In the meantime the little stewardess, Rosemary Sample, had made her way back to Chicago. During the time Danby Force was having his fortune told she was thinking at intervals of him. She was in her own small room and, as one will, whose mind is not actively engaged in performing a task, she was thinking of many things. Rosemary was, by nature, romantic. Contrary to general opinion, there are few romances between pilots of the air and their lady companions. Pilots, as a rule, are married men with homes they love all the more dearly because of enforced absence from them. Rosemary had been obliged to find romance, if any, from contact with her passengers. And there had been romances of a sort, though none of serious import. She smiled now as she thought of the great banker who more than once had favored her with a smile; of the movie actor, little more than a boy, who had traveled on her ship, once every week for four months. “Such a nice boy,” she whispered. “He—”
Her thoughts broke off. She listened intently. Over her head was clamped a head-set for receiving messages. Her radio was in tune with the sending sets of all her company’s great fleet of airplanes. What message did she expect to receive? Often none in particular. She loved the general chatter of the air. “Plane Number 9 taking off from Chicago to New York.” “Plane Number 34 due in Cheyenne at 9:15, twenty minutes late.” “Plane Number 11 grounded by a storm near Troy, New York.” All this was music to her ears, for was she not part of it all, the great air-transportation system, not of tomorrow, but of today?
Tonight, however, she half expected a personal message. To each of six friends, all stewardesses of the air, she had told what she knew of the dark lady. To each she had said, “If she boards your ship, give my call number and let me know. I’ll be listening till time for sleep.”
The message that for the instant held her attention proved disappointing. It was not for her. So she went on with her dreaming. And in those dreams there frequently appeared two faces—a serious one, Danby Force, and a smiling one, Willie VanGeldt.
“How different they are!” she thought to herself. “And yet, if I am not mistaken each has been, or will be, heir to a large fortune. It seems that even rich people have their own way of living.”
These thoughts did not long hold her fancy. Soon she was dreaming of trips she would make in the future. No, not trips from Chicago to New York, then New York to Chicago. Nothing like that, but long trips into strange places. She’d collect a pocketful of passes and go wandering. She’d catch a ship across the Canadian prairies to Edmonton, take the north going plane and land at last at the mouth of the Mackenzie River on the shore of the Arctic. There she’d play with brown Eskimo babies and tame seals. She would drive dog teams and reindeer, ride in skin-boats and perhaps—just perhaps—hunt polar bear.
When she tired of all this, she’d go flying south through the air, south to Cuba, Panama, Rio and the slow-moving Amazon. Ah yes, this airplane business was quite wonderful, if only you knew how to make the most of it. And she knew. Ah yes, she, Rosemary Sample, knew.
But first there were other matters to be considered. Willie VanGeldt and his badly cared for little flivver of the air; Danby Force and his dark lady. And—and—
Well, what of the rest? Rosemary had fallen asleep.
She awoke a half hour later and remained so just long enough to remove the head-set, shut off her radio, slip out of her day clothes and into her dream robes. Then again she fell fast asleep.
The charming little gypsy child who, in her bright colored dress and purple headdress looked more like an animated doll than a child, played little part in the bit of life drama played at the crest of the mountain by Petite Jeanne and her friends until, after breakfast of bacon, toast and delicious coffee, the members of the party left the hunting lodge to wend their way up the mountainside.
They were approaching the skyline landing field. A sharp, bleak wind, whispering of approaching winter, cut at their cheeks and tore away at the broken and twisted fir trees that made up the advance guard of timberline.
The little gypsy girl was in the lead. Of a sudden she paused and, pointing excitedly, exclaimed, “See! Teddy bears! And do look! They are alive! One of them stuck his tongue out at me!”
The older members of the party did not share the little girl’s happy animation. To their consternation they discovered two grizzly bear cubs half hidden among the rocks not a dozen paces away.
“Come!” said Madame, seizing the child’s hand. There was a quaver of fear in her voice.
“But why?” The child Vida’s round face suddenly took on a sober look. “They are pretty bears. And they are alive. I know they are.”
Jeanne too knew they were alive, and Danby Force knew. They also realized that bear-cub twins usually had a mother close by, and a mother bear spelled trouble.
