“Good morning, Miss Slocum,” said Mr. Sprague, smugly, as Linda and Dot entered the studio at Culver City the following day.
Linda winced at the name, and looked around her, to see whether another girl could be entering at the same time. But there was no one except a strange young man sitting in the corner, who couldn’t possibly be “Miss Slocum.” The secretary was evidently giving her a dig; perhaps he was trying to trap her by calling her by the name which Dot had manufactured on the spur of the moment at Kansas City, and which had been repeated by the newspapers.
“Trying to be funny, Mr. Sprague?” inquired Dot, scathingly.
The stranger in the corner arose from his seat.
“This is Mr. Bertram Chase, of the police,” Sprague announced, calmly. “Miss Slocum and Miss Manton.”
The girls regarded the young man questioningly. He was in plain clothes—not an ordinary policeman.
“A detective,” explained Sprague, simply.
Dot became impatient; she wanted to get to the point of their visit.
“We should like to meet the aviatrix who calls herself Linda Carlton,” she announced, in a business-like tone. “Has she come in yet?”
“She is on the set now,” replied Sprague. “Going through her stunts. She has only a small part in the picture, so it can all be done at once.”
“Will you kindly take us out where she is?” asked Linda.
“In a minute, sister,” returned the man, condescendingly. “But we have some business with you first.”
Linda’s expression became freezing. She could not bear this insolent young man. He smiled in an irritating manner.
“We have examined your licenses, Miss Slocum,” he said. “And we believe the signatures have been forged. The real Miss Carlton brought hers today, and we compared the two. There is no doubt that hers is genuine.”
“What?” demanded Linda, in horror.
“Let us see them!” demanded Dot, entirely unconvinced.
Mr. Sprague nodded.
“Our friend, Mr. Chase, has them now. He will let you look at them.”
The young man, who could not have been a day over twenty-five, looked extremely embarrassed. Not like a hard-boiled detective at all, Linda thought. Indeed, he flashed her a look of sympathy, as if he did not share in Sprague’s accusation. Still, it was his business, and he had to go through with it.
He fumbled in his pockets and produced two cards, identical at a glance. The same numbers, the same printing—and what looked like the same signatures.
“Don’t let them out of your hands, Chase,” warned Sprague, evidently determined to be as nasty as possible.
“You see, ladies,” Chase said, almost apologetically. “This signature is forged.” He held up one of the cards. “Look at the capital ‘L’. It hasn’t been copied quite right.”
“Of course it hasn’t!” cried Dot. “But the other one is yours, Linda.”
“Yes,” agreed Linda, trembling in spite of her innocence, “I remember that mud-spot on mine. I got it on that treasure-hunt that Mr. Clavering planned, from Green Falls last summer.”
“Odd,” remarked Sprague, sarcastically. “That is the very mud-spot the real Miss Carlton identified her card by!”
“What do you propose to do?” demanded Dot, now thoroughly exasperated.
“Hold Miss Slocum under bail,” replied Sprague. “For forgery.”
Dot burst into a peal of laughter.
“It’s too absurd!” she exclaimed.
The young detective looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
“Shall we go out on the lot?” he suggested. “And see the stunts?”
“O. K. by me,” agreed Sprague.
“Are we to wear hand-cuffs?” inquired Dot, flippantly.
Sprague gave her a withering look.
“You are not being held at all, Miss Manton,” he said. “We’re not concerned under what names you care to travel.”
The young detective fell back and walked across the lots with the girls.
“I believe you are innocent, Miss—Carlton,” he said, his brown eyes already showing devotion to Linda. “Of course I have to take your money for bail, but I’m sure it will be all cleared up soon. I think that the other girl is the impostor.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Chase!” cried Linda, the tears dangerously near to her eyes at this expression of sympathy.
The group reached the lot, where the picture was being rehearsed. It looked so interesting, so thrilling,—had it been under any other circumstances, the girls would have only been too delighted at the opportunity. But now they could think only of the horrible fix they were in, with not a friend in this strange city to vindicate them.
