by Roy J. Snell
Chapter XXV LOST IN THE AIR OF NIGHT
Petite Jeanne surely was in a tight place. Hugo and the dark lady--forit was she who had been with Hugo in the house--with what they haddescribed as all the material needed to exploit the secret process ofthe Happy Vale textile mill, were awaiting her. To carry them across theborder would be a simple matter. She was close to a "radio-fenced"air-lane. To follow this, even in the night, was a simple matter.
But the little French girl did not propose to follow it. To do thiswould almost certainly lose for Danby Force his only chance to save hishappy little city from ruin.
No, Petite Jeanne could not do that. But what could she do? Should shestart her motor and make a try at escape? To do this she realized wouldbe perilous. The spies might be armed. She could not get away on theinstant. They might wreck her plane, or even worse.
"And they'd still have their black bag," she told herself.
She decided on flight, on foot, alone. Where to? She did not know.
Opening the door of her cabin, without a sound she slipped away into thenight.
She had barely rounded the corner of a low shed when she heard a doorswing open, and Hugo called:
"Here! Where are you? Is there gas enough?"
"Yes," Jeanne whispered beneath her breath. "But not for such an evilpurpose!
"They'll be after me with a flashlight," she told herself, thrown intosudden panic.
The large red barn of the farm loomed before her. Into its invitingdarkness she crept.
At once a pleasing fragrance reached her nostrils--Nature's own perfume,the smell of new cut clover hay. Jeanne knew that glorious perfume. Morethan once as a gypsy she had slept within the shadow of a haystack.
Next instant, with breath coming short and quick, she was climbing anarrow ladder leading to the loft. At its top she tumbled into thewelcoming billows of sweet smelling hay.
Creeping far back, she burrowed like a rat and was soon quite lost fromsight.
"Never find me here," she whispered.
She listened. The silence was complete. Then she caught a low, rustlingsound.
"Mice in this hay!" She shuddered. She hated mice; yet nothing couldinduce her to give up this place of hiding.
From far below she heard Hugo call again:
"Here! Where are you?"
A moment later, through the broad cracks of the barn wall she caught agleam of light, then heard their sharp exclamations upon discoveringthat she was gone.
"What will they do?" she asked herself. "Will they finally become angryand demolish my plane? My so beautiful dragon fly!" She was ready toweep.
Would they attempt to fly the plane themselves and wreck it? She couldbut wait and see.
"Never find me here," she repeated to herself as she sank deep into thefresh cut clover.
In the meantime Rosemary Sample and Willie VanGeldt were speeding to therescue.
"Strange business this for a steady going stewardess of the air,"Rosemary was saying to herself. "I suppose there are a million girls whobelieve that being an airplane stewardess is exciting. Nothing, Isuppose, is less exciting. But this--this is different, flying throughthe night with an amateur pilot in a plane that--"
"Willie!" she exclaimed, "We're on the dot-dash again. Swing over. We'vegot to keep on the dotted line."
Time passed. An hour sped into eternity, and yet another hour. It wasapproaching midnight. Rosemary switched on the dot-dot-dot of thedirective radio to tune in on her home station and ask for a weatherreport.
The report filled her with fresh concern. "Willie," she said in a quietvoice that, after all, was tense with emotion, "we're headed straightfor a thunderstorm. Be in the midst of it in less than an hour if wekeep on this air-lane."
"And if we don't keep on it," Willie groaned, "we're lost, lost in theair at night. I'm for zooming straight ahead. Storm may swing some otherway."
It did not swing some other way. Three quarters of an hour later theywere in the midst of it. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud. The skywas black. Only the steady dot-dot-dot of the directive radio gave themhope.
And then, right in the midst of it, when the wind was tearing at theirwings, when their struts were singing and the flash-flash of lightningwas all but continuous, disaster descended upon them. Their radio wentdead.
"I might have known!" Rosemary groaned within herself. "Perfection, onlyperfection of equipment and eternal vigilance such as a great transportcompany exercises can save one in the air.
"But I'll not say a word!" She set her teeth hard. "Have to carry on."Snapping on a small light attached to a cord, she set about the task ofinspecting the radio connections, a trying task in such a moment of skyturmoil.
In the meantime the ones who had been left marooned in that abandonedfarmhouse by Jeanne's sudden flight were discussing their plight.
For a full half hour they had hunted the missing little French girl.Giving this up at last, they returned to the house.
"What is to be done?" the woman asked.