“We—we’ve got to get out of here!” Danby’s words were low, but tense with emotion. The airplane was still a quarter of a mile away.
“Come!” Madame voiced a sharp command as the child hung back. Next moment the child found herself on Danby’s shoulder, and they were all hurrying away toward their plane.
Jeanne’s heart had gone into a tailspin. Were they going to make it? Was the mother bear close at hand, or had she gone some distance in her search for food?
One glance back gave Jeanne the answer. “Run! Run!” She uttered the words before she thought them.
Instantly they sprang into wild flight.
Bears are swift runners. This mother was no exception. Had someone been standing upon a rock overlooking the scene, he might have discovered that the bear, almost at a bound, had shortened the distance between herself and the fleeing ones by half. He would have opened his eyes in sheer terror as he saw her, mouth open, tongue lolling out, white teeth gleaming, gaining yard by yard until it seemed her breath would burn the sturdy gypsy woman’s cheek.
Jeanne led the procession. Danby Force came next. Madame, unaccustomed to running, lagged behind.
Danby heard the beast’s hoarse panting. What was to happen? He had no weapon. Yes, one, if it might be called that—a six-foot stick. This stick was very hard and stout, sharpened at one end. He had used it as an Alpine staff. As Jeanne reached the plane he threw the gypsy child into her hands; then swinging about, he sprang to Madame’s assistance. He was not a moment too soon. The irate beast was all but upon her.
At sight of this one who dared to turn and face her, the bear paused, reared herself upon her haunches and, for a space of ten seconds, stood there, glaring, snarling, frothing at the mouth.
The respite was brief. It was enough to permit Jeanne to drag her foster mother into the plane.
Danby’s thought as he turned to face the bear had been that he might set the stick at such an angle as to bring it into contact with the bear’s ribs as she charged. He had heard of hunters practicing this trick. In the end his courage failed him. Seeing his chance he dropped the stick, sprang for the plane, fell through the opening then slammed the door after him.
“Safe!” he breathed thickly. “But is the battle over? Perhaps it has but begun. She—she could wreck this plane.”
“Oh my poor Dragon Fly!” Jeanne groaned. The great beast hurled herself against the stout door with such a shock as set the whole ship to quivering.
Consternation was written on every face but one in that small cabin. And why not? If their plane were wrecked, what then? Danby Force was in a hurry to get away. Every moment counted. The happiness of an entire community was at stake. Then too the breath of winter was in the air. At any moment a wild blizzard, sweeping in from the north, might send snow whirling into every crack and cranny of the mountain. Burying trails, filling canyons with fathomless depths of snow, it might shut them away from all the outside world.
In spite of this, one face was beaming, one pair of sturdy legs were hopping about in high glee. The gypsy child’s joy knew no bounds. “Now there will be a fight!” she screamed. “The big Dragon Fly has knives on his nose. They are very sharp. They whirl round and round. You cannot see them. The big bear cannot see. The big Dragon Fly will bite the big bear. He will roll down dead!”
Listening to this wild chatter, Danby Force received a sudden inspiration.
“Jeanne, start your motor,” he said in as quiet a tone as he could command. “She may attack the propeller. If she does, goodbye bear and goodbye propeller. I don’t think she will. We’ll have to risk it.”
With lips drawn in a straight white line, Jeanne took her place at the wheel, then set the motor purring.
All prepared for a second lunge at the offending box that held her fancied enemies, the bear paused to listen.
Then, with a suddenness that was startling, the motors let out a roar.
“Good!” screamed Vida, the gypsy child. “The big Dragon Fly shouts at the bear. Now she will run away.”
The bear did not run away. Instead, she turned half about to look away to the rocky ridge where her cubs were hiding. Then it was that Danby had one more brilliant idea.
“Jeanne,” he shouted in the little French girl’s ear, “wheel your plane about, then start taxiing slowly toward those cubs.”
Jeanne’s fingers trembled as she grasped one control after another, to set her plane to do Danby’s bidding. “What will be the result?” she was asking herself. Her great fear was that the mother bear would leap at the propeller. She had no desire to kill this mother, nor did she wish to lose her propeller.
