The two girls waited in breathless suspense. ([Page 113])

LINDA CARLTON’S
HOLLYWOOD FLIGHT

By EDITH LAVELL

Author of “The Girl Scout Series,” “Linda Carlton’s Ocean Flight,” “Linda Carlton, Air Pilot,” “Linda Carlton’s Island Adventure,” Etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
New York Chicago

Linda Carlton Series

Thrilling Adventure Stories of a Group of Girl Aviation Enthusiasts
By EDITH LAVELL

LINDA CARLTON, AIR PILOT LINDA CARLTON’S OCEAN FLIGHT LINDA CARLTON’S ISLAND ADVENTURE LINDA CARLTON’S HOLLYWOOD FLIGHT

Copyright, 1933
By A. L. BURT COMPANY

To
My Husband,
Victor Lamasure Lavell.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I. A Flash On the Screen] 7 [II. A Dangerous Landing] 21 [III. The Cross-Country Flight] 36 [IV. Hollywood] 47 [V. The Vanishing “Double”] 63 [VI. The Forged Signature] 76 [VII. Stolen!] 87 [VIII. In Hot Pursuit] 102 [IX. The Ladybug!] 117 [X. A Close Call] 129 [XI. Flirting With Death] 142 [XII. The Enemy Plane] 155 [XIII. Hot On the Trail] 168 [XIV. Over the Pacific] 185 [XV. The Island of Oahu] 200 [XVI. Missing!] 214 [XVII. Capture] 226 [XVIII. Fanny’s Story] 237 [XIX. Conclusion] 250

LINDA CARLTON’S
HOLLYWOOD FLIGHT

CHAPTER I
A FLASH ON THE SCREEN

A bright red sports-roadster, loaded to overflowing with young people of both sexes, turned in at the gate of the Carltons’ home in Spring City and whizzed up the driveway to the porch steps. As it stopped at the entrance, Dorothy Crowley, who was Linda Carlton’s best friend, disentangled herself from the group and jumped out.

“Hello, Miss Carlton!” she called to the middle-aged woman sitting on the porch. “Any news of the world’s most famous aviatrix?”

“You mean Linda?” returned Miss Carlton, smiling.

Dot nodded.

“Of course. Have you heard from her?”

“No, I haven’t, Dorothy. But then, I didn’t expect to. You know, of course, that Linda has set her heart on taking some sort of flying position, and she had several prospects to interview.”

“But she’s been gone a week!” protested Dot. “This is the twenty-second of September.”

“I know, but she expected to be gone a week. She ought to be home some time today. If she doesn’t come, I think she will let me know.”

“Well, we miss her just fearfully,” concluded Dot. “And we want to hear the very minute she gets back. You know Ralph leaves for college tomorrow, and he’s all hot and bothered about going off without even a good-bye from Linda.”

Miss Carlton smiled at the mention of Ralph Clavering’s devotion to her niece. The young man, whose father happened to be the wealthiest citizen of Spring City, made no attempt to keep his admiration for Linda a secret.

“I’ll have her call you the minute she arrives. At least—if she doesn’t come home in an ambulance.”

Dot laughed at the absurdity of such a suggestion and turned to go. In her haste she almost bumped into a messenger-boy, who at that very moment was coming up the porch steps with a telegram.

Miss Carlton rose from her seat and stepped forward excitedly.

“Oh, I’m afraid something dreadful has happened!” she exclaimed, ominously.

Dot remained motionless, and even the young people in the car grew silent. An awful tenseness seemed to hang over the peaceful September day, as Miss Carlton received the message into her trembling hands.

“Why, it’s for Linda—not from her!” she cried in sudden relief. “So she must be all right.”

Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when the drone of a motor attracted everybody’s attention to the skies. A plane—yes, with the rotors that proclaimed it an autogiro—was approaching from the west, until it seemed to hover over the very house itself.

“There she is!” screamed Dot, joyously, and in another moment the six young people in the roadster had all jumped out and were racing towards the field beyond the house, where Linda always landed her plane.

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Miss Carlton, grateful that once again the girl who had been through so many catastrophes in her zeal for flying would be safe on the ground.

Linking her arm with Dot’s, she accompanied the young people to the field beyond the house.

With the ease of a cat settling down to take her nap, the Ladybug, Linda’s famous autogiro, descended to the earth, and the slender, pretty girl in a flier’s suit and helmet, climbed out of the cockpit.

“Darling!” cried Dot, dashing forward for the first embrace.

Linda tried to hug everybody at once, with an especially tender caress for her Aunt Emily, who had mothered her ever since she was a baby.

“Were you kidnapped?” inquired Ralph Clavering, the tall, good-looking young man who considered Linda his special property.

“Or in a burning house?” suggested Kit Hulbert, Ralph’s married sister.

Linda shook her head laughingly.

“Just taking a good week’s rest, I’ll bet!” surmised long-legged Jim Valier, whose idea of bliss was to sleep. “Don’t blame you a bit, Linda. A fellow can’t get a decent nap with this snappy bunch around, let alone a full night’s rest!”

“You’re surely all right, dear?” inquired Miss Emily Carlton, anxiously. “No bones broken?”

Again Linda smiled.

“I’m fine, and I had a most successful trip. I’ll tell you all about it later—if anything materializes,” she added, mysteriously.

“We want to go to the movies,” explained Kit, as they all turned back towards the house. “Can you make it, Linda?”

“Yes, if you will give me fifteen minutes for a shower, and five for a bite to eat,” she replied. “And if Aunt Emily will come along too,” she added affectionately.

She made even better time than she had promised, and inside of a quarter of an hour, a different Linda Carlton came down the stairs. Clad in a blue silk suit the color of her eyes, her beautiful blond hair showing under her turban, she looked more like a society girl than the world’s most famous aviatrix.

In the meanwhile, Dot had gone into the garage and brought out Linda’s roadster, for Ralph Clavering’s car, elastic as it seemed to be, could not be stretched to accommodate two extra passengers. Since Miss Carlton had graciously accepted their invitation, they wanted her to be comfortable.

“So you won’t ride with me!” complained Ralph, as he watched Linda take her place at the wheel of her own car.

“I’ll sit beside you in the movies,” she promised,

“And you even take Dot away from us!” protested Jim Valier, pretending to be angry.

“You’ll be glad of my space!” returned Dot, as she squeezed into Linda’s car, between her chum and Miss Carlton.

