The day was clear and warm, a beautiful June-time, and the special was soon speeding over the flat country of northern Indiana. There was only one stop scheduled between Chicago and New York, that at Cleveland, where the tanks would be filled with fuel.
Jane prepared an appetizing lunch and Mrs. Van Verity Vanness ate it with evident relish as they skirted the south shore of Lake Erie. That over, she insisted that Jane explain how she had happened to join the air line.
The elderly woman was a good listener and Jane told in detail of her last day at Good Samaritan and how Miss Hardy had recommended her for the position with the Federated Airways.
“I’d never heard of stewardesses on the planes until you came aboard at Cheyenne,” said Mrs. Van Verity Vanness. “Have you been flying long?”
Jane smiled for her passenger was going to be in for a surprise.
“This is my first regular trip,” she confessed. “All of the girls go into service tomorrow.”
“Then I predict a fine future for you. Why, I thought you were a veteran of hundreds of miles of flying.”
It was a sincere compliment and Jane glowed inwardly. She had been so anxious to make a good impression on her first flight.
At Cleveland another message from New York reassured Mrs. Van Verity Vanness and again she was shielded from reporters. No one was allowed out on the ramp, but cameras clicked as Jane stepped out of the cabin for a breath of air. Then they were racing eastward again, with the next stop the Newark airport.
They flew high over the rugged Alleghenies and then dropped down over Jersey toward the metropolis. The end of the long flight was near and Jane felt greatly relieved.
Mrs. Van Verity Vanness summoned her as they swung over the Newark airport.
“Wouldn’t you like to join me, traveling as my nurse and companion?” she asked.
It was a question that left Jane speechless. She had never considered such a possibility.
“As soon as my son is well, I plan to leave on a round-the-world trip. We would be gone a year.”
It was a tempting offer, almost irresistible, but the zest of flying was deep in Jane and she shook her head.
“I don’t believe I would be happy leaving the air line now,” she said. “There seems to be a real future for girls in aviation and I want to make the most of my opportunity.”
The other woman sighed. “I was afraid that would be your answer and you are probably right. But I’ve grown dreadfully fond of you. If there is anything I can do at any time, don’t hesitate to call on me.”
“Thank you,” said Jane.
The plane rolled to a stop in the Newark hangar of the Federated line and a huge limousine with two motorcycle officers flanking it, drew up to the cabin door.
“Goodbye, my dear,” said Mrs. Van Verity Vanness as she stepped into the limousine to be whirled away toward New York to the tune of screaming sirens.
Jane was a little breathless. It had been such an exciting trip all the way from Cheyenne. Now she wondered just when she would start back. An official hurried toward her.
“Reporters are almost tearing the waiting room to pieces,” he said. “They couldn’t see Mrs. Van Verity Vanness but they insist on talking with you. You’d better tell them what happened this morning.”
“But I don’t know what to say,” protested Jane.
“Just answer their questions.”
In the waiting room a dozen men of assorted ages, and three women, awaited Jane. The moment she entered they started firing questions at her.
“How had Mrs. Van Verity Vanness acted when the bandit plane swooped down on them? How had Jane felt? What had she served her passenger at mealtime? Had Mrs. Van Verity Vanness commented on the financial situation?”
It was a steady barrage and Jane’s head whirled as she tried to answer them all. Finally she threw up her hands and sank down in a chair in despair.
“Can’t you see I’m all tired out?” she cried. “Please let me alone.”
She buried her head in her arms and her body shook with the sobs of nervous exhaustion for the strain of the long flight and caring for the wealthy passenger had been more than Jane had realized.
“She’s a plucky kid,” she heard one reporter say as the newspaper people trooped out of the room.
In a few minutes Jane felt more composed and she went into the operations office.
“What time do I start west?” she asked the chief dispatcher.
“All of the space is taken until the 8:18 west in the morning. You’d better take a cab to a hotel and get some sleep.”
Then Jane remembered that she was without funds. It was their first pay day in Cheyenne, but she was hundreds of miles from there.
“I guess I’ll just wait here until the plane goes,” she said.
The dispatcher was busy and failed to notice Jane’s fatigue or he might have guessed that she was in an embarrassing situation. Jane washed her face and hands and walked outside to watch the sun go down behind the Jersey hills.
