by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER IV WITH THE AID OF PROVIDENCE
To the little French girl, Petite Jeanne, each day dawned as a brightnew adventure. Mysteries might come and go, as indeed they often had,but adventure! Ah yes, adventure was always with her.
Nor had her new treasure, the airplane with its gauze-like wings,lessened her opportunity for adventure. Indeed it had increased ittenfold. To Rosemary Sample one might say, "Well, you're off to anotherairplane journey," and she undoubtedly would answer with a sigh, "Yes,one more trip." Not so Petite Jeanne. She was not reckless, this slenderchild of the air. Her motor was inspected often, each guy and struttested, her radio tuned to the last degree of perfection. For all that,each day as she took to the air it was with such a leaping of the heartas comes only with fresh adventure.
And so it was that, as she climbed into the cockpit, with Madame Bihari,Danby Force, and the tiny gypsy girl at her back, she touched thecontrols of her perfect little plane for all the world as if neverbefore had her fingers known that touch. And as, after skimming alongthe air above the foothills, she began climbing toward one lone snowypeak among the Rockies, her heart was filled to overflowing with a freshzest for living.
"Just to live," she whispered, "to live, to love, to dream, to hope andsometimes see our hopes fulfilled! To see the dew on the grass in theearly morning, to hear the robins chirping in the early evening, towatch children play, to feel the wind playing in your hair, to feel thewarm sunshine kiss your cheeks, to watch the red and gold of eveningsky. Ah yes, and to watch that snowy peak just before me, watch it growand grow and grow--that is _life_--_beautiful, wonderful, gloriouslife!_"
The airplane, which might have seemed to one far away a giant silverinsect, went gliding about the white capped mountain to drop at lastwith scarcely a bump upon that landing field that had at other timesbeen a pasture above the clouds.
How convenient it would be if at times one's spirit might, for a spaceof a half hour or more, leave the body that, closing about it, holds itin one place, and go with the speed of light to distant scenes. Thespirit of Rosemary Sample, speeding away toward Chicago, might for aquarter hour or more have been spared from the great trans-continentalairplane. No one surely would have begrudged so faithful a worker such ashort period of recreation. And surely Rosemary would have been thrilledby the opportunity of following our little company on the mountain crestas they left Jeanne's plane and followed the trail winding down to thehunting lodge.
Had the spirit of Rosemary truly been with them, she must surely havebeen asking herself, "Why is Danby Force here? What does he expect tofind at the lodge? Did he take the dark lady's traveling bag? Is ithidden there? Will he find it? And if he does, what will he take fromit? 'Valuable papers' were the dark lady's words. Were there suchpapers? There is some relation between this fine-appearing young man andthat lady. What can it be?" So the spirit of Rosemary Sample might havespoken to itself had it followed down the mountainside. But the spiritof Rosemary Sample was not there. Rosemary Sample, body, soul andspirit, was in the trans-continental plane speeding on toward Chicago.And beside her, now talking loudly and boastfully of his dangerousexploits as an amateur aviator, and now speaking in kindly and gentletones of his mother, was young Willie VanGeldt.
"I should not care for him at all," Rosemary told herself. Yet there wassomething about him, his light and good-natured views of life, his smileperhaps, something about him that claimed her interest.
"As if the stars had willed that for a time our lives should runtogether, like trains on parallel tracks," she whispered to herself.Little did she guess the part that this youth with his wealth and hisreckless ways would play in her life, nor that which she would play inhis.
In the meantime Jeanne, Danby Force and their gypsy companions werewending their way down the trail that led to the hunting lodge.
"I shan't detain you long," Danby Force was saying to Jeanne. "It's justa little thing I want to look into up here."
Jeanne, whose curiosity had not as yet been aroused, scarcely heard him.She was awed and charmed by the grandeur and beauty of the mountains. Tolook up two thousand feet to the snow-clad rocks that were the mountainpeaks, then to look down quite as far to the tree-grown canyons farbelow--ah that was grand!
When at last they came in sight of the rustic lodge, flanked as it wasby massive rocks and half covered by overhanging boughs of evergreens,she stopped in her tracks to stand there lost in admiration.
"Ah!" she murmured, "What a grand solitude is here! Who would not wishto return many, many times!"
She was soon enough to learn that it was not solitude the interestingyoung man, Danby Force, sought. For, contrary to Rosemary Sample'ssuspicion, he had not hidden the dark lady's traveling bag. He hadreturned to seek it. How did he hope to succeed when, on that otheroccasion, all others had failed? Well may one ask. Yet Danby Force didnot lack for hope. He believed in a kind Providence that sometimesguides an honest soul in its search for hidden things. With the aid ofthis Providence he might succeed where others had failed.