“We’ll miss the wise-cracks,” remarked Ralph. “But I can’t say that you occupy much room, Dot.” He started his engine. “Hurry up, now, or we’ll miss the news reel, and think how ignorant we’ll be!”

The theatre was already darkened when the group entered ten minutes later, so they all walked quietly, in order to make as little disturbance as possible. Even Sara Wheeler, who giggled on every occasion, managed to suppress any outburst with her handkerchief.

But their good behavior lasted only a moment. No sooner were they comfortably seated than the most extraordinary piece of news was flashed on the screen. As if the manager had been waiting for the dramatic moment to make his announcement.

“WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS AVIATRIX SIGNS CONTRACT WITH THE APEX FILM CORPORATION!” thundered the voice of the announcer.

“As if any other girl could be as famous as you, Linda!” whispered Dot resentfully. “I’d like to know who—”

The words died on her lips as the actual picture of the famous aviatrix was shown. Why—it looked like—it must be—Linda herself!

The girl, in a flier’s costume, smiled and turned aside to sign a contract.

“MISS LINDA CARLTON, THE FIRST GIRL TO FLY FROM NEW YORK TO PARIS ALONE, ACCEPTS PART IN ‘BRIDE OF THE AIR,’ A PICTURE NOW BEING FILMED IN HOLLYWOOD,” continued the calm voice of the announcer.

“So that’s where you’ve been!” exclaimed Dot, just a little bit hurt that Linda had kept this a secret from her. They had shared all their joys and secrets ever since their experiences in the Okefenokee Swamp together, and it did not seem possible that Linda would deliberately shut her out of such an important event. Besides, Linda had always refused to go into the movies. Why the sudden change?

“You cagey thing!” muttered Ralph, as amazed at the revelation as Dot, and even more hurt than the latter that he had been excluded from her confidence.

Linda made no attempt to answer; she sat rigid in her seat, staring at the screen with unseeing eyes. The girl whom the announcer had proclaimed to be Linda Carlton was tall and slender, and in her flier’s suit and helmet, had resembled Linda to a remarkable degree. But of course it wasn’t Linda. Why, she hadn’t been near Hollywood!

“It’s not true,” she finally whispered to Dot. “That’s somebody else, posing for me.”

“Now, Linda!” returned Dot, unconvinced. “Don’t try to play innocent!”

“You’ll make a stunning heroine, Linda,” whispered Kit, leaning over from her seat beside Ralph. There was sincere admiration in her tone.

Then the whole party grew excited, and all talked at once, shooting questions at Linda without any regard to the fact that they were supposed to keep quiet. People around them showed perceptible signs of annoyance, until Ralph, sitting back in sullen silence, admonished them all to keep still.

The talk subsided, and the crowd’s attention was diverted during the feature, but Linda did not even see it. Inside she was seething at the very idea of anything so preposterous. Usually a peaceful girl, she felt as if she would like to tear that impostor to pieces.

Yet there was no use trying to tell the young people after the show that it wasn’t true. Hadn’t Linda been away for a number of days, on some mysterious errand connected with flying! Didn’t the girl look like her—why, they were sure it was Linda! And they were thrilled, too. It was great fun to have one of their own group a famous actress, as well as a famous aviatrix. All of them—except Dot and Ralph.

“I want you to stay at our house for supper, Dot,” urged Linda, as the other car drove off after the show. “Can you phone?”

“Yes, of course,” agreed her chum, wondering what kind of explanation Linda was going to make for her secrecy in the affair.

Neither girl mentioned it until they were inside the Carltons’ house. They did not stop on the porch, but followed Linda’s Aunt Emily into the living-room.

“I suppose your telegram was from Hollywood, Linda?” inquired Miss Carlton, as if to lead up to the all-exciting topic.

“No, it wasn’t, Aunt Emily,” replied Linda, decidedly. “It was from Mr. Eckert—you remember, the head of the Air School at St. Louis, where I took my course?... He wanted me to take a position teaching there this year.”

“Why, that sounds very attractive, dear,” replied Miss Carlton. “Safer and more dignified than all this stunt flying you’ll have to do for the pictures.” A look of distress passed over her face.... “Linda, I don’t like your accepting that contract without consulting either me or your father,” she added, gently.

Linda dropped into a chair with a groan.

“Please sit down, Aunt Emily—and Dot. I have a lot to say.”

Not knowing what was coming next, they both complied with her request.

“Haven’t you both always found me pretty truthful?” she asked, seriously.

“Of course we have, dear,” answered the older woman, immediately. “Nobody ever doubts your word. But you never promised me that you wouldn’t go into the films. I never asked you not to, for I thought you wouldn’t consider it.”

“No, Aunt Emily, I wouldn’t. And I haven’t! You and Dot must believe me. That girl you saw today impersonating me is a fake. I never signed a contract, with any picture producer, and I haven’t been near Hollywood!”

Dot jumped to her feet joyfully, and, dashing across the room, wound her arms about her chum.

“I’m so glad, Linda!” she cried.

Miss Carlton breathed a long sigh of relief.

“But think of the impudence of that girl!” she exclaimed. “To dare to do a thing like that—”

“Expecting that she can get away with it!” added Dot.

“Well, she can’t!” announced Linda, her eyes shining with indignation. “I’m going to fly right out there and grab her by the collar—and—and—”

“Why, Linda, I never heard you talk so!” remarked her aunt in amazement. “Not even when you were a child.”

“I never had such occasion to do so before. You know what Shakespeare says about stealing your good name. That’s just what that girl’s doing. Making me cheap. As if I were in aviation for publicity, or for personal gain! Oh, I’m stirred up, all right!”

“I don’t blame you one bit, dear!” agreed Miss Carlton, soothingly.

“But what are you going to do?” demanded Dot, realizing that Linda must have already formulated a plan during that moving-picture show. “Going to wire the Corporation?”

“Indeed I’m not!” she replied, emphatically. “They wouldn’t believe me.”

“‘How could they believe you?’” quoted Dot, from the old song of “The Girl from Utah.”

“Exactly! If all my own friends—Ralph, and Kit and Jim and everybody—yes—even you and Aunt Emily—actually thought I was fooling, how could I convince a strange director by merely sending a telegram? He’d think I was the impostor, of course, and their Linda was the real thing.”

“Yes, that’s logical,” admitted Miss Carlton. “But what can you do, dear?”