She was hungry, but the tri-motor she had come in on had been trundled away to a distant hangar and there was little chance that she could find it and rummage through the pantry for anything to eat.
Jane skimmed through the magazines in the waiting room and selected one on aviation. She had hardly settled herself when a young woman burst into the room.
“Where’s Jane Cameron?” demanded the newcomer.
“I’m Jane Cameron,” replied the stewardess.
“What a break! I’m Ruthe Harrigan, special writer for the New York Globe. Late as usual in getting my assignment. Afraid I had missed you. How about your story? Sold it to anyone yet?”
“Why, no,” stammered the surprised Jane. “I talked to a number of reporters but they didn’t say anything about paying me.”
“They wouldn’t,” snorted the newcomer. “Let’s hop outside and get a bite to eat. Then we’ll make a deal for your first-person story of the battle with the bandits.”
Ruthe Harrigan led Jane to a comfortable restaurant only a block from the hangar and after sizzling steaks had been served, plied Jane with questions.
“I’m after a first-person story of what happened on your trip in,” she explained. “We’ll pay you well for permission to use your name above the story.”
“But what would Mrs. Van Verity Vanness and company officials say?”
“I’ll call the Federated publicity office,” said the energetic Ruthe. Jane talked to the New York publicity head of Federated, and he approved of the story. Another call to Mrs. Van Verity Vanness brought her consent.
“Make them pay a good price,” she advised Jane.
Dinner over, they hastened back to the Federated hangar where the reporter borrowed a typewriter. “Now tell me everything that happened and how you felt.”
“But we haven’t agreed on a price,” said Jane.
“How about $50?”
“That doesn’t seem enough. Won’t this be front page news?”
“I should say it will. Every other New York paper will probably turn green with envy.”
“Then $50 isn’t enough.”
“I might be able to get $100,” urged the reporter.
“Don’t take less than $500,” advised the night dispatcher. “If the Globe won’t pay it, call some of the other papers. They will.”
In desperation, Ruthe Harrigan called her editor and before Jane gave her a line of copy, a check for $500 was in the hands of the stewardess.
It was more money than Jane had ever had before and she fingered the check carefully. Now she could go to a hotel, have the finest room, enjoy the choicest food, and still have what to her was wealth.
For two hours Ruthe Harrigan plied her with questions while she beat a heavy tattoo on the typewriter. When she was through she had nine pages of copy to send to her office.
“It’s a good story,” smiled the reporter, “even if you did make us pay through the nose for it.”
Jane cashed her check at the field and had it converted into travelers’ checks of small denominations. Then she took a taxi to a recommended hotel and by 11 o’clock was sound asleep, while across the river in New York the presses of the Globe were rolling out her own story of the encounter with the aerial bandits.
Jane was up at seven the next morning and a few minutes later, went down to breakfast. In the lobby she purchased copies of all of the morning papers and went into the grill for breakfast.
An excellent picture of herself stared up from the front page of the Globe and underneath the picture was a two column headline informing Globe readers that they were about to read Jane Cameron’s own story of the battle with the bandits.
Jane flushed and looked up to make sure no one had recognized her. But there were only a few at breakfast at that hour and she read the story from opening paragraph to the final dash. Jane had to admit that Ruthe Harrigan had done an excellent job of writing. The story was thrilling, from start to finish.
After breakfast Jane bought half a dozen copies of the Globe, paid her hotel bill, and took a taxi to the field. A pass was ready for her and the 8:18 was on the line, warming up for the trip west.
A messenger approached Jane with a message and she signed for it. Inside was a brief note from Mrs. Van Verity Vanness expressing her appreciation and with it a check, “a little token of my gratitude,” wrote Jane’s passenger. The stewardess’ eyes blinked as she looked at the check. It was for one thousand dollars!
Jane’s knees felt weak and she grasped a nearby handrail for support. A thousand dollars! Why, it didn’t seem possible. But it was possible, for a thousand dollars was only pin money to the millions which Mrs. Van Verity Vanness controlled.
Jane felt almost uncomfortably rich. There had been $500 for selling the story and now the thousand dollar check. She had spent less than $10 for her room, breakfast, taxi fare and the papers. Why she would have at the very least $1,490 when she returned to Cheyenne. It seemed unbelievable but she had the checks.