Mr. Von Goss, who was buzzing busily about the lot, paid no attention at all to Dot and Linda—not even a formal nod of greeting as he passed them by. He had evidently decided that they were impostors, who had cleverly deceived him, thereby securing for themselves an evening’s unusual entertainment at his expense. Therefore, he preferred not to recognize them at all. The deliberate cut hurt Linda, for she had liked and admired the older man, and had found him exceedingly interesting.
The moving-picture aviatrix, however, was going through all sorts of stunts in a silver Moth, which had been brightly painted and decorated. Linda stood still, gazing at her enviously. Not that she wanted to be in the picture, but she would always rather be in the air than on the ground. And it looked now as if she were to be chained to the earth for several days to come, unless she or Dot could think of a way out of their difficulties.
“The girl’s too low!” cried Chase suddenly, in horror.
Linda watched her; she certainly was dangerously near to the ground. The roar of her motor was deafening. But, by a stroke of luck, she regained control, and abruptly pointed her plane upward, climbing without disaster.
“She’s good,” admitted Linda, in all fairness.
“Not so good as she looks,” remarked Chase. “I happen to know that plane and it will take a lot of punishment. But she’ll do that little stunt once too often.”
“You’re a flier too, Mr. Chase?” inquired Linda.
“Yes,” he replied. “I’m a secret-service man, on the air force of the police.”
He looked right into Linda’s eyes, as if to tell her that his love of flying was another bond of sympathy between them.
“How did you happen to be called in—on an unimportant case like ours?”
“I’m here on something else. Connected with another case. And I know Mr. Von Goss personally, so he asked me to help him out.”
“I see.... I suppose I shouldn’t ask you for advice, Mr. Chase—but—I feel as if you would help me, if possible. What would you do if you were in my place?”
“Wire to somebody well known in aviation circles, who can come and identify you asthe girl who flew the Atlantic alone. Because that is the important thing. That’s why Von Goss is paying the aviatrix thirty thousand dollars for a small part in one picture. Just because of that one fact!”
“Then friends wouldn’t help—in establishing my identity?”
“No. They ought to be people in aviation.”
Dot interrupted this conversation, by suddenly grasping Linda’s arm. “Look at Sprague!” she cried. “Look at the way he’s waving that hat of his to his girl-friend! Now what do you suppose the idea of that is?”
At the mention of his own name, the secretary turned to the girls.
“Miss Carlton is supposed to fly away—be lost to sight now,” he informed them, calmly. “It isn’t likely she’ll come back and land here, for that finishes her part.”
“You mean we’re not to see her?” demanded Dot. “That looks suspicious to me!”
“Oh, yeah?” returned Sprague. “Well, don’t flatter yourselves that Miss Linda Carlton has time to waste on a couple of upstarts from Toonerville, or wherever it was you came from. She’s a busy girl!”
Linda sighed deeply as she watched the plane disappear entirely from view. There was nothing to do now; Sprague and Von Goss were both against her. She might as well go back to the hotel.
“Come to the hotel this afternoon for that check for bail,” she said to Chase. “I’ll have it ready.”
Then, with a nod of farewell, she and Dot left the lot and went into a restaurant at Culver City for their lunch. But this time they were not interested in seeing the stars. Their own problems were too pressing.
“If I could only get in touch with Daddy,” said Linda, as she nibbled at her salad. “But I don’t know where he is, and I should hate to alarm Aunt Emily by telling her that I am being held under bail. No ... I guess the best idea is to wire Mr. Eckert.”
“That’s the stuff!” approved Dot. “Why not go over to that telephone and do it now, while I order something for dessert?”
Linda took the suggestion, and fifteen minutes later the girls started back for their hotel in Los Angeles. They felt like prisoners, unable to come and go at will. As a matter of fact, Dot was still as free as air, but she had no thought of deserting Linda.
They bought the afternoon paper on their way back to the hotel, and when they reached their room, Dot spread it out on her bed to read. But the first item that met her eye made her stare in horror. It was Linda’s picture, right on the front page, with the caption “Miss Sallie Slocum, impersonating Linda Carlton,” and underneath it, the whole dishonest story.