"There is little to be lost by waiting," suggested Hugo. He hateddarkness and night. "She can't have gone far. It is pitch dark. A stormis coming up out of the west. She has no light. If she had, we shouldhave seen it. She will be frightened and return."
"But why did she leave?" the woman asked. "Did you give her cause forfear?"
Hugo shrugged. "Who knows what a gypsy will do? I should not havetrusted her.
"She'll hardly do us harm before dawn," he added. "I have flown a planea few thousand miles. In daytime I would attempt a solo flight, but atnight, and a storm in sight? No, it would not do."
After that, having brewed themselves some strong coffee and gulped itdown, they settled themselves as comfortably as might be to await thecoming dawn.
And Jeanne? Strange as it may seem, hidden away there in the hay, shehad fallen fast asleep. Had you been there to waken her and ask her howshe could sleep in such a place, doubtless her answer would have been:
"What would you have? I could not be harmed more quickly asleep thanwhen awake. Besides, at heart I am a gypsy. Gypsies sleep where and whenthey may."
In the meantime Rosemary Sample and her rich young pilot were battlingthe storm. Having long since lost the beaten airway, they were flyingblind.
The storm was all about them. Now the lightning appeared to leap acrosstheir plane wings. Now, caught by a rushing gush of wind and rain, theywere all but hurled through space; and now, met by a counter-current,like a ship in a heavy sea they appeared to stand quite still.
All this time, quite unconscious of the tumult, Rosemary was workingover the radio. She tested a wire here, a tube there. She pried, twistedand tapped, but all to no avail.
And then, with a suddenness that was startling, they glided from out thestorm into a gloriously moonlit world. The earth lay silent beneaththem. The whole of it, groves of trees, broad farms, sleeping villages,was bathed in golden glory.
"If only we knew where we were!" Willie sighed.
"But boy! Oh boy! What do you think of my motor now? I didn't think itwould go through that."
"You wouldn't," Rosemary replied drily.
Then of a sudden she fairly leaped to her feet. "It's working!" shecried. "The radio is working! I'm getting something.
"Willie," she said a moment later, "turn sharply to the right and keepup that course."
After that for some time only the zoom of the motor was heard. Then--
"There, Willie! I have it. Dot-dash, dot-dash! Keep straight on. We'llbe on the air-lane in just no time at all."
And they were.
Dawn found them wide-eyed and resolute, circling the vicinity of thatspot where they believed Jeanne's message had originated.
"Ought to find it," Willie grumbled. "Getting light enough. Just saw afarmer going out to milk his cows. He--"
"Listen!" Rosemary stopped him. "Hear that! There's another airplanenear here. Yes, yes! There it is over there to t
he right!"
"It's strange." Willie's brow wrinkled. "They seem to be circling too.Wonder if--"
"They might be looking for Jeanne's silver-winged plane too."
"Friend or foe?" Willie's eyes were fixed for a second on that otherplane as if he would read the answer there.
They began making wider circles. The strange plane was lost to viewwhen, with a suddenness that was startling, the girl gripped Willie'sarm to exclaim:
"There! Right down there it is!"
Jeanne had wakened from her sleep in that strange, fragrant bed twohours before. For a long time she had lain there wondering how thisaffair was to end. She had all but dozed off again when she was wakenedby the familiar and, to her at this time, startling sound of an airplanemotor.
"My motor!" There was no mistaking that. She knew the sound too well. Atonce she went into a panic.
"My airplane!" she all but wailed. "My so beautiful big dragon fly!Those terrible people will try to fly it away, and they will wreck it!"
At once she was torn between two desires--the wish to preserve herchoicest treasure and her desire to serve Danby Force and his wonderfullittle city.
If she went to the spies now and offered to fly them across the border,they would permit her to do so, she was sure of that. But would she doit?
"No, oh no!" she sobbed low. "I must not!" She stopped her ears that shemight not hear her motor and be tempted too much.
That was how it happened that when Willie and Rosemary came zooming downfrom the sky to land upon that narrow pasture, she did not hear them atall, and had no notion that they had arrived.
Hugo had Jeanne's motor well warmed up and was preparing to fly awaywhen Willie's airplane came to a standstill squarely in their path.
As Rosemary leaped from the plane, the woman came to meet her. Sherecognized her on the instant.
"That," she said with no preliminary maneuvers, "is the little Frenchgypsy's plane. Where is she?"
"If we knew, we would be glad to tell you," the woman said coldly.