The day chief of operations at Newark came up.
“There’s a sound crew from a news reel outside. They want you to pose and say a few words. It’s good publicity for the line.”
Jane was glad that it was almost time for the plane to depart, for facing a movie camera was a real ordeal. Her mouth went dry and chills ran along her back as the sound man held the microphone close. Somehow she managed to say a few words, and then she hurried back to the 8:18. Two minutes later the big tri-motor was roaring west, and late that night Jane would be back at Cheyenne.
There was a strong headwind and they seldom got above a hundred miles an hour, with the result that they were more than an hour late when they reached Chicago.
Jane changed planes there and had a lunch at the field. Then the tri-motor sped westward again. There was a light passenger list, only nine aboard the fourteen-passenger craft, and none of them recognized Jane, for which she was grateful.
Night came as they roared over the rich farm lands of Iowa and from Omaha west, Jane dozed, lulled by the rhythmic beating of the three great engines.
The wind increased in force as they neared the Rockies, and the speed was well under a hundred an hour. As a result, it was nearly three o’clock when the lights of Cheyenne showed far ahead, under the left wing. Jane roused herself and straightened her uniform. She wondered if the girls would be at the field.
The big plane glided noiselessly out of the night into the glare of the floodlights. When it rolled into the hangar Jane peered anxiously toward the waiting room. Sure enough, Sue, Grace and Alice were there, all of them fairly dancing in their anxiety to greet her.
The young stewardess was first out of the tri-motor, and she ran to meet her friends.
“Hello heroine,” said Sue, as she threw her arms around Jane in an affectionate embrace.
“Welcome home,” added Alice, while Grace added, “let’s see what the New York papers said about you.”
Miss Comstock, who had been in the background, came up and greeted Jane warmly.
“You’ve done a wonderful piece of work for the stewardess service,” she said. “Mrs. Van Verity Vanness sent the general manager a long telegram today, highly recommending the service and especially complimenting you. I’m sure that as a result of your outstanding work, we’re all assured of jobs for a long time to come.”
“But I didn’t do anything unusual,” protested Jane. “I simply did my job as I had been trained to do it, in the hospital and here at the field. It was nothing more than what will soon be routine to every one of us.”
“Not every one of us will have bandits attack our plane the first time we’re out, nor will we be carrying a woman who can sign her name to a check for a million dollars and know that she can cash it,” put in Grace.
Jane looked at her wrist watch. It was just three o’clock.
“We’d better hurry home if we plan to get any sleep tonight,” she said.
“You can go home,” said Grace, “but Alice and I are ordered out on the eastbound mail. It’s coming through in two sections from the coast this morning, and will be here in another fifteen minutes.”
“Then I’ll stay and see you off,” said Jane. “Fifteen minutes, more or less, won’t make much difference at this time of night.”
Miss Comstock was busy in the commissary, checking supplies which were to go aboard the eastbound planes and the girls all lent her a hand.
They plied Jane with questions about the trip, the encounter with the bandits, and how she had gotten along with Mrs. Van Verity Vanness.
“She’s an old dear,” said Jane. “I don’t care what the newspapers say about her, she certainly treated me splendidly, and just as we got to New York she invited me to accompany her as nurse and companion. She’s planning a round-the-world trip as soon as her son recovers.”
“And you turned that down?”
“I should say I did. Why, I wouldn’t trade this job of mine for almost anything else in the world. You’ll feel the same way before you’re half way through your first regular flight as stewardess. There’s a thrill to flying that can’t be found in anything else.”
“I’m willing to be shown,” said Grace.
The planes from the west came in on time, both of them loaded to capacity. New crews took over the controls at Cheyenne and Grace and Alice stowed the food away in the pantries. They checked their passenger lists and when the planes were refueled, called their passengers aboard.
“Good luck,” called Jane and Sue as they stood on the ramp and watched the big ships wheel out of the hangar. Then the planes roared away into a greying sky, which heralded the coming of another dawn.
A field car was available to take them to town and Miss Comstock joined them.
“Are you going to come out and see every ship off?” asked Jane.