To Jeanne the result was astonishing. No sooner had the “giant insect,” all made of metal, started toward the rocks than the mother bear, fearing no doubt for the safety of her children, started to beat its time.
“A race!” Vida shouted. “Goody! A race! And the big Dragon Fly will win!”
She was a greatly disappointed child when, after following the bear for a short distance, the plane swung round, increased its speed, went circling about the narrow landing field; then at Danby’s shout, “UP!”, left the ground to go sailing away among the clouds.
“Well,” Danby sighed as he settled back beside Jeanne, “we are out of that.”
“Yes,” Jeanne sighed happily. “We are out, and the big Dragon Fly is safe!”
That same evening Jeanne’s giant dragon fly came drifting sweetly down from the clouds to land at the Chicago airport. After a few words with Danby Force and a promise to meet him before the airport depot on the following day, she taxied her little plane into a hangar, gave the mechanics some very definite instructions regarding its care and general inspection, then went away with her gypsy companions to spend the night in a cozy Chicago haunt of those dark brown wanderers, the gypsies.
It was past mid-afternoon of the following day when a large, rosy-cheeked girl came striding along the path that leads to aviation headquarters. Had you noted her jaunty stride, the suggestion of strength that was in her every movement, the joyous gleam of youth that was in her eyes, you would have said: “This is our old friend Florence Huyler, her very own self.” And you would not have been wrong.
Had Petite Jeanne been there at that moment she must surely have leapt straight into her good pal’s strong arms. They had been separated for months, Jeanne had journeyed to France. Florence had been adventuring in her own land. Letters had gone astray, addresses lost, so now here they were in the same great city, but each ignorant of the other’s nearness. Would they meet? In a city of three million, one seldom meets casually anyone one knows.
But here was Florence. She had come to the airport with a definite purpose. She was, as you will recall, a playground director. She had tried her ability at many things, but this was her true vocation. Times were hard. Playgrounds had been closed. For the moment Florence was unemployed. But was she downhearted? Watch that smile, that jaunty tread. Florence was young. Tomorrow was around the corner and with it some opportunity for work. Just at this moment an unusual occupation had caught her fancy; she wished to become an airplane stewardess. How Jeanne would have laughed at this.
“Oh, but my dear Florence!” she would have cried, “You and your one hundred and sixty pounds! You an airplane stewardess!”
Jeanne was not there, so Florence, marching blissfully on, arrived in due time at the door of aviation headquarters.
“I wonder if I might see Miss Marjory Monague?” she said to the girl by the wicker window. There was a suggestion of timidness in her voice.
“Miss Monague, the chief stewardess?” The girl at the small window arched her brow. “She’s frightfully busy. But I—” She hesitated, took one more look at Florence’s face, found it clean, frank and fair as a dew-drenched hillside on a summer morning, wondered in a vague sort of way how anyone could keep herself looking like that, then said, “I—I’ll call her.”
She turned to a telephone. A moment later she said to Florence, “Miss Monague will talk to you. Go right up those stairs. It’s the last office to the right.”
To the girl beside her this one whispered, “Bet she’s going to apply as a stewardess of the air! Can you e-ee-magine!
“All the same,” she added after a moment’s silence, “I’m sorry they won’t let her. She—she’s a swell one I bet! Regular pal like you dream about sometimes.”
In the meantime Florence had made her way blithely up the stairs. “Chief stewardess,” she was thinking, “probably forty, wears horn-rim glasses, sits up straight, stares at you and says, ‘Age please?’”
She was due for a shock. The chief stewardess was not forty, nor yet twenty-five. A slim slip of a girl, she looked in her large mahogany chair not more than twenty.
“I—I want to see Miss Monague,” said Florence.
“I am Miss Monague.”
“You? Why I—” Florence broke off, staring.
The other girl smiled. “There have been stewardesses of the air for only about five years,” Miss Monague explained quietly. “We were all young when we started. Naturally you can’t grow gray hair and get your spine stiff with old age in five years. So—” she smiled a very friendly smile. “So—o here I am. What can I do for you?”
