Linda Carlton's Ocean Flight

"You really won't go, Lou?" she repeated. "Even if I rush the trip?"

"Oh no, Linda, I couldn't possibly disappoint Ted."

Seeing that it was useless to try to persuade her, Linda rushed downstairs and called Nancy Bancroft on the telephone, inviting her instead, and this time she was gratified with an acceptance.

Chapter XVII

Enemies

The day of Linda Carlton's flight to Birmingham, Alabama, was warm and spring-like. It was only a false spring, to be sure, the kind that sometimes comes suddenly in February, making everyone long to be out of doors. How lucky for her, she thought. If it would only last a couple of days!

Nancy Bancroft was already at the school when Linda arrived, alert and eager for the trip. She had just received her private pilot's license a few days previous, but she did not expect to attempt to guide the autogiro. Nevertheless, she would be company for the more experienced aviatrix.

Half an hour's instruction was all that Mr. Eckers considered necessary, and before nine o'clock the girls took off for the South. Linda couldn't help singing for joy. The autogiro was so much fun!

"Dad's going to buy me a plane," Nancy informed her companion. "As soon as I get home next week."

"Next week?" repeated Linda.

"Yes. I'm leaving the school as soon as we get back. I have my license, you know – that's what I wanted."

Linda was silent, thinking of Mr. Eckers' remark about girls the day before. Yes, he must be right, their ambition usually ended with the government's permission to fly.

"I'll miss you dreadfully, Nance!" was all she said.

"You must fly to New York often," urged the other.

The country over which the girls were flying was beautiful and the air delightful. As they went farther south, they recognized real evidences of spring in the foliage. The little plane hummed gayly on, with never a disturbance in its sturdy motor. Linda was exceedingly happy.

Noon-time came, and they ate their sandwiches and drank the coffee which Linda's kind-hearted landlady had insisted upon providing, but they did not stop. Everything was going so wonderfully that they hated to break the spell. At this rate they ought to reach Birmingham long before dark.

It was about two o'clock that they met with a strange adventure. Flying along at an even rate, high enough to span the woods that loomed ahead of them, there suddenly appeared, out of nowhere it seemed, what the girls thought to be a formation of airplanes.

"Go carefully!" warned Nancy. "Don't forget that awful accident a while ago, when several planes were flying in formation!"

Linda curved to the side, but the planes seemed to be flying straight at her.

"They haven't any sense at all!" she cried, in exasperation, now seriously fearing disaster.

On they rushed, till a cold fear gripped Linda's heart. Try as she might, she couldn't get out of their way! It was all like a dreadful dream, when something menacing rushes inevitably towards you, yet you are powerless to stop. Then, in a flash, Linda perceived what the formation was.

Eagles! Great, huge, ominous birds, traveling through the air with the speed of machines. Involuntarily, she reached for her gun.

"No use!" shouted Nancy, in terror. "Too many of them!"

Realizing the truth of Nancy's words, Linda did the only thing possible: swiftly, almost recklessly, she landed on the ground, expecting to be dashed upward again, or the plane turned over, pinning her and her companion beneath. But miraculously, nothing disastrous happened; the autogiro had come down vertically and stopped. That, then, was the wonder of this marvelous little machine! Had it been any other kind of plane, the girls would surely have been injured – and possibly killed!

They had landed in a small clearing between the trees. Shutting off her engine, Linda turned, gasping, to her friend.

"Would you ever believe, a thing like that if you read it?" she demanded.

"The landing – or the birds?" inquired Nancy, still breathless with excitement.

"I really meant the birds, for I knew that the autogiro was wonderful. I've seen them land and take off before, though of course I never tried anything like this."

"Well, I did read about big birds bothering pilots one time – in a newspaper, I guess. But I didn't think much about it."

They waited quietly for a while until they felt calm again. The birds had flown on immediately; there was nothing to prevent their taking up their journey again. Ordinarily Linda would have been apprehensive of a take-off in so small a space, but after her landing, she felt confident. The autogiro rose instantly, almost vertically, and they were on their course again.

"I'm going to get Dad to buy me an autogiro!" Nancy announced. "This has decided me."

"Me too!" agreed Linda.

"But you'll have a big Bellanca!" Nancy said. "Lou told me you put in the order."

"I may not have, after we try that ocean trip," returned the other girl. "We may be ship-wrecked and picked up by some boat – "

"So long as you are picked up, it'll be O.K… Oh, Linda, I think you are just marvelous!"

"Thanks, Nance. But I don't deserve the praise yet. Wait till I earn it."

Only a short distance stretched between them and Birmingham now, and Linda covered it in record time. Safe and sound she brought the autogiro down on the airport before four o'clock in the afternoon. Turning it over to the authorities, and giving her instructions about the other plane, which was to be ready the following day, Linda summoned a taxi and asked to be driven to the best hotel.

The rest of the day was their own, and the girls enjoyed it thoroughly, eating a luxurious dinner, and attending a show afterward. On their way home from the theater, Nancy asked more questions about Linda's proposed trans-Atlantic flight, and the latter told her everything – even to the story of the enemy whom she and Louise most feared: Bess Hulbert.

"But I don't see why you should worry about her," said Nancy. "She wouldn't dare come back to the United States again."

"I'm not so sure of that. Now that some time has passed, she'll think everyone's forgotten about her crimes."

"I hope not," replied Nancy, optimistically.

Little did the girls think, as they discussed Bess Hulbert, that evening, that they would run into her the following day, just as Linda was fearing might happen at some time or another.

It all happened suddenly, at the field of the airplane construction company in Nashville, Tennessee, where Linda had delivered the second plane without any mishap.

She had just received the president's signature on the delivery card, and was about to summon a taxi, when the man made a generous suggestion.

"If you girls can wait till tomorrow," he told them, "I can have you taken north by plane. We are making a delivery at Springfield, Illinois, and St. Louis isn't much out of the way."

"That will be fine!" exclaimed Linda, gratefully. "Because we both have grown to hate trains. They crawl so."

"Worms instead of birds," remarked Nancy, thinking of the dangerous mistake they had made the previous day.

"Besides," added Linda, "we will get there so much more quickly, even though we had thought something of taking a sleeper."

"O.K. Then I will introduce you to your pilot, and you can make your arrangements." He turned to a mechanic who was standing by. "Joe, get Miss Mason to come over here." Then, to the girls he explained, "Your pilot happens to be a young lady – one of our saleswomen."

Nancy and Linda both smiled rather proudly. It was nice to find that women were everywhere taking their places in aviation.