“I’m going to fly right out to Hollywood tomorrow, after I give the Ladybug a thorough inspection.”

Miss Carlton sighed, this time not in relief.

“Then you’ll be home only one night!”

“I can’t help that, Aunt Emily. I must go. I just have to. I’ll stop and see Mr. Eckert at St. Louis, on my way.”

Dot’s eyes lighted up with sudden inspiration.

“May I go with you, Linda?” she asked.

“May you!” Linda repeated. “Oh, Dot, would you? I’d just love it!”

“And I’d feel safer,” put in her Aunt Emily.

“It’s decided, then,” announced Dot. “I’m thrilled to death!... Oh, Linda, think of seeing Hollywood. The movies being made—and the stars themselves! We’ll have a marvellous time.”

“Be sure to take plenty of clothes,” cautioned Miss Carlton. “You know how much they dress out there.”

“We’ll outshine Lilyan Tashman herself!” promised Linda, thankful that her aunt was not raising any objection to the trip.

“Going to tell Ralph about it?” inquired Dot, as she rose to telephone to her mother.

“What’s the use?” returned Linda. “He wouldn’t believe me. He’d think I was going back to complete my contract. No; he’s peeved—let him stay peeved. I’d rather spend my evening planning our trip.”

“Flying comes first, as always,” observed Miss Carlton, in a resigned tone, as she, too, left the room, to do her part in making the trip comfortable for the two girls.

CHAPTER II
A DANGEROUS LANDING

Early after lunch the following afternoon—another clear, bright fall day typical of late September—Linda Carlton and her chum Dorothy Crowley climbed into the Ladybug, ready to take off for Los Angeles. Smiling and waving good-bye to Miss Carlton and Mrs. Crowley, who were standing on the side of the field, Linda gave her the gun. The plane taxied only a short distance, then with her nose headed upward, she began to climb almost vertically. It was a pretty, graceful take-off, and even Miss Carlton, frightened as she was of planes, had to admit that the autogiro seemed almost human.

“We ought to make St. Louis before dark,” said Linda, through the speaking-tube. “I know the way so well—I flew it so often when I was going to the Air School.”

“I remember,” replied Dot. “You and Louise.”

Louise Haydock had been Linda’s inseparable chum all through high school. Then, when they had graduated, and Linda’s father had given the latter an Arrow Sport plane, the two girls had spent a year at a ground school in St. Louis. Louise’s marriage to Ted Mackay had finally separated them, for the Mackays went to Kansas City to live. Ever since that time Dot Crowley had shared in most of Linda’s flying adventures.

“I’ll tell you what,” suggested Linda. “Let’s send Lou a wire tonight, and plan to stop in Kansas City tomorrow for lunch. I’m wild to see her.”

“Great!” agreed Dot. “If she and Ted aren’t off on some flying trip.”

The autogiro soared up into the clear, tingling air, colder above than it had been on the ground, and the old exhilaration of flying took possession of Linda and made her heart sing. Poor people down there on the earth, looking like ants crawling about on their humdrum affairs, when she was flying joyously through the heavens! Poor Aunt Emily, who would never know the thrill of this higher, freer, purer world!

Even her anger against this impostor was temporarily forgotten. Nobody could be angry long in the sky. And, no matter what happened later, she and Dot were going to enjoy this trip to the coast. It would be the experience of a lifetime to an ordinary girl.

The motor continued to hum evenly and the Ladybug averaged a hundred miles an hour. Over rivers and valleys and flat country, through Ohio, past Indiana, on to Illinois. The sun was setting as the girls sighted the broad waters of the Mississippi, and they knew that their first goal was in sight.

A huge beacon light was already glowing, guiding the fliers on their way to the airport, and then on to the Air School. But Linda could have found her way without any guide, even in the fast increasing darkness.

Linda decreased her speed and hovered over the field. Some of the attendants recognized the famous Ladybug, and by the time the autogiro descended to earth, quite a crowd had gathered to greet her.

“Hello, Miss Carlton! We knew it was you!”

“Glad to see you back, Miss Carlton!”

Linda and Dot jumped out and Linda spoke to all her friends and asked them to put the Ladybug away for the night, and to tell her where to find Mr. Eckert.

“He’s gone home, but you can get him on the telephone,” answered one of the attendants, writing the number down for her.

“We saw you in the movies, Miss Carlton!” announced another. “You didn’t look half pretty enough, though. But we’re sure goin’ a see that picture when it comes to town!”

Linda frowned. She didn’t want to take the time to deny the false impression, but she certainly did hate this sort of thing.

The girls found a taxi at once, and, leaving their bigger box in the autogiro, they took out an overnight bag and went to a hotel that had been familiar to Linda during her year at St. Louis.

“That’s what I’m going to be up against all the time!” she remarked, with distaste, as she and Dot settled back in the taxi.

“You mean about the movies?” questioned her companion. “I was wondering why you didn’t deny it right off.”

“I haven’t time to go about the world denying things. And it seems so useless. Until I have proof, I mean. They wouldn’t believe me any more than the crowd at home did.”

“I suppose you’re right. Oh, well, don’t let’s worry. We can clear the whole thing up in no time.”

They reached the hotel, made an appointment with Mr. Eckert over the telephone, and changed their costumes for dinner. It was after seven o’clock when they sat down to the table, and they did full justice to the meal.

Mr. Eckert’s first remark when he greeted Linda was practically the same as that of the boys on the field.

“I hear you are going into the movies, Linda,” he said, trying to hide his disapproval. “If I had known that, I shouldn’t have wasted your time offering you this position at the school.”

Linda sighed.

“That’s a false rumor, Mr. Eckert,” she explained.

“But it wasn’t a rumor. It was a fact,” he persisted. “Sam and Jeff told me they saw your picture, signing the contract.”

“I know. I saw it too. But it’s a fake. Some girl is impersonating me. For the sake of the money, I suppose.”

The elderly man leaned forward, staring incredulously.

“Do you really mean that, Linda?” he demanded.

She nodded.

“I’m on my way to the coast now, to clear it all up. Naturally, I’m furious.”

“You won’t take over the contract yourself?” the man asked, with apparent satisfaction. What a joy this girl was, he thought! She was made for far greater things than moving-picture acting. Hers was a name that ought to go down in history, among the daring pioneers of aviation.