"You know," Rosemary insisted, "there is no need of covering things up.We know who you are and why you are in America. You need not attempt anyviolence. My companion is fully prepared to meet you."
She glanced at Willie who had one hand in his pocket. She hoped he wouldkeep it there. One fears what one does not see. And she believed thesepeople were cowards. There might be a pistol in Willie's pocket--justmight.
Just how the matter would have ended had not a second plane circled fora landing at that moment, no one can say.
Rosemary was astonished and immensely relieved to see Danby Force andtwo uniformed officers alight from the plane. She was doubly astonishedthirty seconds later to see Petite Jeanne, well festooned with clover,spring out from the broad barn door and all but throw herself into thearms of Danby Force as she cried:
"It is saved! My so beautiful big dragon fly is saved! My heart and myhappiness, they are saved!"
This spontaneous burst of joy brought a smile even to the grim-faceddark lady.
Jeanne's heart and happiness were indeed saved. So was the heart andhappiness of many another. When, confronted with the facts and chargedwith spying out the secrets of the Happy Vale mill, the strange womanadmitted it freely enough.
"But remember this," she added, "I am no thief. I had a camera. It wasmine. I took pictures. They also were mine. I made drawings with my ownhands. Surely that which one creates is his own. I saw things. Onecannot be arrested for seeing. And more than this," she added with atouch of sadness, "I did all this, not for myself, but for thousands inmy own land who should be as prosperous as your people in Happy Vale."
"I believe this," said Danby Force, "yet that does not justify youraction. To rob one community that another may be prosperous gets usnowhere.
"I am willing, however--" he spoke slowly. "I am willing to make mattersas simple as possible. If you are willing to surrender the pictures andpapers you have in your possession, if you will submit to a search andwill leave our land empty-handed, we of Happy Vale will forgive andforget."
This the dark lady could not refuse. Her papers were surrendered andwere taken over by Danby Force.
"As for you!" Danby Force turned to Hugo. On his face was a look inwhich was strangely mingled sorrow, pity and scorn. "You are an Americancitizen. This woman has been doing what she could for her people--doingit in a wrong way, but doing it all the same. You--" he paused. "Youhave sold out your own countrymen to her for gold. You were given thefriendship, love, admiration and loyalty of our people. You sold it fora price. You attempted to steal the labor of another's brain. For thisthere is no legal penalty. But to know that you have been a traitor, toknow that thousands who have admired you will think of you as a traitor,to live all your life remembering that you have been a traitor, that ispunishment enough. You may go."
With bowed head, the once magnificent Hugo disappeared from their sight.And at that Petite Jeanne's heart was heavy with sorrow. Why? Who couldtell?
"And now," said Willie VanGeldt to the little stewardess when they werealone once more, "what do you think of my motor?"
"I think," said Rosemary soberly, "that if I hadn't spent a month's payhaving it put in order, we would not be here at all. It would never havecarried us through the storm had it not been for that. So--o! Chalk upone big mark for the Flying Corntassel from Kansas."
"What? You?" Willie stared.
"Yes," she smiled. "I did that. But forget it. Only take a solemn vowwith yourself and me that you will never, never go into the air againunless a mechanic's seal of 'Perfect' is stamped upon your plane! Thelittle French girl was right--life _is_ God's most beautiful gift."
"I will," said the boy soberly, "if anyone really cares."
"God cares." Rosemary spoke soberly, too. "Your mother cares, and Icare. That should be enough."
"Yes," said Willie huskily, "it is enough."
Next morning there was a gypsy party in Danby Force's garden. Over abrightly glowing fire luscious steaks were broiling. The aroma of coffeeand all manner of good things to eat filled the air. Jeanne was thereand Florence, Willie, Rosemary, Madame Bihari, Danby Force and hismother--a very merry party indeed. By the help of all, a cloud had beendriven away from the skies above Happy Vale. Why should they not bemerry?
"Tomorrow," Florence said to Danby Force at the end of the gloriousevening, "I shall fly away with my little gypsy friend, Petite Jeanne. Ishall not return. But wherever I am, whatever I do, I shall not forgetHappy Vale."
"Nor shall Happy Vale ever forget you," Danby replied solemnly.
And what happened next to all these people who have become your friends?Well, if you watch for a book called _The Crystal Ball_ and read it youwill hear more about them.
Transcriber's Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text--this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, included italics inside _underscores_ (the HTML version replicates the format of the original.)