“I should say not, but with all of the girls assigned to go out within the next 24 hours, I want to see that they get started right. After that, they’ll be on their own.”
“What assignment do we get?” asked Sue.
“You will be on the Night Flyer while Jane is to take the Coast to Coast Limited. You’ll go out tonight, while Jane’s first trip is tomorrow morning.”
“Then I’ll plan to do plenty of sleeping in the next few hours,” said Sue. “The Night Flyer means a slow trip to Chicago for it stops at every airport.”
Mrs. Murphy heard them come in, and appeared with her hair done up in curl papers and a faded kimono wrapped around her ample bulk. She insisted on going down and fixing a lunch, and over the kitchen table Jane spread out the New York papers. They read the stories, in great detail, and Mrs. Murphy appeared immensely pleased at the great publicity given to Jane’s fine work.
“I could tell the minute I laid eyes on you, that you’d be a winner,” she said proudly. “Now you’d best both be off to bed, for it’s circles you’ll be having under your eyes if you don’t.”
They thanked Mrs, Murphy for the lunch and hurried upstairs to undress and crawl between crisp, cool sheets just as the sun came over the horizon.
Mrs. Murphy came in later and adjusted the curtains on the porch, and the girls slept until mid-afternoon.
Sue, about to make her first flight alone, was nervous and excited. She fussed over the way her uniform fitted her trim figure and worried about what she would do if any of the passengers became ill.
“Just forget you’re in a plane and think about ward duty back in Good Samaritan, then you’ll know what to do,” advised Jane.
They had supper with Mrs. Murphy and then a car from the field called for them. The Night Flyer was due at ten o’clock, but Sue had at least an hour’s work in the commissary and she wanted to have plenty of time.
Miss Comstock, looking rather worn and tired, was still on duty and Mattie Clark was also at the field, looking very neat and business-like in her uniform.
“There’s two sections tonight on the Flyer,” Mattie informed Sue. “I’m going out on the first section and you’ll take the second.”
“Sue is assigned on the first section,” said Miss Comstock, who resented Mattie’s infringement of her authority. “You take No. 2.”
“But I want to be in Chicago early,” protested Mattie.
“Both ships will be there within five minutes of each other. Besides, Sue is to be on the Flyer regularly, and she might just as well get acquainted with the regular pilots who are on that run.”
Mattie was silent, but it was obvious that she was anything but pleased at Miss Comstock’s decision, and Jane knew more than ever, that Mattie was going to cause trouble for everyone else in the ranks of the stewardess corps.
The first section of the Night Flier came in from the west three minutes ahead of schedule and with a capacity load. While the passengers stretched their legs and visited about the flight over the mountains from Salt Lake, Sue stowed her kit away in the pantry.
With departure time at hand, she forgot the nervousness which had gripped her earlier and became a calm, self-contained nurse.
“The best of luck,” whispered Jane as she squeezed her friend’s hand.
Sue herded her passengers into the cabin and closed the door. The landing stage was wheeled away and the Night Flyer lumbered out of the hangar on the first lap of the long flight to Chicago.
Jane watched the lights of the plane until they were pin-points in the east.
It was Sue’s task to make her passengers comfortable for the night and she went along the aisle, adjusting seats, turning off lights, and bringing out the thick, warm blankets from the supply closet. In half an hour she had the task completed and only one passenger, an elderly man, had elected to read, selecting a Cheyenne paper with the latest news.
As they sped east, Sue wondered at her own nervousness which had been so evident before the flight. Now everything seemed so matter-of-fact. She felt as though she had been flying for years.
A woman who had come through from ’Frisco was getting off at North Platte and Sue roused her just before they swooped down on the field. In ten minutes they were away again, with a radio order to stop at Grand Island to pick up a passenger for Chicago and another coast passenger would disembark at Lincoln.
The Night Flyer made most of the local stops, and as a result was anything but popular with the pilots. Most of the new men on the line drew the thankless job of piloting the Flyer, and the crew of Sue’s ship had been on only a little more than a month.
With a fair tail wind, they kept on time despite all of their stops, and they soared away from Omaha and over the muddy Missouri a few minutes after two a.m. with a new crew of pilots up ahead. The stewardesses made the entire trip from Cheyenne to Chicago, but the pilots changed at Omaha, unless piloting a special.
