “It seems we almost did for you, too. If you hadn’t jumped.”
“That wasn’t your fault. My plane caught on fire somehow—a leak, I think, in the gas feed. That’s why I jumped.... But that had nothing to do with you.... But I actually tried to force you down—the second time, I mean. The first was accident.”
“But why?” asked Dot, incredulously.
“I saw your rotors, the first time I passed over you. And knew it was the autogiro. And thought that girl was piloting it, of course. How did you girls ever get hold of it again?”
“Then you didn’t get the report from the Los Angeles headquarters?” inquired Linda.
“What report?”
“That we exchanged planes. My double stole our Sky Rocket, and left us the Ladybug instead.”
“And got away with it?” demanded Chase.
“Yes. We’re still after them. But where have you been in the meanwhile?”
“Flying around these mountains, without any touch of civilization. I even made a search on foot, but it proved to be a false clue that I was following. But tell me the story, while we take a walk over and examine my poor ship.”
Briefly Dot related the facts of the night-adventure with Sprague and his wife, as the three young fliers approached the burning mass. The flames had somewhat subsided, and only a smoking, blackened frame remained.
“Was it yours, Mr. Chase?” asked Linda sympathetically, thinking how dreadful she would feel if it were the Ladybug.
“No,” he replied. “It belonged to the secret service. It was an old boat, but I was fond of it. And I’ve lost a lot of my things.... I think,” he added, gloomily, “that I’d better hunt about for some water, to put the fire entirely out. I don’t want to start a prairie fire, or whatever you call it.”
“Do you suppose there is a stream anywhere about?” asked Linda.
“I hope so. If we’ve got to stay here for the night.”
“Then come back to the Ladybug and get a can to fill, in case you do find water. Bring some back to us, if possible, and then we’ll give you some supper. Real Mexican food—if you like it.” It was Dot who made this offer, and she winked slyly at Linda as she concluded.
The young man wandered off, and the girls turned to their preparations for supper. The food had already been cooked, so they decided to eat it cold.
It was some time before Chase returned with the can of water and the announcement that he had found a stream, and had succeeded in putting out the fire. He sat down gloomily beside the girls, but he made no motion to eat.
“Don’t look so sad, Mr. Chase,” said Dot. “They’ll give you another plane.”
“It isn’t that,” he replied, morosely. “It’s my foolhardiness. When I think of what I did to you, I’d like to shoot myself.”
He looked so pathetic, so utterly downcast, that Linda didn’t know what to say. But Dot, in her characteristic manner, tried teasing him. Very solemnly she handed him Linda’s pistol.
“If you really want to shoot yourself, go off away from us, where you won’t clutter up the landscape!”
The young man laughed in spite of himself.
“Snap out of it, Bert!” she commanded, using his first name on purpose. “And have some of this delicious Mexican food. I don’t know its name, but it tastes like week-old hash to me.”
Smiling again, Chase accepted the paper plate she held out to him.
“Just imagine, Bert,” Dot continued, afraid to stop talking lest he become sad again, “that we’re here on a picnic, with the autogiro, and this delicious supper. And you’re lucky enough to be the young man chosen—out of hundreds of admirers of Miss Linda Carlton! Why, you have no idea how many young men in this country would give their best hats to have your chance!”
Linda flushed at this remark.
“Now, Dot,” she protested. “You’re being silly!”
“I am not. I’ll enumerate them, if you like. There’s Ralph Clavering, and Harriman Smith, and—”
“Hush, Dot!” cried her chum, putting her hand over her mouth. “That’s about enough out of you!”
Chase, who by this time was grinning broadly, bowed in acknowledgment.
“All joking aside,” he said, “I realize what an honor it is. And that’s just why I feel so rotten about doing those two mean things to you, Linda.” He was so in earnest that he did not realize that he had used her first name. “Accusing you of forgery the first time I saw you, and then almost killing you. You, who have never done anything wrong in your whole life!”
“Come now, that’s putting it on a little bit too thick!” remonstrated Dot. “Linda’s not such a saint as that. I remember many a time that she climbed cherry trees that didn’t belong to her, and skinned out of school—”
“That’s enough about me,” interrupted Linda. “It’s getting so dark, I think we ought to make our plans for the night.”
“I suppose we have to stay here,” remarked Dot, with a sigh.
“Why the sigh?” asked Chase.
“Oh, I don’t care for camping out—in Mexico.”
“I don’t blame you—after being chloroformed,” sympathized Chase. “But you don’t have to, tonight. For I found a straw-covered shack over near the stream where I got our water. You girls can have that. I’ll stay up here, beside the autogiro.”
“You have redeemed yourself, Bert!” exclaimed Dot, jumping to her feet, and shaking his hand. “For one night at least, we’ll be safe!”
The little Mexican adobe house which Bert Chase had discovered was the funniest Linda and Dot had ever seen. A one-room affair, with a slanting straw-covered roof, and no windows. Only two doors, opening back and front.
“I’d almost rather sleep under the stars,” remarked Linda. “For there are probably all sorts of bugs in the corners and cracks.”
Dot shivered. “Still, bugs are better than bears and snakes, that might come wandering down from those mountains,” she said. “And besides, it would be ungrateful not to use the house after Bert found it.”
“It will be protection from the sun in the morning,” added Linda. “Because this Mexican climate gets pretty hot.”