“I—why you see—” Florence began, “I—I’d like to be a stewardess. I—I’ve been a playground director.” She went on eagerly, “That really calls for pretty much the same thing. You try to make people comfortable and happy—show them a good time. That’s what a stewardess does, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose so. But—”
“That,” Florence broke in, “that’s just about what I’ve done. Sometimes I taught them to do things, when they didn’t know how—trapeze, swinging rings and all that. But mostly I just stayed around and saw that everyone was busy and happy. Truly, I did love it. But I’ve been away. And now there are no openings. I just thought—”
“Yes.” The little chief of the stewardesses favored the big girl with one of her rarest smiles. She too liked this girl. She wished to help, but—
“I’m truly sorry!” A little up-and-down line appeared between her eyes. “The trouble is, I don’t think you could ever reduce that much. Besides, you’re too tall.”
“Reduce!” Florence exclaimed. “Of course I couldn’t. I’m hard as a rock. I put in four hours in the tank or the gym every day when I can. Why should I want to reduce?”
“Because—” a strange little smile played around the chief stewardess’ mouth. “Because our airplane cabins are just so big and we have to get girls that fit the cabins,—five feet four inches, a hundred and twenty pounds; those are the limits. Can be smaller, but never larger.”
“Oh!” Florence stared for a moment, then burst out in good-natured laughter. “I—I guess I won’t do.”
She was gone before the truly kind-hearted stewardess could tell her how sorry she was.
Florence was still smiling when she left the building. But the smile did not last. It is always hard, for even the strongest hearted to be in a great city alone and with no one near who will say, “You may help me do this.”
She walked slowly and quite soberly over the cinder path that led to the airport depot. Arrived there, she walked in and looked about her. There was something about the place that stirred her strangely. “Such movement! Such a wonderful feeling of abundant life!”
She walked through the door that led to the landing field. Once outside, she stood spellbound. A giant silver plane, looking more like a huge sea bird than any man-made thing, came gliding down the runway to wheel gracefully about and into position. From somewhere came the barking notes of an announcer: “Plane No. 43 eastbound for Toledo, Buffalo and New York, now loading.” She saw the smiling passengers following redcaps to the plane as they might have to a train, caught the signal, watched the plane roll away, heard the thunder of its motors, then saw it rise slowly in air and speed away.
“That—” her voice caught. Experienced as she was in the ways of the world, a tear glistened in her eye as she murmured hoarsely, “That is what I wanted to become a part of. And they won’t let me be—because I’m too big.”
She turned about to hide that tear. Next instant she was staring fascinated at three tiny objects lying close to the wall, three tiny sticks, two parallel and one crossing them at a sharp angle. “Jeanne! Petite Jeanne!” she all but cried aloud. “Jeanne has been here, not long ago either. That is her gypsy patteran!”
“Listen!” In her excitement she grasped the arm of an attendant. “Was there a slim blonde-haired girl here a little while ago?”
“Plenty of them,” the attendant grinned good-naturedly, “mebby twenty.”
“No, but one you would not forget. One who dresses in bright clothes like a gypsy. Perhaps there was a gypsy woman with her.”
“Oh, you mean that gypsy pilot!” The attendant began to show a real interest. “Yes, she was here. She went away with Rosemary Sample and a couple of men.”
“Who—who’s Rosemary Sample?” Florence could scarcely speak for excitement. Jeanne! She had found her good pal Jeanne—that is, almost.
“Rosemary Sample is a stewardess,” the attendant explained.
“Wh—where did they go?”
“I don’t—yes, come to think of it, I heard Rosemary say they was goin’ to Little Sweden.”
“Little Sweden? Where’s that?”
“How should I know?” the man drawled. “You might ask in Norway. That’s close to Sweden, ain’t it?
“Yes!” His voice rose suddenly. “Coming!” He hurried away, leaving Florence hanging between the heights of heaven and the depths of despair.
Little Sweden, strange to say, is not in Europe, but on the near-north side in Chicago. It is a place to eat, a unique and interesting place. There buxom maidens in white aprons and quaint starched caps do your bidding. It is a place of marvelous abundance. You do not order food. It is there before you on a long table. You pay for a meal, then help yourself. On the long board tables are great circles of chopped meat—beef, veal and chicken cooked in the most delicious manner. Salads, also done in circles, and luscious fruits, strange cakes and curious loaves of brown bread. It is as if all that is best in Sweden had been carried across the sea and reassembled for you and for your guests.