She read it in rising anger, determined to destroy it before Linda should see it. But her companion, noticing the look on her chum’s face, crossed the room and saw it for herself.
“Not a soul will believe it is really I!” she exclaimed. “Because it doesn’t look a whole lot like me.”
“No, it certainly doesn’t. It must be that same picture the reporter took of us both at the airport, the day we landed here in Los Angeles. Only I’m cut off. I’m not news any more.”
“No, you’re free, Dot.”
“Yet it’s all my fault!” She wound her arms around Linda. “Darling, I just can’t tell you how sorry I am for that silly prank!”
Linda patted her hand.
“Don’t think of it as your fault, Dot. That name business is only a side-issue. That girl would have gotten away with it, no matter what we did. She’d have thought up something else if she hadn’t had that to play on.”
“But I played right into her hands.”
“Perhaps. Only, any girl who would go to all this trouble to invent such a dishonest scheme would have succeeded somehow. Why, the licenses were really the most important thing. But how she ever managed to get them exchanged without that smart Sprague noticing, is more than I can account for.”
“Well, you must remember he wasn’t prejudiced against her as he was against you. He trusted her, so he probably wasn’t watching her closely.”
“I detest that man,” said Linda.
“So do I,” agreed Dot.
“Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” remarked Linda, with a yawn. “I think a nap would do us good.”
So, wisely acting upon the suggestion, the girls slept until Mr. Chase called at five o’clock for Linda’s check for one thousand dollars for bail.
“Which I hate to have to take,” he said, apologetically. “But I expect to give it back to you soon!”
Linda and Dot both felt terribly depressed, in spite of their luxurious surroundings. Indeed, both girls had showed more spirit on that deserted island in the Atlantic Ocean, where they had been stranded without any plane during the early summer. When both their food and their water supply were limited, and the chances of survival were small. But now there was nothing to do but wait—wait in this strange, lonely city, where their only friends—Mr. Von Goss and Mr. Chase—had turned out to be enemies. And now Mr. Chase was going away, flying south on important business, so that even he would be lost to them.
“But you will soon be free,” he had said, after he had heard that Linda had wired for Mr. Eckert.
“In time to stop that picture’s being shown, do you think?” inquired Linda. “I understand that the rest of it was completed, and that all that had to be filmed was my double’s part.”
“Yes, I believe that’s what Von Goss said. But surely it won’t be released for a month or so. I shouldn’t worry. You do hate publicity, don’t you?” he asked, sympathetically.
“I have always tried to shun it,” answered Linda. “But it seems that I am being punished now.”
But the young man had gone, and the girls were feeling very blue.
“We’ve got to pull ourselves together!” announced Dot, after a few minutes of somber silence. “Let’s step out and go to a show tonight! After all, you paid that thousand dollars bail, and we might as well get some fun out of it.”
“True,” admitted Linda.
“Not a picture this time. A theatre. I’m sick of movies.”
“So am I.”
“And let’s make a rule, with a forfeit of five dollars, if either of us mentions that aviatrix, or Sprague, or any other vermin we have met around the studio, we have to pay the other! Is it a go?”
“Does that include Mr. Chase?” asked Linda, slyly.
Dot poked her companion under the chin.
“I suppose not,” she agreed. “You couldn’t exactly describe him as ‘vermin’.... And besides, I can see that you were rather smitten. And did he fall for you? Whew!”
Linda blushed.
“He is a nice young man, don’t you think so, Dot?”
“Of course I do. But poor Ralph! How jealous he’d be, if he only knew!”
“Ralph will be furious because I didn’t wire to him to help us out. But after all, he’s only a personal friend, and of course his assertions about my innocence wouldn’t carry much weight.”
“We’re agreed, then,” said Dot, as she began to dress for dinner, “that the tabu subjects are Von Goss, movies, Sprague, and your double. At five dollars apiece!”
