“I’ll run over and telephone to your uncle and to police headquarters,” he said. “We can’t lose any time hanging around ourselves, that’s clear.”
He dashed over to the office, passing Pete who was returning. That person, still wearing his lopsided smile, lifted the baggage into the plane and stowed it away in a padded compartment in the tail of the fuselage.
“Now we’re all set, as soon as Dave arrives,” he said.
“Don’t you wear any uniform or helmet?” Kitty asked, looking at the aviator’s neat gray business suit and battered fedora hat.
“Not in this de luxe job,” he replied, waving toward the cabin. “It’s like flying in your own living room at home.”
“You know,” Doris said, “I don’t yet understand our good luck. How does it happen you are flying to our destination in this beautiful thing?”
“Why, it’s like this,” Pete replied. “Lolita Bedelle, the opera star, has a big ranch near Raven Rock. Lots of moneyed people have ranches all through that section—not dude ranches, either. They make ’em pay dividends. This Miss Bedelle has taken up flying so she can look over her 500,000 acres and visit her neighbors. She had this plane fitted up for her, and I got the assignment of delivering it.”
“Lolita Bedelle!” Doris exclaimed. “I’ve always admired her. I heard her as Marguerite in Faust once and dozens of times on the radio. Maybe I’ll have a chance to meet her!”
At this juncture Dave ran up.
“All aboard!” he shouted. “No reserved seats. Pile in, everybody, and let’s go!”
In the flurry that followed his words he whispered in Doris’s ear, “I couldn’t get your uncle but I gave the police the news. They’re getting busy.”
“That’s good!” replied Doris. “Thanks, Dave!” When all were seated, with the exception of the excited Wags who insisted upon trying everyone’s lap, Dave shut the door and bolted it. As he climbed into the pilots’ compartment, he waved to the crowd outside. From it arose shouts of “Happy landings!” the aerial farewell.
“This is better than a Pull—” Doris began, but her voice was drowned out as the huge motors roared into life. The body of the plane trembled, and Doris saw Mrs. Mallow, who had the seat in front of her, grip the arms of her chair as the color ebbed from her cheeks.
Jerkily the huge aircraft began to move over the ground. Faster and faster flitted the scenery past the windows and then suddenly the plane seemed to stand still. The motors’ staccato roar evened to a resonant hum.
The passengers looked outside. Already far below them, and oddly tilted, lay the airport.
“How do you feel?” Doris shouted to Mrs. Mallow.
“Not as bad as I did a minute ago,” that lady called back. “But not as happy as I was last week!”
Except for an occasional tremor or the least perceptible dip to one side or another the airplane was as steady and even-keeled as a ferryboat at anchor.
Doris looked forward to where Dave’s broad back could be glimpsed through the glass partition. She saw him point forward and a little to his left.
She peered in the direction Dave was indicating to his partner.
Those who have flown will remember the peculiarity that the horizon is always on a level with the eyes, no matter how high one rises above the earth.
Doris saw that a portion of the horizon was blotted out by a towering mass of boiling clouds that seemed to rush upward from behind the earth’s curve. Of course it was the speed of the plane that gave that impression, as it rushed toward the storm.
A thunderstorm! And a bad one!
“If Mrs. Mallow sees it, she will jump out,” Doris thought. “She is scared enough of storms in her own house, and here we are diving into one a mile above the earth!”
Her worry grew as she watthed the two pilots signaling to each other and looking behind them with knitted brows.
Was disaster to overcome the trip at its start, as Kitty had foretold?
CHAPTER VI
The Stowaway
Right into the vortex of the storm headed the airplane, and now Mrs. Mallow became aware of the danger ahead.
Doris saw her grow tense again, saw her hands clutch the arms of her seat.
“Don’t worry,” Doris called, leaning over the older woman’s shoulder. “The pilots know what they are about.”
“They don’t know how frightened I am of the thunder, though,” Mrs. Mallow replied. “I don’t mind lightning. It’s the thunder I hate.”
“Then you are safe,” said Doris. “I never heard of thunder hurting anyone yet. Besides,” she added, “Dave told me lightning can’t hurt an airplane because there is no place for the electricity to ground.”
“The ground would look wonderful to me now, if I were only on it,” Mrs. Mallow answered.
“Look, we’re turning!” Doris exclaimed. “We are going around the storm.”
As if the storm were painted on a canvas that giant hands were rolling up, the serried clouds passed before the front windows of the giant craft.
“Oh, how funny the ground looks,” shouted Kitty. “It’s all tilted up.”
Mrs. Mallow looked down, and fascinated by the sight, stared at the tricks the solid earth appeared to be playing. The plane was banking on the left wing as it described a huge arc. The passengers felt as if the ship was still on even keel, and not tilting, giving them the optical illusion familiar to all who have journeyed in the air that it was the ground tilting beneath them.
Now the airplane was flying at right angles to the storm’s progress, and in ten minutes left it far astern.
“Now we are picking up our course again,” Doris explained to Mrs. Mallow. “See, we are turning toward the right, and there is the Delaware River under us.”
“That little thing the Delaware?” Mrs. Mallow marveled. “Oh! What’s that? Doris!”
The plane began to buck, like a boat breasting a heavy surf.
Doris had all she could do to hold on.
In a moment the pitching ceased and again the airplane darted ahead.
“We are over the Alleghenies,” Doris told Mrs. Mallow, pointing down to the mountains below. “The air is always bumpy over the mountains.”
It was beyond Mrs. Mallow’s comprehension, and she shook her head in resignation.
From time to time the airplane seemed to drop five or six feet like an elevator starting down from a skyscraper. Again it was tossed aloft, as the eccentric air currents caught it.
“Dave and Pete seem worried,” Doris said to herself, as she watched the two pilots exchange control of the ship and then compare notes.
“Oh, dear, why don’t they land somewhere if they are not sure the ship is acting right?” the girl asked herself. A glance showed her that Kitty and Marshmallow were also aware that something was wrong.
The pilots seemed to come to some decision, for Speary poked the nose of the ship upward and the plane began to climb.
“To think I should ever see the top side of a cloud!” Mrs. Mallow exclaimed.
The thunderstorm had long since passed out of sight, but thousands of fleecy clouds were scattered below, which looked like sheep grazing on a lawn, yet in reality were the ranges of the Alleghenies.
Doris looked at her wrist watch.
“At