It was over this stretch of the line that Jane had encountered the thrilling experience which had brought her front page fame in every newspaper in the country and Sue looked out, halfway in the hope that something unusual enough to bring her fame, would happen.
But her hopes were doomed, and they went into Des Moines on time. The only field they missed was at Iowa City, and they sped over that one shortly after sunrise.
East of the Mississippi, they lost the sun in a murk of smoke and fog.
Sue’s light flashed, and she went forward to answer the call from the chief pilot.
“Weather around Chicago’s bad,” he said. “We may not be able to get through, so stall the passengers off if they get anxious about the time we’re due in Chicago.”
“But what will I tell them?” asked Sue.
“That’s your job. All I do is run this crate.”
Like Jane, Sue was finding out that pilots who on the ground were the pleasantest and most friendly flyers, were more than likely to be martinets when they were at the controls of a big passenger plane.
Sue took the rebuff good naturedly. Of course it was her job to keep the passengers from being alarmed.
Franklin Grove was the last of the emergency landing fields she saw, before the “soup” swallowed them and they looked out into a solid wall of rushing grey, so thick it almost hid the wings.
Passengers looked anxiously toward Sue, and one or two of them summoned her. To their questions, she replied as truthfully as she could that they had struck a bit of bad weather, but that the radio beacon was guiding the pilot and they expected to soon be out of the fog and into clear weather.
That explanation satisfied them for the first half hour, but after that Sue found herself in trouble and a rising fear gripping her own heart. The questions the passengers asked were more difficult to answer.
Why weren’t they out of the fog? They were late now getting into Chicago. Did the pilot know where he was? Why couldn’t they land and wait for the bad weather to clear?
Sue answered them as best she could and tried to remain calm, putting on the best professional manner of a trained nurse.
Her signal light glowed again and she went forward. The chief pilot looked years older.
“We’re in trouble,” he told her frankly. “I’ve lost my radio bearings and the gas is getting low. Have your passengers fasten their safety belts and see that there is no smoking. If we crash we don’t want any extra risk of fire.”
Sue returned to the cabin, hoping desperately that her face would not give away the gravity of their situation when she asked the passengers to put on their safety belts. She went from one to another, adjusting the belts, and informing them that they were about to land, but she didn’t add that it was likely to be a crash landing. When everyone was fastened to the seats, Sue reported to the chief pilot.
“Get back in the cabin. We’re going down,” he said curtly.
Sue watched the altimeter.. The needle dropped gently from the 3,000 feet at which they had been flying, but the wall of fog still enveloped the earth.
They nosed through it carefully, the air speed cut down to a hundred miles an hour. Even that speed was a terrific one at which to crash into the ground. Sue was too busy thinking about her passengers to sense her own emotions.
For five minutes the pilot groped his way down and suddenly the nose of the big ship shot through the fog. The plane flattened out 200 feet above the ground and skimmed along over farmhouses with the motors roaring heavily.
Suddenly the ship heeled over and for a sickening instant, Sue thought they were crashing until she caught sight of an airport and knew the pilot was sliding in for a fast landing.
As the plane touched the ground the motors sucked the last fuel from the tanks. The tri-motor rolled up to the hangar and Sue looked at the name painted above the large doors. They had come down at Joliet, nearly thirty miles south of their course.
“Weather’s still bad around Chicago,” he announced. “We’ll have taxis here in a few minutes to take you in.”
Sue helped her passengers collect their hand baggage and sheperded them into the taxis. In half an hour the last one was safely away for Chicago, and Sue had time to sit down and have a little cry all by herself.
They remained at Joliet until mid-afternoon, when the fog cleared and they hopped the short distance to the field at Chicago. It was then that Sue learned that the second section of the Night Flyer was down at Sterling, Illinois, with the weather west of Chicago still foggy and little chance of it clearing before mid-evening. Sue could imagine the wrath of Mattie Clark, who had been anxious to reach Chicago that morning.
Sue went to the office of the personnel director to be assigned quarters while in Chicago and learned that the line had leased two apartments nearby which would accommodate eight girls. They could cook their own meals there or go out to restaurants as they preferred, since the line’s only obligation was to domicile them while at the Chicago end of their runs.
