Linda Carlton's Island Adventure

"You girls can go to bed now," Slats announced, finally. "I'll carry you over, Susie, and give you a gun, in case Linda tries to sneak off in the night." He smiled with vicious triumph.

"I'm afraid that wouldn't do me any good," replied Linda, trying to make her voice sound normal. "I haven't an idea where I am."

"On Black Jack Island, in the Okefenokee Swamp," he again told her. "With water all around you. Get that! You can't get away, without a boat or a plane. And I'm tellin' you now, I seen to it that your Bug's bone-dry!"

With a conceited grin, he leaned over and picked up his wife so roughly that she cried out in pain.

When they were alone, the girls took off some of their outer garments, and lay down on their cots. Linda longed to talk, but she was afraid to begin, for fear it would only lead to some sort of punishment. So she lay still, trying to forget her troubles, to believe everything would come out right in the end, when her father paid the ransom.

She was just dozing off, when she was abruptly aroused by agonized sobs from her tent-mate. She sat up and asked her companion whether there was anything she could get her. But Susie did not answer; she continued to cry wildly like a child of six.

"Oh, my ankle! My ankle!" she moaned. And then she used worse language than any Linda had ever heard – from man or woman.

Linda was sorry for her, but she could not help contrasting this girl's cowardice in the face of physical pain with Dot Crowley's, when the latter had met with a similar accident, and had smiled bravely at the hurt. She thought, too, of Ted Mackay's courage in the hospital, and Susie suffered by the comparisons.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked, again.

"No. Only take me to a real doctor – or a hospital."

"I'd be glad to, if your husband would let me fly my plane!"

"Well, he won't!" There followed more oaths. "What does he care – so long as he ain't the one that's hurt?" She continued to cry hysterically, until a snarling order came from without the tent.

"Shut up your noise!" bawled her husband, and Susie softened her sobbing.

Linda lay very still, thinking. Dared she suggest that the other girl deceive her husband – or would she only be punished for such an idea? She decided to give it a try.

"You must know where the men keep the gasoline," she whispered. "Wouldn't you rather have your ankle fixed right, and not run the chance of being a cripple for life?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Susie, raising her head from her pillow.

"I mean – wait till the men are asleep, and then you tell me where the gas is, and we'll sneak off. I'd take you to a hospital, and I'd promise never to tell on you."

"And lose all that ransom money? Slats'd never forgive me!"

"But what good's money, if you're a cripple?" countered Linda.

"Yeah – I see what you mean," agreed Susie. "Only we'd never get away with it. They'd hear us gettin' out – remember I can't walk by myself… No, Linda – it's no go."

Disappointed, Linda dropped back on the cot, seeing that further argument was no use, and, fortunately, fell quickly asleep. Had she not been so tired, she would probably have been disturbed during the night, for Susie tossed and moaned without any regard for her companion. But Linda slept the sleep of exhaustion.

Just as dawn was beginning to show a faint light through the door of the tent, Linda was rudely awakened by a gruff voice. Startled, she looked into the unpleasant face of Susie's husband, and she shuddered as she recalled where she was. The thought flashed into her mind that soldiers and criminals were usually shot at sunrise, and her hands shook with fear. What was the man going to do to her?

"Get up, Linda!" he commanded. "You're working today."

"Working?"

"Yeah. Flying."

"Where?" she demanded, with a trace of hope. If she were allowed to fly, there might be some hope of escape.

"Across the swamp. To an island out in the ocean."

"Oh!"

An island! It sounded like imprisonment. She thought of Napoleon on St. Helena, and she remembered the stories of the cruelties to the French convicts, sentenced to die on an island. Terrible climate, probably, reeking with disease. A slow death that would be far greater torture than being shot – hours of lingering agony, when she would think of her father and her aunt, and of the suffering that she was causing them! And, worst of all, no one to rescue her, as Ted had twice saved her from disasters that were not half so dreadful!

But she did not cry; she was disgusted with tears after the way that Susie had carried on the night before, over her sprained ankle. After all, it was no one else's fault that she had selected this job; she had taken it on, and she must see it through, no matter what the outcome.

When she had washed and dressed, she walked over to the big tent, where she found breakfast ready. Bacon and eggs and coffee – and even oranges! Evidently they meant to feed her well – for this much she could be thankful.

She ate in silence with the three men, for Slats did not carry Susie to the table. When they had finished, and the men were lighting their pipes, Slats pushed back his tin plate and began to talk.

"Our idea in running you down was to get a neat little ransom, Linda," he repeated, with the same triumphant grin which she had grown to loathe. She winced, too, at each repetition of her first name, though there was no way that she could stop him from using it.

"We figgered your old man could come across with a couple hundred thousand to get you back. When we get ready, we'll let him know. But in the meantime, we ain't ready."

He winked knowingly at Beefy, and a cold shiver of fear crept over Linda. If they would only get the thing over quickly! Anything would be better than the awful suspense.

The speaker laughed at her expression of terror.

"Don't be scared, Linda. We ain't a goin' a hurt you… It just happens we need you for a couple days in our business."

"Your business?" she faltered.

"Yeah. We got some jewelry right here in this tent worth about a hundred grand. We fly across to an island with it, where a steamer picks it up and gets it to our agent in South America."

"But what has that to do with me?" asked Linda. Did they mean to leave her on the island, or send her to South America?

"Just this: we're usin' your Bug and you as pilot fer the job. Susie's the only one of our gang can fly, and now she and the Jenny are busted, we'll use you. Get me?"

Linda nodded, sadly. So she was to be made to play a criminal part in their ugly game! How she wished they would be caught!

"And you needn't scheme to get away," Slats added. "Because I'll be right behind you, with me gun loaded!"

Linda made no reply; after all there was nothing to be said. She must take his orders, or be instantly killed.

"Ready now?" he inquired, satisfied with her silence. "We always work early in the day. Maybe you better come over with me and take a look at your plane, and I'll give you some gas. See if she's O.K."

Dutifully Linda accompanied the man to the edge of the island, and there was the autogiro, safe and sound as ever – her only friend in the world, it seemed!

She looked about her at the marshy water, the trees and vegetation of the swamp, and then up into the sky, which she searched vainly for an airplane. But except for the birds, there was no sign of life in that desolate, vast expanse of land and sky. Not a human habitation in sight!

Desperately, she wished that she could think of some plan to outwit this lawless gang, but everything seemed hopeless, as long as Slats carried that pistol aimed at her head. So she meekly inspected the autogiro and climbed into the cock-pit.

Her companion was in a good humor; he was enjoying the whole situation immensely, pleased at his own cleverness. He liked to fly, and he admired the autogiro; he even went so far as to say he believed he'd keep this one for Susie.

Linda said nothing, but she was thinking what a mistake that would be for him to make. Much as she would hate to lose her autogiro, she realized that its possession would give the gang away to the police. It was one thing to steal jewelry and money, and another to take a plane, of a make of which there were only perhaps a hundred in existence.