Our four friends, Rosemary, Jeanne, Danby and Willie had been whisked away from the airport to this remarkable place. A half hour after Florence had asked the question, “Where is Little Sweden?” they might have been found shut away in a small private dining room of the place, holding a conference over cakes and coffee.
Rosemary was on a forty-eight hour rest period. This is a regular thing for all stewardesses when they arrive at their home port. During the past twelve hours Rosemary had seen much of Petite Jeanne, and she had found her to be a very charming person. Simple in her tastes, modest, kindly, ever ready to serve others, Jeanne was, she thought, altogether lovely. During that twelve hours Danby Force had kept the wires hot in a vain search for some clue that might lead him to the dark-faced woman who had so mysteriously vanished.
Willie VanGeldt had been admitted to the conference because, as Rosemary had discovered, beneath his apparently happy-go-lucky and altogether haphazard nature there was a foundation of pure gold. He liked folks and was ready to help them, to “go the limit,” as he expressed it, if only they would tell him what might be done. He had been quite entranced with the company of the little stewardess and was more than ready to aid her friends.
“First of all,” Rosemary was saying, “I want you all to keep in touch with me as far as that is possible. I have a radio in my room. You have radios on your airplanes. We will see that they are in tune. When I am here I’ll be in my room from eight to eleven in the evening. Should you have anything to report or be in need, call the numbers 48—48, give your location if you can, then deliver your message. I’ll not be able to reply by radio, but I’ll help in any way I can.”
“And I’ll take you round the world in my plane if need be,” said Willie.
To this he received a strange reply from the little stewardess: “You’ll not take me off the ground, no matter what happens.”
“Why? Why won’t I?” He stared in unbelief.
“I’ll answer that later.” She cast him a half apologetic look. “Mr. Force has something to show us.”
“This,” said Danby Force, “is a picture of the lady who threatens to ruin our happy community.” He held the photograph before them.
“She appears to prefer air travel, and she will travel again,” said Rosemary. “We have a hundred and fifty stewardesses in the air. Why not have a picture made for each of these? If they all keep watch, we may find her quickly.”
“Grand idea!” Danby exclaimed. “I’ll have them made at once.”
“I’ll be wandering about, as gypsy people have a way of doing,” Jeanne said with a fine smile. “If I catch sight of that dark lady, I’ll whisper 48—48 into my receiver and things will be doing at once.” Little did Jeanne dream of the strange circumstances under which that mystic signal 48—48 would slip from her lips.
“But tell us—” Jeanne leaned forward eagerly. “Tell us of these so terrible spies. Shall they be shot at sunrise?”
“No.” Danby Force smiled. “We don’t shoot industrial spies. In fact I’m afraid it would be difficult to so much as get them put in prison. An idea, however valuable, is not easy to get hold of and prove. You may steal it, yet no one in the world can prove that you have it. That sounds rather strange, doesn’t it?” He laughed a jolly laugh.
“And by the way!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Just this morning I received a message that proves we still have spies in our plant. A scrap of note-paper with plans drawn on it, picked up off the floor of the mill, proves that. And this,” he added rather strangely, “gives me fresh hope.”
“Hope! Hope! Hope!” the others cried in chorus.
“To be sure,” said Danby, “if they are still with us, then they have not yet secured all the secrets needed for their selfish and cowardly plans. You see—”
He broke short off. There came a movement at the draperies of the door. A head was thrust in. A smiling face looked down upon them. A pair of lips said:
“Jeanne, I have found you!”
Ten seconds later Jeanne was in someone’s arms. It was her good pal Florence. They were together once more.
“This,” said Jeanne, turning a smiling face to her friends at the table, “is Florence Huyler, the best girl friend I have ever known. And,” she added, eagerly nodding at Danby Force, “she’s a fine solver of mysteries as well.”
“Ah!” Danby’s eyes gleamed. “Come and join us, Miss Huyler.”