Linda laughed, but she felt much better. Trust Dot to find some fun in every situation, no matter how unpleasant or dangerous it seemed. They were able to get seats at a very good play, and in the excitement of the mystery involved, they forgot all about their own troubles, and had no need to worry about the forfeit.
It was lucky indeed that they were able to enjoy their evening, for the next morning held a most unpleasant surprise for them. They had gone for a walk after breakfast and returned to the hotel about eleven o’clock, hoping for some word from Mr. Eckert.
The telephone rang and Linda picked it up gaily, expecting it to be the message. But it proved to be a message of a very different sort a summons from a police-court in Los Angeles!
“The officer wants you to come downstairs immediately, Miss Carlton,” the operator told her.
“I’m going too,” announced Dot, following her companion into the elevator.
A uniformed policeman was waiting for Linda in the lobby. He was a rough, uneducated person of the lower class, evidently accustomed to bullying his suspects into submission. He did not return Linda’s feeble “Good morning,” but merely extended a piece of paper with his right hand.
“Your bum check!” he snarled. “For bail. You had no right to sign the name of ‘Linda Carlton’ anyhow, but besides that, there ain’t no funds to cover it—even if you say you are the real ‘Linda’.”
“No funds!” gasped Linda, staring incredulously at the man. “Why, I keep five thousand dollars in my check account—just to be ready for any kind of emergencies that may come up when I’m flying about the country!”
“That’s just the amount that was took out yesterday. By the real Linda Carlton.” His tone was jeering, as if he were enjoying the situation as he would a play.
“Oh!” cried Linda. “This is terrible!”
“I’ll say it is,” agreed the policeman. “Now get your hat, and come along with me. You’re goin’ to jail.”
The girls looked at each other in speechless amazement. This was too dreadful for words.
“Let me wire for the money,” suggested Dot, suddenly. “I can get it from my father.”
“Do as you like. But this here forger goes to jail—even if she is a pretty girl. That ain’t a gonna help her none now!”
“Oh!”
The tears came to Linda’s eyes, in spite of her effort to hold them back. She felt dizzy and weak. It was all like a hideous nightmare, from which, try as she might, she could not awaken. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a stifled sob came. Then, with a hopeless gesture of powerlessness, she decided to do as she was told.
She turned about desperately and walked towards the elevator like a criminal going to the electric chair. Dot, still trying to think of some way to save the situation, waited, hesitating, breathing hard. It was a tense and horrible moment—until Linda walked right into the arms of her dear old friend, Mr. Eckert!
“Linda, I’m here!” he said, putting out his arms to catch her, for he could see that she was blinded by tears. “Dear child, you’re not going to faint?”
Linda looked up in a daze, too astonished to believe that he was true. Had her imagination conjured up his kindly presence? But no; Mr. Eckert’s hands were on her shoulders, supporting her, keeping her from falling. And beside him was a large, fine-looking man in a blue uniform.
“Oh!” she gasped, in joy and relief, clinging desperately to the elderly man’s hand.
“What are you doing to Miss Carlton?” demanded the stranger in uniform, of the policeman. “Hounding her with abuse?”
“This here young lady forged a name and passed a bum check,” he whimpered.
“What name?” asked the other man.
“Claims she’s Linda Carlton, with five thousand bucks in a bank, where she’s already overdrew her account.”
“She is Linda Carlton!” announced Mr. Eckert. “I can testify to that—your superior officer, James A. Brenan, can testify to my knowledge, for he knows me well. He is Chief of Police in St. Louis.”
“How did you get here so soon, Mr. Eckert?” asked Dot. “We only wired yesterday.”
“We started immediately, sensing your trouble. And flew day and night. But I see that we got here just in time.”
“Ten minutes later I’d have been wearing prison stripes!” returned Linda, now almost herself again. “Oh, Mr. Eckert, I can never thank you enough.”
“I was only too thankful to be of use, my dear child,” said the kind-hearted man.
“What shall we do first?” inquired Dot, as the policeman made a move to slip away.