“Of course not,” she assured him. “You know, Mr. Eckert, that that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me—publicity and acting—and all that stuff. I’m happiest when I’m up in the skies with nobody else but my chum—Miss Crowley.”

“That is what I always thought,” he said. “So I must say I was somewhat disappointed in the news when I heard it.”

Linda smiled. Mr. Eckert had always understood her, and admired her—not as Ralph Clavering admired her, for her beauty and feminine charm,—but for her knowledge and skill as a flier.

“Then you might consider my proposition after all?” he inquired, hopefully.

“Yes, indeed. If you are willing to make it more or less temporary. I mean I could sign up for the duration of one course—say until next spring. The other offers I have had have all been so far away, that I’d rather accept yours, so that I could fly home every week-end. My aunt is practically alone, you see, for my father’s business is in New York.”

“That’s splendid, Linda!” he cried, and he proceeded to go into detail about the work that he wanted her to teach. Dot sat back in her chair, gazing out of the window, and vainly trying to suppress a yawn.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Eckert,” remarked Linda, when the former had finished his explanation, “that I may not be back in time to start when the school opens. Would you be willing to wait for me—till, say, the first of October? I ought to be here by then, though you never can tell.”

At these words Dot sat up and laughed.

“You surely can’t!” she agreed, heartily. “We have a habit of not showing up when we’re expected, Mr. Eckert—when Linda goes on her wild adventures.”

“Oh, but this is different,” put in Linda, sincerely believing that there were no wild adventures in store for her this time. “Hollywood isn’t like the Okefenokee Swamp. It’s the most civilized spot in the world.”

“But we haven’t promised to stay in Hollywood,” Dot reminded her.

“True,” admitted Linda.

Mr. Eckert rose.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Linda,” he said. “I’ll teach the class myself until the first of October. Then, if you can’t come, I’ll get another instructor. Is that all right with you?”

“Fine,” agreed the girl, delighted to have it all settled, and at a salary that was by no means small. For Linda Carlton was a drawing-card, and Mr. Eckert knew that her name would bring new students to the school, and add prestige to the fine faculty which they already had.

The last several days had been glorious weather—too good to last, Linda knew—for about the middle of September the fall rains usually set in. So she was not surprised to waken the following morning to find a dismal downpour, and what was worse, a bad wind. It was one of the equinoctial storms, so common at that time of the year.

Dot looked dismayed, but she had no idea that Linda would postpone the flight. For you couldn’t tell how long such a rain might last, and time was important.

She watched Linda get into her flying-suit, as if the mere matter of weather were nothing—all just part of the day’s work.

“Hurry up, Dot. If we are to make Kansas City by lunch time.”

“O.K.,” agreed the smaller girl, cheerfully.

They were back at the field by half-past seven, ready to start.

But the field was horribly muddy. Other planes had encountered severe difficulty in taking off, and the attendants looked doubtful.

“Looks as if you’re not going after all,” remarked Sam, stepping close to the Ladybug, as Linda started the rotor blades in motion. “It’s a beastly day.”

Linda smiled.

“My rotor blades are going to help me to rise,” she returned, gaily. “Just watch ’em!”

Two minutes later the autogiro left the rain-covered field, and soared into the murky skies. Almost immediately the ground and the landmarks became invisible to the girls in the cockpits, and the plane seemed to be wrapped in a great gray blanket of clouds and rain. The wind was blowing furiously, as if it were determined to get the better of the gallant Ladybug, but the rotor blades of the autogiro succeeded in keeping her on an even keel. But she rocked furiously, until Dot felt sure that she was going to be seasick.

Linda’s gas was growing a little low—plenty, she felt sure, to get to Kansas City—but not any to waste, so she was keeping low. But she could not see anything, and she was thinking that at times like these flying could even be monotonous, when, all of a sudden, as if in a hideous dream, she saw a nineteen-story building rushing madly at her. Not that she realized that it was exactly nineteen stories—indeed it looked taller than that at the moment. It was huge, too big to avoid, as it loomed there in her path, like some tremendous, horrible monster, shutting out everything else in her sight, waiting to annihilate her.

In the seat ahead Dot suddenly let out a sharp cry of terror, and Linda, realizing in a flash that she could not hope to clear the building now, pushed the joy-stick forward and nosed the plane into a dive. What was she heading for? A street, where she would dash down on top of pedestrians and motor-cars, killing others as well as herself and Dot?... But no, the speed was reducing; she was right over another office building—a shorter one, only about six stories in height—with—oh, joy of joys—a flat roof! As if she had planned it, she selected her spot, banked the autogiro to the left, cleared the wire fence around the edge, and landed right in the center of the roof! Making it look all the world as if she had planned a demonstration.

With a grin of incredulity she turned exultantly to Dot.

“Linda, you’re priceless!” shouted her chum. “Anybody’d think it was a stunt for the movies.”

Linda frowned, and Dot was sorry the instant the words were out of her mouth. She had forgotten all about the reason for the flight, in her excitement at this narrow escape.

At this moment half a dozen people appeared on the fire-escape, and a freckle-faced youth of about eighteen climbed immediately to the roof.

“Pretty neat!” he exclaimed. “Is it a stunt?”

“It was a life-saver,” explained Dot. “We nearly crashed on top of that big office building over there, and this one just loomed up in time.”

“Know what building this is?” asked the young man.

Linda shook her head.

“It’s a newspaper building! Biggest newspaper in Kansas City!”

“I never heard of a building made of newspapers,” returned Dot. “Funny we didn’t crash through!”

The young man grinned; his specialty was wise-cracks. “I’m a reporter,” he announced. “My slogan’s ‘First on the spot, to get news while it’s hot.’—so please give me your names and addresses.” He took out his notebook, prepared to write.

Linda looked displeased, but Dot was equal to the occasion.

“Sallie Slocum and May Manton, from Toonerville,” she replied, briskly. “Two society buds.”

The reporter solemnly wrote down the names.

“Toonerville—where—what state?” he asked.

“Toonerville, Trolley,” answered Dot, without blinking an eyelash.

This time the young man didn’t know whether to smile or not.

“You’re kidding me! That’s a name in Fontaine Fox’s cartoon.”

“Sure it is,” agreed Dot. “But it’s a place, just the same. Just write and ask Mr. Fox, if you want to know.”

Linda, meanwhile, had been examining her gas supply. It was sufficient to take them to the suburbs, where Ted and Louise lived, and she was anxious to be off.