“I talked with some of the passengers who came as far as Joliet with you,” said the personnel chief, “and they gave me some fine reports of your calmness. I feel that I owe Miss Hardy at Good Samaritan a letter of real appreciation for the girls she recommended.”
After leaving the personnel office, Sue looked at the bulletin board. The Coast to Coast Limited with Jane aboard would be in at five o’clock and she decided to wait for her.
Sue enjoyed a late lunch at the restaurant and then walked out on the ramp to watch the arrival and departure of the planes.
A crimson monoplane was being loaded for a run to Kansas City, while a trim, blue biplane was waiting for four passengers for Detroit. It all seemed so matter-of-fact, and Sue knew that after her flight through the fog that morning she would never again be afraid of flying.
Sue met Jane when she stepped off the Coast to Coast Limited and together the girls went to the apartments which had been leased by the air line. They were in Chicago for the night. Sue booked out early the next morning and Jane later in the day.
Grace and Alice, also in Chicago, had been down town shopping that afternoon, but they all met at the apartment. There was an attractive kitchenette, but the girls were tired and they had dinner at a nearby restaurant. Later they walked to a neighborhood movie where they enjoyed the feature program.
When they returned to the apartment, Mattie Clark was there, still mad at the long delay which had kept her away from Chicago.
“Imagine having to stay out at the emergency field at Sterling almost all day,” she stormed. She turned on Sue angrily.
“If you hadn’t been so pig-headed back in Cheyenne, I’d have been on the first section and at least arrived during the daytime.”
“You can thank me you weren’t on the first section,” replied Sue calmly. “We got lost and were coming down for a crash landing when the fog cleared at Joliet and we sneaked down there. I was scared to death.”
Mattie looked at Sue skeptically.
“You don’t seem to believe me,” said Sue.
“Well, it’s a good story,” said Mattie.
Jane’s anger had mounted steadily and it got away from her.
“That’s enough, Mattie. We might as well have it out right now. I think you’re mean and small. You’re doing everything you can to make it unpleasant for Miss Comstock, and now you’re insulting Sue, because you know Sue is too even-tempered to fight back. Now just get out of here and after this keep out of my way.”
Mattie was furious and her face flamed with anger, but before she could reply, Alice stepped in.
“What Jane said goes for Grace and me,” she said. “The less we see of you, the better.”
“You’ll all be sorry for this,” flared Mattie as she slammed the door and went into the apartment across the hall.
“I’m sorry this had to happen,” Jane told the others, “but Mattie is out for trouble and she’s going to get it. From now on keep your eyes open, for she’ll trick you if she can.”
The stewardesses soon settled into the routine of the flights from Cheyenne to Chicago and return. It was interesting, pleasant work.
Jane banked the money she had received from the New York paper and from Mrs. Van Verity Vanness and when Charlie Fischer asked her if she’d like to take lessons in flying, she had the money necessary.
Charlie had a biplane at Cheyenne and between flights with the huge Federated planes, amused himself by hopping around the countryside and giving lessons to whatever pupils he could pick up. Of the stewardesses, Jane was the only girl who decided to take lessons.
Whenever she and Charlie were at Cheyenne, he took her up for flights, explaining the principles of aeronautics and letting her get the feel of the plane. One afternoon they flew to Denver and back, and on another occasion, went to Laramie.
Jane was blessed with air sense. When she had her hands on the control stick, she could almost anticipate every movement of the plane and Charlie praised her aptitude warmly.
The days rolled into mid-summer and July in Cheyenne was hot. It was refreshing to seek the coolness of the upper air in the late afternoon and Jane spent as much extra time aloft as she could afford. Then came the afternoon for her solo flight. The government inspector arrived and took his place in the rear cockpit.
Charlie Fischer looked up and grinned.
“Just forget the guy back there,” he said, “and you’ll get along fine.”
Jane’s throat tightened. Going up with a government inspector was quite different from going up with Charlie,
She opened the throttle and the biplane shot across the sun-baked field. Jane was glad the other girls were out on the line, for it would be embarrassing to come down and face them if the inspector should turn her down.