“Catch the thief,” announced Chief Brenan. “If she has forged a check for five thousand dollars already, she must have gone away as fast as she could.” He turned to the Los Angeles policeman. “Go and inform your station of this as fast as you can.... And meanwhile, we’ll go straight to the studio of the Apex Film Corporation and find out what we can about her from the director.”
The policeman departed, and Linda asked Mr. Eckert whether he weren’t terribly hungry and tired.
“Hungry, yes, but I haven’t had time to think about being tired yet. I want to get things all straightened out for you first, before I consider sleeping. We will arrange for a couple of rooms and order a meal before we go to Hollywood.”
In an incredibly short time the men reappeared from their rooms and ate a hasty meal that was both breakfast and lunch. Then the whole party, the two girls, and the two older men chartered a car for Culver City.
“Won’t it be fun to stick out our tongues at that Sprague insect?” laughed Dot, now enjoying herself hugely. “He was so condescending—so sure that the other girl was the real thing!”
“And I’m going to insist that they don’t show the picture under my name!” added Linda.
“It’ll serve Mr. Von Goss right. I’m glad he’s losing money. Remember how snippy he was to us yesterday, on the lot?”
“He certainly was. Wouldn’t even speak to us!”
“He may get his money back when we catch the impostor,” remarked Chief Brenan. “She can’t have had a chance to spend much of it.”
“I’ll wager she bought that plane that she was doing stunts with,” observed Linda. “It certainly was speedy. And she’d want to get out of the country as soon as possible.”
The short distance to Culver City was covered quickly in the high-powered car. Dot was the first to run into the studio when they arrived. She wanted to have the fun of saying, “I told you so,” to that “fresh Sprig,” as she liked to call him.
The same “publicity girl” took their cards. But, though Mr. Von Goss was in, she informed them that Mr. Sprague was no longer with the Apex.
“Fired?” asked Dot, hopefully.
“No, I believe not. He left yesterday—to be married to Miss Linda Carlton.”
“No, he didn’t!” contradicted Dot. “This is Miss Linda Carlton right here, and she’d rather be dead than married to that shrimp. Your actress wasn’t Linda Carlton at all—as we’re just about to prove.”
“Really?” remarked the girl, only slightly interested. It was a practice of hers never to frown or show emotion, lest she encourage wrinkles.
They passed on in to the director’s office, and Linda introduced the two men and told her story. When she had finished, Mr. Von Goss looked extremely worried, crestfallen, even defeated. For now Linda’s identity was established beyond a doubt.
“How then do you account for this license?” he asked, extending the one with the forged signature to Linda.
“Sprague’s doing, of course!” cried Dot, before Linda had a chance to answer. “He was in league with that girl. We just heard that they were married.”
“But how could he manage these licenses?” demanded Von Goss.
“He got hold of a blank somehow, and forged the name. Then when he had the chance to get hold of the real Miss Carlton’s, of course he exchanged them.”
The Chief of Police was listening to Dot’s logic with admiration.
“You’re a bright girl,” he said. “And you’ve figured it out just about right.” He turned to Linda. “You should never have let your own licenses get out of your hands.”
“I had no idea Mr. Sprague was dishonest,” she said. “But the worst part of it is, that now I have to fly with a false license.”
“We’ll get yours back when we catch that couple!” promised Von Goss. “Because we’ve got to catch them. Why, I paid her thirty thousand dollars for her part in the picture—and if my picture is not shown, I’ll lose thousands more....”
He looked terribly discouraged.
The Chief of Police rose.
“We must go back now and get to work. Have you any idea, Von Goss, where this couple went, or what kind of plane they flew in?”
“I heard Sprague say something about South America for a honeymoon,” the man replied. “He told us to keep his mail for him, till he came back, as he wouldn’t have any definite address. But I haven’t any idea whether they expected to fly, or what kind of plane they used if they did.”
“The girl didn’t buy your plane—or steal it?” asked Linda.
“No. It’s still out there. We needed it today for some stills.”
“What kind of plane did she own when she came to the studio?”