“Come on, May,” she said to Dot, managing with a great effort to keep her face straight. “We’re off—if the young man will be kind enough to get out of the way.”

The reporter went back down the fire-escape, and Linda took off, but as the girls flew away they could distinguish faces peering at them from every window in sight. After all, they had afforded a pleasant diversion to a dull, work-a-day world, and Linda was thankful that it had all turned out so happily.

“And how clever of you to think of giving fictitious names, Dot,” she said, through the speaking-tube. “Now if it gets into the papers, Aunt Emily will never guess that it was my Ladybug. It might worry her dreadfully if she thought I was dropping out of the skies all the time on top of office buildings. She’s dreamt about my being pinned on a church steeple, dangling in mid-air.”

Fifteen minutes later, without further mishap, they landed at the Mackays’ field, and saw Louise waiting for them with an umbrella.

“Darlings!” she shouted, above the noise of the engine and the rotors, and dashed across the muddy field like the impulsive girl she had always been. “I’m just wild about this!”

Linda and Dot jumped out of the cockpits and hugged her joyfully.

“Now come on in and get warm and dry,” said Louise. “Pity we can’t take the Ladybug inside too. But Ted’ll look after her comfort when he gets home.”

“Does Ted get home for lunch?” asked Linda. “Oh, I hope he does, for I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“No, darling, he doesn’t. But he gets home for supper, and you two are going to stay all night.”

“We can’t, Lou—honestly—”

“There’s no use arguing. You just have to. Didn’t my Ted save your life a couple of times at least, Linda Carlton? Don’t you owe him a debt of gratitude?”

Linda laughed; there was no use arguing with Louise. After all, there was no great hurry—and it was bad weather for flying. One night more or less wouldn’t make much difference, she thought.

So the young people spent a pleasant afternoon and evening together, talking aviation, swapping stories and gossip, and laughing heartily over the newspaper story about their strange landing, which appeared on the front page that night. Little did they think at the time that Dot’s prank was to cause them serious trouble later!

CHAPTER III
THE CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT

“How do you go from here?” inquired Louise the next morning at breakfast, which had been arranged for seven o’clock so that the girls could make an early start. The skies were still dark, and it was raining, but the wind had died down, and with it the worst of the storm.

“From here to Wichita, and then on to Albuquerque by tonight, I hope,” replied Linda. “We’ll be following the regular air-line. I think that is really the safest and best way. By tomorrow night I expect to land at Los Angeles.”

“Do you have to cross Death Valley?” asked Louise.

“Fly over it—not cross it,” corrected Linda. “But that has no terrors for me. And we shall miss the worst of the Rockies, following such a southern course.”

“Take plenty of water and gas, in case you come down in the desert!”

“That reminds me, Ted,” said Linda, turning to the big, red-haired young man at the head of the table. “Did you fill my Ladybug up?”

“Yes, and gave her a hasty inspection, too,” he replied. “She looks O.K. to me.”

“Then I’m not expecting any trouble,” returned Linda, for she had great confidence in Ted Mackay’s judgment and knowledge of airplanes.

While Linda took time to call Miss Carlton on the long distance telephone, Louise insisted upon packing a lunch, and filling the thermos bottles with water and coffee. For she had never forgotten Linda’s first long flight when they had been stranded on a lonely prairie, far from food and civilization, and how grateful they had been then for the elaborate picnic lunch with which their hostess had supplied them.

“You’re a brick, Lou!” Linda cried, as she kissed her good-bye.

“Don’t forget to stop next week, on your way home!” Louise reminded her.

The Ladybug’s engine roared, and she taxied a short distance, soaring soon into the skies. To her joy Linda found that flying conditions had considerably improved since the previous day. The storm was clearing, and up above the clouds, the sun was shining. Linda’s way lay straight before her, and she flew on and on, keeping a sharp watch all the time for other planes, until the clouds beneath her had completely dispersed. Passing over Kansas, she left Wichita behind long before noon time, and pressed on through the northern part of Oklahoma—into Texas, the state in which her father’s ranch had been located, when she took that daring night-flight for the surgeon who saved his life. At last, by consulting her map, she felt certain she had reached New Mexico.

Both girls had been so thrilled in watching the country beneath them—so strangely different from the East—that they had not realized how late it was growing. Hunger finally drove Dot to consult her watch. To her surprise she found that it was after three o’clock.

“Let’s eat!” she said to Linda, through the tube. “I’m starved!”

“Where?” shouted Linda, surveying dubiously the ground beneath them, covered with dry bushes. There wasn’t a sign of civilization or cultivation anywhere about, and she had no desire to land.

“Right here in the plane,” returned Dot. “You haven’t forgotten the lunch Lou packed for us?”

“Good idea! And we’ll get to Albuquerque all the sooner. Something tells me that we’re not far off—if my calculations are correct.”

“Well, we can’t be lost,” replied Dot. “For we’ve been following the beacon lights straight along the way. O. K., then. I’ll unpack. Thank goodness Lou fixed a lunch.”

The sandwiches and coffee were delicious, and all the while Linda kept right on flying. But it was still light when the spires and buildings of Albuquerque loomed up in the distance.

They landed at the airport and went to a hotel for the night, thankful that the day, though uneventful, had passed so pleasantly, and hopeful for clear weather to continue for the rest of their journey.

The sun was shining brightly and the day was already hot when the girls took off from Albuquerque the following morning. For hours they flew over this hot, dry plateau region, where the water supply was scanty, and where they could see, even from their height in the air, the bare earth shining between the scattered clumps of grasses and shrubs.

“We have to miss the Grand Canyon,” Linda told Dot as they came down at a small airport town in Arizona, to rest and get their lunch. “It lies up in the north-western part of the state, you know, and if we follow the most direct course to Los Angeles, we miss it.”

“Maybe we can fly over it on our way back,” suggested her companion. “We’ll have more time to enjoy the scenery when we have settled with this impostor.”

“Yes, that’s just what I think. So long as we get home before the first of October, I’m a free woman.”

They continued their flight without any interruptions or disasters all that afternoon. They left Arizona behind and crossed into the great state of California, over the San Bernardino Mountains, where the climate was lovely. Orange groves blossomed everywhere, the air was sweet and delicious; they felt a great envy of the people who could always live in this beautiful region. At last they reached the city of Los Angeles, and spotted the new white city hall, as it rose in its majestic splendor, gleaming in the brilliancy of its electric lights.