She lifted the biplane into the air and got altitude in easy circles over the airport. Then she started through the routine. As the thrill of the flight got into her blood, she forgot the inspector in the rear cockpit and gave her every energy to piloting the plane. With grace and skill, she directed the maneuvers until the inspector reached ahead, tapped her on the shoulder, and nodded toward the ground.
Jane cut the motor and they drifted down. Charlie Fischer was the first to reach the plane.
“How about it?” he asked the inspector.
“Just about perfect,” smiled the government official.
“Then I’ll get my license?” Jane asked breathlessly.
“There’s no question about that. I’m giving you an exceptionally high rating. Your license will be through shortly.”
It was another ten days, before the precious card with her license arrived from Washington and Jane showed it proudly to her roommates.
“It’s nice,” admitted Sue, “but what on earth will you do with it? You haven’t a plane and you can’t afford to rent Charlie Fischer’s.”
“I honestly don’t know,” confessed Jane, “but I wanted it. Some day I’ll be glad that I have the license and the ability to fly a plane.”
Mattie Clark was still causing trouble. Any other girl who so rankly showed her insubordination would have been fired within a week, but the fact that Mattie’s uncle was a company official saved her time and again. She knew she was treading on thin ice, but she seemed to take whole-hearted enjoyment in making Miss Comstock and the other girls miserable. Jane was her special hate.
Jane was still on the Coast to Coast, the crack run of the line, and summer had slipped over into August. A burning wind swept down out of the mountains and it was hot that morning when the eastbound Coast to Coast drifted in.
Mattie had been assigned to a westbound plane for the day, and was in the commissary while Jane checked over her supplies. As usual, Mattie made as many caustic remarks as possible, but Jane refused to answer.
Jane finished preparing the supplies to place aboard the plane and went out to call a field boy to help her carry the large hamper. When she returned with the boy, Mattie was still in the commissary and Jane looked at her sharply. Mattie flushed, but Jane thought nothing more of the incident.
The Coast to Coast was loaded and Jane sat on the jump seat at the rear of the plane. It was the usual crowd—a second-rate movie actress, several New York traveling men with flashy clothes, an elderly lady called east by a death in the family and the rest business men and women who had taken the plane to save time on their trip east.
Jane made sure that everyone had traveling kits, answered several questions about the weather ahead, and checked over her passenger list to see that everyone was in the proper seat.
The ship rolled out of the hangar and swept away into the east. Jane picked up the magazines and went along the aisle, offering them to passengers who cared to read. Most of them preferred to gaze at the landscape below.
They were east of Grand Island when Jane prepared lunch, serving sandwiches, a cool salad and an iced drink she had brought in a large thermos jug.
It was early afternoon when they cleared Omaha, with a stop scheduled ahead at Des Moines, the last one until Chicago. Council Bluffs had barely dropped out of sight when Jane began to feel ill. Just then a woman called her. She was feeling uneasy and Jane gave her a soda tablet.
She had hardly returned to her seat when everyone appeared stricken at the same moment. Her passengers became deathly ill and Jane herself was so sick she could hardly move. She managed to stagger ahead to the pilots’ cockpit and told them of what had happened. The big ship was turned about at once, roaring back for Omaha, while the co-pilot sent out a rush call for ambulances and doctors to meet it at the field.
By the time the tri-motor reached the Omaha field, Jane was too ill to move and everyone in the cabin was carried out and taken to the hospital for treatment.
Just before she left the field, Jane spoke to the chief pilot.
“Save the lunch,” she whispered. “It must have been that.”
He nodded and hurried away to see what he could find in the pantry.
Somehow the Omaha papers got hold of the story, and printed it on their front pages. As a result Hubert Speidel, the personnel chief, hurried out from Chicago on the first plane to make an investigation, and it was at Jane’s request that he had the food analyzed. Shortly after that he ordered an investigation to be held at Cheyenne and Jane, still weak from her sudden illness, wondered what he had learned.
Jane, who had been the most seriously ill of those aboard the Coast to Coast Limited, was in the Omaha hospital three days. She was far from well when she boarded a westbound plane for the inquiry at Cheyenne. The incident had brought unfavorable publicity to the line, and the personnel director was determined to get at the bottom of it.
The investigation was held in the administration building of the Cheyenne airport. In addition to Mr. Speidel, Miss Comstock was there, the pilots who had been on the plane, and Sue.