“I shall be back very soon.” Jeanne popped out of the little dining room to reappear in an incredibly short time with a heaping plate of food.
“This,” she exclaimed, “is Little Sweden, the place where everyone eats all he can.”
“And now,” said Danby, nodding to Jeanne, “tell me about your friend. Why do you think she is a solver of mysteries?”
“Because,” Jeanne replied, “she has solved many.” At once she launched into a recital of her friend’s many achievements. She spoke of the mysterious “Crimson Thread,” of the “Thirteenth Ring,” of the “Lady Cop and the Three Rubies.”
“I am delighted,” said Danby Force. “But then—” his voice dropped, “no doubt you are permanently employed and cannot join us in our search for this dark lady and her companion spies.”
“On the contrary,” Florence smiled a doubtful smile, “I am very much unemployed.”
“How fortunate!” Danby extended his hand. “And you are a social worker of a sort, a recreation lady. I have been promising myself for a long time that we should have a social secretary at our plant. I shall appoint you at once and you shall have a double duty—to serve our simple, kindly people, and to search for a spy. What do you say?”
“What can I say but yes!” The large girl beamed. “What a day!” she was thinking to herself. “I go blundering into a place looking for a job that’s several sizes too small for me. And now I fall upon one that is just exactly my kind.”
“Life,” she said aloud, “is beautiful.”
“Yes,” Danby Force agreed, “life is beautiful at times, and should always be so. When we are selfish or unkind we mar the beauty of life for someone. When we are suspicious or unjust, when we lay heavy burdens on the weak, we are destroying life’s beauty.
“Yes,” he repeated slowly, “life must be beautiful.”
“Listen!” Rosemary Sample held up a hand. “What was that?”
“A horn,” said Jeanne. “There’s another and another. This, why this!” She sprang to her feet. “This is the night of Hallowe’en! And this is the last night of the Great Fair, that most beautiful Century of Progress. Florence,” she cried, “do you not remember the ‘Hour of Enchantment’? We must go there tonight. We truly must!”
“We shall all go,” said Danby Force. “It will prove a never-to-be-forgotten night, I feel sure.” He spoke the truth, but he did not even so much as dream the half of it.
A half hour later the little company had joined the merry mad throng that, combining the enthusiasm of Hallowe’en with a farewell to a beloved play spot, was making the most of one wild night.
Never had any of them seen anything quite so tremendous, for Chicago, like some young giant, has never learned how big it really is. When a crowd of three hundred thousand persons descends upon one narrow park, things are sure to happen. And even now they were happening fast.
Already the “Battle of Paris” was on. In the Streets of Paris someone had thrown a bottle through a mirror. At once a hundred bottles were dying, a hundred windows crashing. With wild abandon the throng surged back and forth along the narrow streets.
All this was quite unknown to our friends. They had not come to revel but to bid a fond farewell to a spot they had learned to love. The Sky Ride, the shimmering waters of the lagoon, Hollywood, Rutledge Tavern—a hundred little corners had played a part in the lives of Florence and Jeanne.
For all this, the spirit of the mob gripped them and, grasping one another by the shoulders that they might not be separated, they surged on through the crowd.
“One wild night!” Florence screamed.
“And it’s not yet begun!” Willie, who was in the lead, called back.
The Streets of Paris was not the only spot where revelers, getting out of bounds, were rushing shops and collecting souvenirs.
“Come down from there!” shouted a policeman as a large fat man climbed to the top of a shop-keeper’s shelves for some treasure.
“Come and get me!” The fat man brandished a cane. The crowd roared applause.
Three burly policemen marched upon him. One seized his cane, the others caught him by his massive legs, and down he came. Once again the crowd roared. On this night of nights, one moment you were a hero and the next you were forgotten.
Like great armies of rats, this human throng burrowed in everywhere. A barrel of rootbeer was turned half over, glasses seized and a toast drunk to the departing Fair. When the barrel was drained a long, lank individual sat astride it. Three men gave the barrel a push. Barrel and man went rolling and bouncing down a steep incline and on into the lagoon.