“Good old Ladybug!” exclaimed Dot, as the autogiro came to the ground at the airport, and she stiffly climbed out of the cockpit. “Never lets us down!”

“Always lets us down—when we want her to,” corrected Linda, laughingly.

“You’re going to leave her here at the airport while we go on to Hollywood?” asked Dot.

“Yes, I think so. I’ll have the mechanics give her a thorough inspection in the meanwhile. But I don’t want to go tonight. Let’s have a good dinner and get some sleep and start out fresh tomorrow morning. We’ll have our box taken with us this time, and dress for the occasion. We don’t want to look like hicks from a small town.”

While Linda turned to give her instructions to an attendant, a strange young man strolled up to the girls and stopped, evidently waiting for an opportunity to speak to them. It was growing dark, but the beacon searchlight at the airport was bright enough for them to see him perfectly. He looked at the autogiro, and then peered almost rudely into the faces of the two girls. Linda ignored him, but Dot was furious.

“Pardon me, ladies,” he said finally, “but aren’t you the two girls who landed on the top of that newspaper building in Kansas City?—Miss Slocum and Miss Manton, I believe the names were?”

Dot giggled. She couldn’t deny the fact.

“So you’ve been taking a cross-country flight in this boat,” he continued. “I have a friend who is a reporter—he’s around here somewhere, for he stops here every day at the airport for news—and he’d like that story, if you’d give me a few facts.”

“We don’t want publicity,” Dot said, immediately. “So please don’t let him print anything at all about us.”

“Besides,” added Linda, “there’s nothing new in what we’ve done. Girls fly all over the country every day alone. It really doesn’t mean much more than driving a motor-car now-a-days.”

“You’re right about that,” agreed the attendant. “It was a stunt to fly the Atlantic once, but now it seems rather common-place. The first person to go from here to Australia by plane will sure get a head-line.”

“We don’t expect to try that!” returned Dot, laughingly. “That’s a little too far.”

“By the way,” remarked the stranger who had looked so keenly at the girls, “did you girls know that Linda Carlton is here at Los Angeles—or rather, at Hollywood? You remember her—the first girl to fly from New York to Paris alone?... She has a contract with the Apex Film Corporation.”

Linda and Dot looked at each other in distress. This was a fine situation indeed. What could they say?

“My name is Linda Carlton,” the aviatrix finally announced, quietly.

“Go on! Your name’s Sallie Slocum!” insisted the young man.

“As you please,” shrugged Linda, turning to the attendant. “Nevertheless, I want this autogiro registered here as belonging to Linda Carlton, of Spring City, Ohio.”

“O. K., Miss,” agreed the attendant, making note of the fact.

Summoning a taxi, the girls stepped into it and closed the door without even so much as good-bye to the young man who had forced a conversation with them.

“What gets me,” observed Dot, “is the way reporters seem to bob up anywhere and everywhere—just when they’re not wanted.”

“True, but they have to get news, I suppose. And it was really my fault in the first place, for landing on a newspaper building. I would have to pick that out!”

“Oh, well, who cares?” returned Dot. “It’ll blow over, and be forgotten.... What hotel are we going to?”

“The Ambassador. I’ve heard so much about their ‘Cocoanut Grove’ that I want to see it.”

A few minutes later the taxi stopped at the luxurious hotel, and the girls secured a room. They engaged it for only a couple of days, little thinking that they would have to remain in Los Angeles for a longer period of time.

It was lots of fun to dress in evening gowns and sweep into the dining-room as if they were actresses. Even Linda admitted that she enjoyed taking off her flier’s suit at times, and just being a “regular girl.”

“For tonight we’ll be absolutely care-free,” she said. “As if we hadn’t a thing to worry about!”

“Which we really haven’t,” added Dot.

They ordered an elaborate dinner and ate slowly, watching the people in the dining-room, hoping to catch a glimpse of a famous star or a celebrated flier. But if there were actors and actresses there, neither Linda nor Dot recognized them.

“I wish there were a ‘first-night’ performance that we could attend,” remarked Dot, when, after dinner, they summoned a taxi to go to a moving-picture show.

“Yes, it would be nice. But then, we probably couldn’t get in, anyhow. Unless I pretended to be the Linda Carlton who is in ‘Bride of the Air’.”

Dot laughed.

“That would be a mix-up. The other girl doubling for you—and then your pretending to be the other girl!”

“Sounds kind of like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to me.”

In spite of the fact, however, that nothing unusual happened, the girls spent a pleasant evening, and were glad of the chance to get to bed early.

“For,” remarked Linda, as she undressed in the charming bedroom, “I am tired, even though we didn’t break any records crossing the country.”

“It was fast enough for me,” agreed Dot. “I’d rather rest now and then, than dash off like Frank Hawks. And when you compare it to the way they used to cross the United States, it’s no less than miraculous.”

“I know,” yawned Linda. “What was it that that movie said—twenty-four days in 1850?”

“Yes, that was it, I think. Only I’m too sleepy to remember much now.... Wake me up early tomorrow, Linda. For it’s HOLLYWOOD!”

CHAPTER IV
HOLLYWOOD

“It certainly seems queer to be riding along the ground,” remarked Linda, as she and Dot stepped into a bus for Hollywood the following morning. “But we can see so much more.”

“And it’s only eleven miles,” Dot reminded her. “Oh, aren’t you thrilled, Linda?”

“Of course I am. What girl wouldn’t be?”

“If they offer you the contract now, won’t you change your mind and go into pictures?” inquired Dot.

“No,” replied the famous aviatrix, decidedly. “I love the movies, and of course I’m keen to see the stars face to face, but I still haven’t the slightest desire to act. I guess I’m too shy. I get so fussed.”

“But it’ll be kind of a mean trick to haul that girl out of the picture after the Film Corporation have advertised it, and then not take her place. The producer may lose a lot of money.”

“That’s his fault. They should have been more careful about looking up her credentials.”

“Suppose you can’t convince them that you’re the real Linda Carlton?” suggested Dot.

“I’ll have to stay there till I do. But I have my licenses with me. I only wish I had my Distinguished Flying Cross, but unfortunately Daddy put it away in his safe-deposit box.”