Jane was questioned first.
“Did you prepare the food which was placed aboard the plane that day?” the personnel chief asked her.
“Not all of it,” she replied. “The salad was supplied by the caterer, but I made the sandwiches and prepared the iced tea.”
“Did anyone else touch the food?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Was anyone else in the commissary while you were working?” continued the personnel director.
Jane was about to reply that she was alone when she remembered that Mattie had been there.
“Mattie Clark was there,” she said, wondering just what Mr. Speidel was attempting to learn from her.
“You know what caused the illness aboard the plane?” he went on.
“It was a strong irritant of some kind,” she replied, “but I wasn’t told at the hospital just what it was.”
The personnel director switched to another track.
“You wouldn’t have had any reason to place anything in the food, would you?”
Jane’s face flushed, and it was a struggle to keep from showing her intense anger, but she finally managed to reply “no,” in a calm voice.
“Do you know anyone who would do it as a grudge against you?”
“That question is hardly fair,” retorted Jane. “If I mention any names I might unjustly throw suspicion on someone who is not guilty.”
Through her mind, though, raced thoughts of Mattie and her promise of revenge. Mattie had been alone in the commissary long enough to dope the sandwiches or the salad, and she was capable of stooping to such a low trick. No matter what happened, as a result of the investigation, Jane resolved to see Mattie and have a talk with her.
“What do you know about this, Miss Comstock?” asked the personnel director, turning to the chief of the stewardess service.
“Very little, but I am sure that Miss Cameron is being treated very unfairly if anyone thinks she deliberately planned such a distressing incident as the one which took place aboard the Coast to Coast the other day.”
“But isn’t it true that Miss Cameron is one of your favorites?”
“I am no more partial to her than to the other girls. It happens that she is a most efficient and personable stewardess. I only wish that all of the girls were as capable as she.”
The pilots also spoke a good word for Jane, but she knew she was in a tight spot. Someone had prejudiced the personnel director against her and she strongly suspected the fine hand of Mattie Clark, working through her uncle.
Then Sue took a hand in the proceedings.
“I’ve been doing a little investigating on my own account,” she said. “It may interest you to know that a member of the stewardess staff bought the drug which was used to cause the illness aboard the plane.”
“What do you know about this?” demanded Mr. Speidel.
“Enough to clear Jane of any part in it,” replied Sue. “I have a sworn statement from the druggist who made the sale. He knows the stewardess who made the purchase and named her in the affidavit.”
Sue waved the paper and the personnel chief seized it eagerly.
“I think this investigation is over,” he said as he finished reading the affidavit. “I am sorry, Miss Cameron, to have caused you any embarrassment.”
Once outside, Jane hugged Sue enthusiastically.
“You were a peach to do that piece of sleuthing,” she said. “For a while it looked like I was in a tight place.”
“But you haven’t asked me who bought the drug,” said Sue.
“I don’t need to. It was Mattie. I remembered seeing her in the commissary the other day. Honestly, I hardly thought Mattie would stoop to such a trick. Why, think what would have happened if the pilots had eaten any of that lunch.”
“I did,” replied Sue, “which is one reason why I went sneaking around the drug stores in Cheyenne. Mattie was pretty sure of herself for she bought it in the store where we usually go for our sodas. The druggist didn’t want to give me an affidavit, but when I threatened to swing all of the stewardess trade to the store across the street he decided to sign.”
They were having dinner that night at Mrs. Murphy’s when Alice, just off a run from the east, came in.
“Guess who I saw leaving the field?” she said.
“Mattie Clark,” replied Jane.
“You’re a mind-reader. It was Mattie and she was going as a passenger. What’s up?”
Sue told Alice briefly what had taken place during the afternoon.
“Serves Mattie right,” said Alice. “Everything will be smoother now that she’s gone. But I’ve got some news none of you will guess.”
“Don’t keep us waiting too long,” smiled Jane.
“Roscoe James, the famous film director, came out on the plane from Chicago.”
“That’s nothing. Frederic March flew east with me the other day and never even looked at me,” said Sue.
“Yes, but Roscoe James stopped here.”
“Which means what?” asked Jane.
“His company, the Mammoth, is going to film an air story with the Cheyenne field for the background.”