They were crossing the lagoon bridge, Willie, Danby, Florence, Rosemary and Jeanne, when of a sudden Danby Force exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, “There! There she is! The dark lady, the spy! See that split ear? I’d know her anywhere by that. There can be no doubt of it. Her ears have evidently been pierced for ear-rings, and one of the rings at some time must have been torn through the flesh, leaving a disfigurement. Yes, that’s the spy, I’m sure of it.”
“The spy! The spy!” came from the others. Could a moment more thrilling and more impossible be imagined? Here they were not twenty feet from the one they sought. And that twenty feet packed tight with writhing, twisting, screaming revelers of Hallowe’en, the end of the Fair!
Then, as if to redouble the suspense, someone threw a great switch. As if by magic, the entire grounds went dark.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” came the murmurs of surprise, thrill and horror, from the streets many miles long, all packed with humanity.
The effect was strange. In a crowd of many thousands each individual feels very much alone. Florence felt Rosemary’s grip tighten on her shoulder as she, in turn, clutched at Willie’s coat. Danby Force alone did not lose his poise.
“Don’t lose her,” he whispered. “This is midnight. The lights will be on again soon. Then we must get her.”
He was not mistaken. Like the sudden dawn of a tropical day, the lights flashed on. The Sky Ride towers turned to tall stems of light. Masses of red, orange and green shone on every side. From the loud-speaker came the notes of a bugle, the high clear notes of “Taps.” For the moment, so great was the feeling that came welling up from the very center of her being, Florence forgot the spy. Then, with lips that quivered, she whispered to Willie:
“Where is she?”
“There! There! Just ahead! I’ll get her.” Willie lunged forward.
But the crowd still surged about them. He moved slowly. And the dark lady, apparently unconscious of the fate that lurked so near, also moved on with the throng.
“Pass the word back,” Willie whispered. “Tell them to get a good grip on the fellow’s shoulders just ahead and then shove. Flying wedge. See?”
Florence passed the word back. Next instant, urged on by a great push from behind, she sent her solid one hundred and sixty pounds against Willie’s back.
It worked. They moved forward. A foot, two feet, three, four, five, ten.
“I’ll get her!” Willie hissed. “You’ll see!”
She might have heard. Perhaps she did. She turned half about. No matter now, for, just as Willie’s outstretched hand all but touched her, a second flying wedge composed of college boys struck their line at the very center. The result was rout and confusion. Like beads when the string is broken, our friends were scattered far and wide.
And where was the lady spy?
For a space of time, no one knew. Then Willie spotted her, farther away and moving rapidly.
After that things happened so fast that even to Florence’s keen mind they remain a blur. Willie sprang forward. A cleared space just before him was closed as if by magic. Four policemen and a score of revelers closed it. There came the sound of thwacking clubs. Willie tripped and fell. He was up on the instant, but minus his hat. No matter. Someone jammed a hat on his head. Whose hat? He did not know or care. But for the instant after that he cared a lot. It was a policeman’s hat. He wore a dark blue suit. In the crush he was mistaken for an officer.
He had just sighted the dark lady once more when three strong men seized him, lifted him on high, lunged forward, then tipped him neatly over the rail. As he shot down, down, down to the icy waters of the lagoon, the crowd let out a roar of approval.
“Crowds,” he grumbled as he swam for the shore, “psychological mobs never have any sense of humor.”
When he had clambered to the embankment, he turned to see his four friends waving at him from the bridge.
“Goodbye folks!” he shouted, “I’m going home for my dress suit.”
Then, realizing they could not hear, he grasped his damp coat tail, gave it a wringing twist, threw up his hands, pointed to the spot where city lights gleamed, and marched away. “Forty above!” he was grumbling again. “No night for a plunge.”
Then as his mood changed, he began to sing, “Goodbye Fair! Goodbye Paree! Goodbye boys! Goodbye girls! Goodbye everybody! I’m going home to my Mom-ee!”
As for the lady spy, she had lost herself for good and all. In a crowd of three hundred thousand you might hope to meet anyone once, but never twice.
Rosemary, Florence, Jeanne and Danby did not leave the Fair grounds at once. Indeed they could not because of the crush. They did turn their faces toward the exit.