The bus was luxurious and the girls settled down in delighted comfort. All the other passengers looked prosperous and well dressed; from their appearance they might easily be moving-picture stars. But of course they weren’t, the girls decided, for even the humblest star has her own car.

The country through which they were travelling was lovely, and as they approached Hollywood, the girls noticed charming, well-kept bungalows and homes of every description. As if everyone who lived there were wealthy. The fresh green lawns, the tall palm trees shading the streets, the vivid blue sky above formed a striking picture. No wonder most girls were wild to go to Hollywood!

Linda and Dot went on to Culver City, where most of the studios were located, and found the Apex Film Corporation, housed in a large and imposing building. As they ascended the steps Linda became exceedingly nervous, almost to the point of wishing that she hadn’t come.

“Suppose they take us for extras—applying for jobs—and throw us out!” she whispered, fearfully.

“Don’t be silly, Linda! Your name would get you in anywhere!”

“I’m not so sure of that. We fliers aren’t much here, where they have a world of their own and so many celebrities.”

The girls walked through a hall to a beautiful reception room, where a “publicity” girl, who looked like an actress herself, took Linda’s card and passed into an office to the right.

In a moment she returned with the information that the girls might go into the office.

“Mr. Von Goss is out, but his secretary will see you,” she said. “Mr. Leslie Sprague.”

“You do the talking, Dot,” begged Linda, as they left the room.

“Be yourself!” commanded her companion. “You can fly over the Atlantic Ocean alone, and you’re afraid of an insignificant little secretary!”

Linda laughed. What would she ever do without Dot to restore her courage whenever a fit of shyness overtook her? Holding her head high, she marched into the office where the secretary was sitting.

The latter, a young man of medium height, with a blond moustache, stood up as the girls entered. He opened his mouth to speak—but continued to keep it open without saying anything for a moment.

“There’s some mistake,” he finally managed to stammer.

Linda laughed, quite at ease.

“There’s been a big mistake,” she said. “And your director, Mr. Von Goss, I believe his name is, has made it. I am the real Linda Carlton, and he has signed up an impostor for the flying part in his picture!”

A slight sneer spread over the young man’s features.

“I suppose you have proof, Miss—er—?” he asked in a tone that plainly showed that he did not suppose anything of the sort. How nasty he was, not even to call Linda “Miss Carlton” and at least give her the benefit of the doubt!

Dot’s chin shot up in the air.

“You don’t suppose we’d come here, without some proof, do you, Mr. Sprague?” she demanded, haughtily. “Miss Carlton is a very busy person, as you’d know if you read the newspapers.”

The man flushed at Dot’s high-handed manner; he was not used to being rebuked by others. Little as she was, Dot Crowley had a masterful way of driving straight at the mark.

Linda opened her handbag and held out her licenses.

“Just have these verified,” she said, calmly.

The young man stared at them.

“Where did you get hold of these?” he asked, slyly. “Find Miss Carlton’s handbag?”

Linda made no reply, but turned her face aside in haughty disdain, as Sprague rang a bell and summoned a young woman from another office, to whom he made a slight explanation.

“And now,” he continued after the girl had left with the cards, “what do you propose to do about it—if your identity should be established?”

“Simply have proof that you will remove my name from the pictures, and print a statement saying that you had been misled.”

Mr. Sprague smiled sarcastically.

“You want the part yourself, I suppose?”

“I do not,” replied Linda, firmly. “I have neither time nor inclination to go into the moving pictures. Your actress can play the part—under her own name, whatever it is.”

“Mr. Von Goss would never consent to that. The girl isn’t much of an actress. He just engaged her for the value of the publicity. And, if she should prove to be an impostor, I’m sure he wouldn’t want her.”

“Well, that’s not my affair,” concluded Linda, rising. “Please get my licenses back for me now, Mr. Sprague, and when you have proof, Mr. Von Goss can communicate with me at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.”

“Wait a minute—wait a minute,” cautioned Sprague, smugly. “We can’t verify that license in five minutes. The other girl also had licenses in the name of Miss Linda Carlton, and the two will have to be compared, in order to find out which is a counterfeit!”

“Why, that’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Dot. “People can’t counterfeit U. S. Government licenses!”

The secretary smiled in his superior manner.

“Real counterfeiters can counterfeit anything,” he informed them.

“Then let me have mine back until we can place them side by side with this other girl’s,” demanded Linda.

Sprague shook his head.

“I’m sorry, madam, but it’s too late to do that now. They have already been handed over to our private detective, I’m sure.”

“How soon will he give them back?” asked Dot.

“Tomorrow, probably.”

“Where is this double of mine?” questioned Linda, with astonishing directness. “On the lot?”

“No. She’s at Spring City now—or rather, on her way to the coast. She’s due here tomorrow afternoon, flying into the Los Angeles airport, to begin her part in the rehearsals.”

“We’ll be there to meet her,” announced Linda, with determination. “What time?”

“Three o’clock. I’ll—meet you.”

Reluctantly the girls left the building, for they hated to go without the licenses, and walked out into the bright sunshine.

“What a pest that man is!” exclaimed Dot. “Of all the smug, self-satisfied, little tin-gods, he’s the worst I ever met.”

“He was rather unpleasant,” agreed Linda. “But he probably likes the false Linda, and believes in her. So he treats us as criminals.”

“I suppose that’s it. But he didn’t have to be so nasty about it. And the ridiculous way he tried to trip you up, asking where you got hold of Miss Carlton’s licenses. It made my blood boil.”

“He’s not worth getting excited over, Dot, for after all, it will be Mr. Von Goss who will decide the thing. Let’s forget him now, and go to one of these spiffy restaurants for lunch. Don’t you hope we see some of the stars?”

They sauntered along leisurely, looking at the people they passed, wondering whether they were actors and actresses. But it was confusing, for every girl here seemed to be pretty, and every man handsome. Indeed, the stenographers and waitresses were no doubt girls who had won beauty contests at home, only to come to Hollywood to find that beauty was as common as blades of grass, and that there was more to getting into the films than that. But of course these girls with the jobs—any jobs—were the lucky ones. Thousands of others must have returned home penniless.

The restaurant Linda and Dot selected was a charming one, not far from several of the studios, and the girls entered it with subdued excitement. Although it was crowded, the head waiter succeeded in finding them a little table by the wall, where they could eat and watch their fellow-diners.

For a few minutes, while they sipped their tomato cocktails, their eyes wandered about the softly lighted room, recognizing nobody in particular. Then, all of a sudden, Dot pinched Linda’s arm.