So, spreading their blankets on the floor and propping the doors open with sticks, they lay down on their hard bed and fell fast asleep, not to awaken until quite late the following morning.
“Fog again!” yawned Dot, as she finally got up stiffly and walked to the door. “I’m sick of these fogs.”
“It’ll probably clear up soon,” Linda reminded her. “I’ve read that early morning fogs are the common thing in this part of the country.”
“Let’s hunt that stream Bert was talking about, and get a good wash,” suggested Dot. “Before we go back to the autogiro.”
They found it not far from the little house, and although it was shallow and narrow, the water was clear and refreshing. They felt much better as they made their way back to the spot where the Ladybug had landed.
For several minutes they could see nothing because of the fog, and they began to feel worried. Suppose something had happened to Chase or to the autogiro during the night! What a desolate place to be stranded!
Before these dismal thoughts could really take hold of them, they spied the dim outlines of the Ladybug, shadowy in the fog. She was still there! Their means of escape.
Dot placed her hands at her mouth, and gave a war-whoop for Chase.
“Yo-ho-ho-ho-Bert!” she shouted.
“Yo-ho, girls!” came the reassuring reply. “This way!”
Then they distinguished a fire, and a moment later, came upon him, contentedly cooking a fish.
“Where did you get it?” demanded Dot.
“Caught it. Early this morning,” he replied. “I felt guilty about eating so much of your food last night, so I tried to get a contribution. That stream widens out about a mile below your little house, so I went down and tried my luck.”
“You’re a peach!” exclaimed Dot. “Because all we have left is coffee and that terrible Mexican bread. It’s a wonder they don’t learn how to bake in Mexico.”
“It surely smells good,” observed Linda. “How soon can we eat?”
“As soon as you girls make the coffee. I brought up a fresh supply of water this morning. We’ll boil some of it, to take along with us for drinking, while we have the chance to do it.”
It turned out to be a delicious as well as a merry meal. While they ate, the fog gradually lifted, bringing a clear, if hot day, for their flight.
“We must be pretty near the coast of the Gulf of California,” said Linda. “So I think perhaps our best plan would be to fly across to the peninsula. I have an idea that girl is going to abandon the Sky Rocket as soon as she can, for it’s pretty conspicuous.”
“What would she do to get away, if she hadn’t a plane?” demanded Dot.
“Hide somewhere, or take a boat for South America perhaps. Now that she and her husband are out of the United States, it would be easy enough for them to book passage on a small steamer—without being noticed.”
“Is your autogiro in good condition?” inquired Chase. “I mean—I didn’t damage it yesterday, did I?”
“No. You know you never touched me. But I’ll look her over before we start. And put in that tank of extra gas I was carrying in the passenger’s cockpit.”
“Perhaps I could help you?” suggested the young man. “I don’t know much about the inside workings of a plane, but maybe two heads are better than one.”
Dot let out a peal of laughter.
“Linda is a graduate airplane mechanic,” she said. “She is the only woman in the country with a mechanic’s license!”
Chase stared in open-mouthed amazement.
“Whew!” he exclaimed. “I do take off my hat to you, Miss Linda Carlton!”
“You’d better!” laughed Dot.
“Oh, don’t be so silly,” put in Linda, anxious to be off. “Let’s all go over to the Ladybug now.”
While Dot put the equipment into the autogiro, Chase filled the gasoline tank and Linda gave the boat a hasty inspection. Apparently everything was ship-shape.
They climbed into the cockpits and Linda started the rotors in motion. It was Chase’s first experience in an autogiro, and he watched her with absorbed interest. The ease with which the Ladybug rose into the air seemed nothing short of miraculous to him, accustomed as he was to the prolonged taxi-ing of a fast plane.
With the aid of her maps and compass, Linda was able to judge their location pretty definitely, and she flew westward to the Gulf of California, aiming to stop first at an airport to make inquiries about the Sky Rocket, and to refuel. They passed over the plateau, and caught glimpses of several Mexican villages, which, however, seemed too small to boast of airports. At last, however, about noon, she spotted a town of some size, with beacon sign-posts, pointing to an airport. Here she made her landing.
“We’ll be out of luck if they don’t speak English,” remarked Dot.
“Don’t worry about that,” returned Chase. “I can speak Spanish, and they all understand that down here.”
But it wasn’t necessary, for one of the attendants at the field spoke English perfectly.
“Have you seen a yellow biplane?” demanded Dot, as the man came out of the hangar. “A fast plane?”
The attendant nodded.
“Yes,” he replied. “I did. We got a radio yesterday, telling us to be on the look-out for a stolen plane. I’m pretty sure I saw her yesterday, but she didn’t stop here.”
“She wouldn’t,” remarked Dot, bitterly.
“What direction did she take?” asked Linda.
“Straight across the Gulf. Due west.”
“Due west for us, then,” announced Linda. “Fill up my tanks, for we want to leave with all possible speed.”
Inside of ten minutes they were off again, more encouraged than they had been since the beginning of their pursuit. It looked now as if they really might catch those criminals.
In their eagerness to follow hot on the trail, not one of the three fliers even thought of lunch. Later in the day they were to regret this omission sorely.
An hour of flying brought them to the coast, but Linda did not stop. Out over the water she flew, her heart beating rapidly with the expectation of victory ahead.