As they pressed their way out of the dense throngs to a spot where there was at least space for breathing, their eyes were greeted by strange sights.
Off to the right a group of thoughtless revelers were tearing up a hedge. Some were carrying away the shrubs as souvenirs, others were using them as mock-weapons for beating one another over the back.
From a village where imitation towers reared themselves to the sky came cries of laughter and screams of distress. Presently a throng broke through the flimsy walls and came pouring out. They had gone too far in their vandalism. The firemen had thrown a cooling stream of water on their heated brows.
“They’ll have time enough to cool off now,” Danby Force laughed.
“But how sad to think that those who so often have come to this place to find beauty and happiness should, on this last night, remain to destroy!” There was a look of distress on the little French girl’s face.
“Come!” said Danby Force, “There are some things we must try to forget. This is one of them. Let us always think of the great Fair as it was in the height of its glory.”
As they moved on toward the Aisle of Flags, they came to a spot that, like an eddy in a stream, even on this night of turmoil was at rest.
“Goodbye.” A boy was clasping a girl’s hand. “Goodbye Mary. See you at the next Fair.”
Jeanne knew these two a little. They had worked side by side selling orangeade and ice cream cones. Now it was “Goodbye until the next Fair.”
“And when that comes,” she murmured, “their hair will be gray. Goodbye until the next Fair.”
As they passed an apparently deserted hot-dog stand, Jeanne caught sight of a figure crumpled up in a dark corner. A young girl, perhaps not yet eighteen, she sat with head on arms, silently sobbing.
Jeanne was gypsy enough to read that girl’s fortune. All through the bright summer days and on into the glorious autumn, the great Fair had offered her means of making a living. Perhaps she was helping to support her parents. Who could tell? Now it was all over—the last hot-dog sold. “Goodbye Fair,” Jeanne whispered, swallowing hard.
Stepping silently back, she slipped a bit of green paper into the girl’s hand, then disappeared too quickly to be seen.
“Life must be beautiful,” she said to Danby Force, “but how can it be, for all?”
“It must be increasingly beautiful for all.” The young man’s face set in hard lines of determination.
Jeanne thought of the work he had done for his own little city, thought too of those industrial spies who threatened to destroy it all. “I must help,” she told herself almost fiercely. “I must do all I can. Life,” she whispered reverently, “Life must be beautiful.”
As for Florence, her mind all this while was so full of the morrow that she had little thought for the passing hour. “Tomorrow,” she was saying to herself, “I shall be speeding through the air with Danby Force on my way to a new field and fresh adventure. I am to help the children, yes, and the grownups, of a small city—to enjoy life. At the same time I am to search for a spy.” She wondered in a vague sort of way what that search would be like and how successful she would be as a lady detective. She was wondering still when Danby Force said:
“Time for a hot drink before the clock strikes one.”
“Yes. Oh yes!” Jeanne’s voice rose in sudden eagerness. “I know the very place. It is run by some English gypsies. At this time of night only gypsies will be found there. But, ah my friend, such good tea as they brew! You never could know until you have sipped it.”
“Ah, a gypsy’s den at one in the morning! Show us the way.” And Danby hailed a taxi.
Ten minutes later they were entering a long, low basement room such as only Jeanne had seen before. It was finished as the inside of the ancient gypsy vans were finished, in a score of bright colors, red, yellow, orange, blue, silver and gold. There were few lights. Some were like ancient lanterns, and some were mere glimmering tapers. Trophies of the hunt hung against the walls—the head of a deer, the grinning skeleton of a wild boar’s head.
There were no chairs. Instead all sat, true gypsy fashion, on rugs. Strange rugs they were too, woven of some heavy material and all brightly colored.
In one corner a group of dark foreign looking people in bright costumes sat smoking long-stemmed pipes and sipping tea. A cloud of smoke, hanging close to the ceiling, created the illusion of low-hanging clouds and the out-of-doors.
“Perfect!” Danby murmured.
At sound of his voice, a solidly built woman, wrapped in a bright shawl, turned to look up at him. In her eyes was a dreamy look. Before her on the floor were cards. On the cards were pictures—a snake, a house, a fountain, a lion, a mouse, a burning fire.