“She didn’t own any. She told me that she had left her autogiro at Spring City, and had flown west with a friend.”
“And you believed every word of it!” was Dot’s taunt. “And never even asked to see her license, until we showed up and made it necessary.”
“It’s all true,” agreed the director. “I’ve been a fool.”
“If we only knew what kind of plane, it would be so much easier to follow and catch her,” remarked Linda, sadly.
Mr. Von Goss rose from his desk, and followed the group to the door, lingering beside Linda, as if he were trying to get up courage to say something to her. For such a self-possessed man, he seemed unusually nervous.
“Miss Carlton,” he said, in a humble tone, “won’t you please do that part of the picture for me?” It seemed strange that a man who could tell stars what to do, should speak so deferentially to Linda.
“Oh, no, Mr. Von Goss,” she replied immediately. “I couldn’t possibly. I’m all keyed up for a chase. I want to catch this girl, if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
“Then let me pay you, say fifty thousand dollars for the use of your name, and let me show the picture as it is. Nobody would ever guess that it isn’t you. For she does look astonishingly like you.”
“Wouldn’t I love to see that girl!” said Dot.
Again Linda shook her head. “I don’t want my name in moving-pictures, Mr. Von Goss,” she said with quiet determination. “Besides, I shouldn’t like people to think I flew in the dangerous, spectacular way that girl did. It is harmful to the whole cause of aviation. No; you cannot use my name in connection with your picture.”
Von Goss knew that she meant what she said, and there was no use of any further argument. But he was in a terrible fix, and he didn’t know how to get out of it without losing a great deal of money. Certainly he couldn’t use the name of the girl—whatever it was—for when she was caught, the whole world would know that she was a criminal.
A solution of his problem, however, suddenly suggested itself to Linda.
“I have it, Mr. Von Goss!” she cried, turning about. “Use Ann Harding! She’s a flier, and a popular actress besides. She can do the stunts, and probably will prove more of a drawing card to the public than I could hope to be.”
“Ann Harding!” repeated the man. “But she belongs to another studio.”
“Borrow her! Pay her! You’ll save your picture.”
“I believe you’re right, Miss Carlton,” he admitted, with a sigh of relief. “That ought to save the situation.”
The four visitors left the studio and hurried in their car back to the hotel. But no news of the couple had been received by any of the Los Angeles police. Linda therefore determined to pack a box of supplies and to set out, that very afternoon, on the search, inquiring at the airports they passed as they flew towards Mexico.
Just before sitting down to her late lunch with Dot, she wired the news to her aunt, informing her of her plans, and asking that additional funds be put into her checking account. Then she called the airport on the telephone.
“This is Linda Carlton,” she said. “I want you to have my autogiro in readiness for a long trip. Plenty of gas and oil. I will call for it inside of an hour.”
“Linda Carlton?” repeated the voice at the other end of the wire. “Autogiro?... Must be some mistake.... Miss Carlton flew away in her autogiro last night, about eight o’clock. She paid the bill, and said she wouldn’t be back!”
Linda replaced the telephone receiver and sat motionless, staring at the wall of the hotel bedroom. The worst had happened. The autogiro was stolen. The Ladybug! Her dearest possession.
“What’s the matter?” asked Dot, realizing that her chum must have heard bad news.
In a few words Linda explained the situation.
“And the worst of it is, that girl evidently didn’t have any difficulty at all about doing it. Just walked into the airport at night and demanded the plane. They handed it over to her without so much as a question.”
For once in her life, Dot remained speechless. There was not a single word of comfort she could think of to offer to her companion.
“She’s had almost a whole day’s start,” Linda added dismally. “Here it is three o’clock, and she must have pulled out at dark last night. She’s probably out of the United States by this time. And nobody even on her trail yet!”
“Our police always catch the wrong person, anyway,” remarked Dot, grimly.
“Don’t be too hard on them, Dot. They’re not all like that dreadful specimen that came for me this morning. And in a case like this, they would probably put the air-force on duty. Men of a much higher type.”
“Like Mr. Chase, for instance.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do, Linda?”
“Call the police headquarters first. Tell them to get in touch with all the airports possible, so that any autogiros can be reported. But I’d like to go after that girl myself, too!”
“In what?”
“‘In what?’ is right! Oh, if I only had a plane! If Ted Mackay were only here—or even Ralph, with his autogiro! But do you realize, Dot, that I’m bankrupt? I can’t buy a plane, or even hire one, now that that girl took everything I had in the bank.”
Her companion nodded. “If somebody would only lend you one,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Eckert—”
“I’ve thought of him. But he has to get back to the school immediately. Why, Dot, this is the twenty-ninth of September! We’ve wasted a whole week, just to establish the fact that I am Linda Carlton! Isn’t it just too absurd!”
“It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. And now you’ll lose your chance at that teaching position, unless you give up trying to get your Ladybug back.”
“I can’t do that. I couldn’t give up now. No, I’ll call the police headquarters, and then I’ll wait around until Mr. Eckert wakes up from his nap. We’ll surprise the men by having dinner with them.”
It was indeed a surprise, as Linda expected, when she and Dot met Mr. Eckert and Chief Brenan in the lobby of the hotel that evening at seven o’clock. Naturally, both men thought that the girls had flown away early in the afternoon.
“I’m tied to the earth again,” Linda announced immediately. “But not by the law this time.... That girl flew off in my autogiro!”
“No!” cried Mr. Eckert, incredulously. “Why, there isn’t anything she won’t steal!” He smiled grimly. “Did she leave you your own clothing, Linda?”
“Yes,” replied the girl. “But that’s about all.”
“You should have had me wakened the minute you heard the news. If you had done that, you might have been on your way by this time.”
“You mean—?” gasped Linda.
“In my plane, of course. Take it and welcome, my dear child!”
Linda seized his hand and tried to stammer out her thanks. But she was too much moved by his generosity to say anything.
“How will you get back to St. Louis in time for the opening of your school?” inquired Dot.
“By the commercial air-line,” replied Mr. Eckert. “Now come in and eat some dinner, and after that, you can make your plans.”
It seemed to Linda almost too good to be true. To have the privilege of flying that new, fast biplane, which she had admired so much that morning. It had a cruising speed of a hundred and fifty miles an hour! Surely, in it, she could catch her own Ladybug.
“You’ll start early tomorrow morning, I suppose?” asked Mr. Eckert, as they seated themselves in the dining-room.
“Yes,” answered Linda. “The police are already on the job, in communication with all the airports, which are to keep a watch out for all autogiros that pass overhead or land for gas. We’ll find out what reports have been turned in, before we take off in the morning.”
“And will you go along, Miss Crowley?”
“Certainly,” replied Dot. “I’m just as anxious to recover the Ladybug as Linda is.”
“It may mean dangerous business.”
“It’s bound to be exciting!”
After dinner Chief Brenan telephoned to the police headquarters to find out what information had been gained. Three autogiros, he learned, had been spotted, but only two of them had been stopped. Neither of these was the Ladybug. The third, it seemed, had been seen early in the day, flying southeast across California toward Arizona. Two secret-service planes had already been sent out in that direction.
With Mr. Eckert’s help, Linda sketched out a course to follow. She would head straight for the city of Yuma, in the extreme southwest of Arizona, stopping there for the first night. Then she would go over the border into Mexico.
Dot, in the meanwhile, took charge of the practical preparations for the trip. She arranged to leave their box of clothing at the hotel, and packed all the supplies for the trip. Water in gallon jugs and thermos bottles, canned food, blankets in case they were forced to camp out at night, field glasses and first-aid kit—and finally, upon Mr. Eckert’s suggestion—a revolver.
The whole party breakfasted at dawn the following morning, and Mr. Eckert accompanied the girls to the airport, to sign the necessary papers for the release of his plane, the Sky Rocket. It was a beautiful new biplane, of the latest model. Painted yellow, with a companion cockpit, it stood in readiness on the runway, as if inviting Linda to climb in and fly.
Her eyes were shining in happy anticipation as she skipped forward and climbed into the cockpit to peer at the instruments. Everything for convenience and comfort seemed to be provided. Altimeter, clocks, compass, parachutes—even a wireless, with transmitting radio wires placed inside the wings, so that messages could be sent and received.
“It’s marvellous, Mr. Eckert!” she exclaimed, as she seated herself at the controls, her hand fingering the joy-stick.
“Aren’t you even going to give her a trial flight, Miss Carlton?” inquired the mechanic, skeptically.
“Miss Carlton can pilot any plane that’s made!” replied Mr. Eckert, proudly. “She never needs any instruction. But,” he added, coming closer to Linda, “don’t forget that this isn’t an autogiro. Don’t try to land her on top of a building!”
Linda smiled.
“I only wish I had my own license,” she said.
“I shouldn’t worry about that,” returned Mr. Eckert. “The police aren’t going to make any more mistakes about arresting you.”
“I should hope not!” exclaimed Dot.
A minute later the mechanic started the motor, and Linda taxied along the runway, waving good-bye to Mr. Eckert. A few hundred feet further, and the Sky Rocket rose into the air like a bird, soaring up to the skies. The usual fog common to the early morning climate of California had lifted, and the sun shone brightly as Linda directed her course towards the mountains. She let out the throttle to its maximum as soon as she reached a good safe height; a hundred and fifty miles an hour did not seem an abnormal speed, but it was a thrilling experience. Linda loved her own Ladybug, but after all, this was an exciting change.
Over the orange groves of southern California they passed again, then, even higher up in the air to clear the San Jacinto Mountains, over the city of Imperial—on towards Yuma. The flight was nearly four hundred miles, but Linda covered it in less than four hours. At noon she landed the Sky Rocket at the airport of Yuma, Arizona.
Being a large airport, the men had already been informed by radio of the stolen autogiro, and the attendant who came out to greet the Sky Rocket was prepared to answer Linda’s questions.
“A giro stopped here yesterday for gas and oil,” he said. “And we filled her up. Put a patch on one wing, but the couple wouldn’t wait long enough to have it done right. That must have been about three o’clock in the afternoon. We got the radio soon after that, to take the licenses of all the giros we got a look at.”
“What did the people look like? Were they a man and a girl?” demanded Dot, excitedly.
“Yeah. A married couple, I believe.”
“On their honeymoon?”
“Can’t tell you that. They didn’t act mushy.”
Linda smiled.
“Did they give you their names?” she inquired.
“And did the girl look like—Miss Carlton?” put in Dot, before the man could answer Linda’s question.
“Couldn’t say she did, except that all you girl fliers look something alike. But her face was pretty dirty, and her helmet was pulled down low.... Yeah, they gave their names. A Mr. and Mrs. Bower, of Texas.”
“Oh!” gasped Linda, in disappointment. “We’re looking for people named Sprague.”
“They wouldn’t be likely to give their right names, Linda,” Dot reminded her. “Why, that girl thinks nothing of swiping a new name to fit her fancy!”
“True,” admitted Linda.
“And another thing,” added the attendant. “There was a secret-service flier here this morning already. After them. A nice-looking chap, in a gray monoplane.”
“Could it have been Mr. Chase?” demanded Dot.
“Yeah. I think that was the name.... Well, he crossed the border, hot on their trail. Shouldn’t be surprised if he had ’em by now, for he flew a fast plane!”
The news was encouraging, so after a bite of lunch and a hasty inspection, the girls flew away again, heading south now, avoiding the Gulf of California, and crossing over into Mexico.
They passed over the California river and continued an easterly course, avoiding the mountains near the coast, and pointing inland before they turned southeast again. From their height in the air they could not see the ground without glasses, but as Linda dipped lower, they could distinguish how barren and desolate it was. There were no trees; only short, stumpy underbrush scattered about, with big patches of bare, hard earth between. A most unattractive part of the country.