“That’s Joan Crawford!” she whispered.

“Where?”

“Over there—to the left.”

“That girl with glasses?”

“Yes. She wears them a lot in public, they say, so that people won’t recognize her. But I’m sure it’s she. And there’s her husband, sitting down beside her now. Anybody’d know him.”

Linda nodded, and feasted her eyes on one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and charming couples.

“And here comes Marlene Dietrich!” exclaimed Linda. “With that director she’s so fond of. She is pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, only I like our own actresses better than those foreigners. They always seem so affected.”

“How about Claudette Colbert? You like her, don’t you?” asked Linda, jealously. She had a great admiration for the French ever since her delightful reception in Paris.

“Yes, of course.... Oh, look, Linda—there’s Dimples!”

“Dimples? You mean June Collyer?”

“No, Stupid! A masculine Dimples. Gable, of course.”

“So it is! Wouldn’t Sara Wheeler be thrilled if she were here? She’s wild about him.”

“I heard he was getting a divorce. If you stayed around here, Linda, and took that part, you might have a chance.”

Linda laughed.

“The last thing I’d ever want to do is marry a movie actor!”

“I guess you’re right at that,” agreed Dot, sensibly. “Their marriages don’t often take.”

The girls made their lunch last as long as they could, and when they had finished they decided to go to a movie. For although Hollywood is the town where they make pictures, they also have many gorgeous picture palaces. Both Linda and Dot felt proud to know that they were having first chance at seeing a show which their friends in Spring City probably could not view until many months later.

After the performance was over they took the bus back to Los Angeles and went straight to their room to dress elaborately for dinner. They were almost ready when the telephone on the tiny table between their beds jingled impatiently.

It was Mr. Von Goss, the director of the Apex Film Corporation, the man whom they had hoped to see instead of that unpleasant secretary.

“May I come over and see you right after dinner, Miss—er—Carlton?” he asked. “Sprague has just told me the news, and I want to learn all I can about it at once.”

“Certainly,” agreed Linda. “I shall be glad to see you as soon as possible.”

Linda replaced the receiver and turned to Dot.

“You know what I’ve been thinking? This girl can’t look exactly like me, or Mr. Sprague wouldn’t have noticed the difference at once. Instead, he’d have greeted me more like a friend. But you remember—he opened his mouth in surprise.”

“That’s right. Of course we couldn’t judge much from her picture, with that helmet on. She was your build and your type, Linda. Light curly hair, and the same kind of nose.”

“I’m dying to see her.”

“So am I. But we shall tomorrow.”

“Well,” continued Linda, “it’s going to be interesting to get Mr. Von Goss’s reaction. At any rate, he was a lot more polite over the telephone than his secretary.”

The man arrived about nine o’clock, and Linda heard herself being paged just as she and Dot came out of the dining-room.

“Hadn’t I better slip off?” suggested the latter, in a whisper.

“No, indeed!” protested Linda. “I need your moral support.”

Mr. Von Goss was a stout man of past middle-age, heavy set, with a big jaw and a pair of keen blue eyes—obviously a man of power in his own field. Nevertheless, he looked thoroughly disturbed over the matter which had just been brought to his attention by his secretary.

“You claim to be Miss Carlton?” he inquired, as Linda came up to him in the hotel lobby.

“Yes,” replied Linda. “And this is my friend, Miss Crowley. Shall we go into one of those little parlors where we can talk?”

The director nodded, and Linda led the way into a small room that was unoccupied at the moment.

“Er—will you have a cigarette, Miss—er—Carlton?” he inquired.

“No, thank you,” answered Linda. “But you go ahead and smoke, Mr. Von Goss.”

The man lighted a cigar.

“This is bad business,” he said. “If what you claim is true, and we have signed up the wrong young lady.”

“You are satisfied with my proofs?” asked Linda, hoping that he had brought back her licenses.

“Can’t tell yet. The other girl certainly looks like all the newspaper pictures I’ve ever seen of the famous aviatrix. If she isn’t Linda Carlton, she certainly fooled me—and my secretary, too.”

“Do I look like my pictures?” inquired Linda, demurely.

Mr. Von Goss surveyed her critically.

“Not so much as the other girl,” he replied, with a smile. “But of course you’re in evening dress, and the other girl always wears flying suits.”

“She would,” put in Dot, cryptically.

“And, as Mr. Sprague suggested,” added Mr. Von Goss, “there’s the possibility that the real Miss Carlton’s licenses were stolen—and that by you—or anyone else!”

“Oh, that Mr. Sprague!” exclaimed Dot, with the utmost disdain.

“There are two things to do,” announced Linda, who had already come to a definite conclusion. “Get the two of us together, and have some one who knows us in aviation pick out the real Linda Carlton—or—”

“But Mr. Sprague, and some fliers he knows, have already identified our Miss Carlton,” interrupted the director. “It was Sprague who looked her up, and brought her into the production.”

“Then we’ll have to resort to the only other suggestion I have, if you can’t decide on our license cards.... It so happens that I am the only woman in the United States to hold an airplane mechanic’s license.... Now, my cards could be stolen, but not my knowledge. So my idea is this: Have some good airplane mechanic give us both an examination, and only the real Linda Carlton will pass.”

The director smiled broadly at the suggestion. It was an ingenious plan, and it appealed to his sense of the dramatic.

“I believe you, Miss Carlton. I think you must be the right girl, or you would never make such a suggestion. We’ll try the thing out tomorrow. When the other girl arrives at two o’clock, as she wired, I’ll take you to the airport to meet her.”

“Two o’clock?” repeated Linda. “But Mr. Sprague said ‘Three’!”

“He must have made a mistake. He told me two.... Now, how would you girls like to go to a reception with me? One of the stars is giving a house-warming at her new place at Beverly Hills, and I think I can ring you in on it, if you’d care about it.”

“We’d love it!” cried Dot, jumping up excitedly. “But please wait until we put on our very best dresses, Mr. Von Goss.”

CHAPTER V
THE VANISHING “DOUBLE”

The home of the star where the reception was held was the most gorgeous place that Linda and Dot had ever seen. It was more like a palace than a home—out in the rich, exclusive Beverly Hills section, among those of other famous actors and actresses whose salaries soared into the thousands. Compared to it, the Claverings seemed almost paupers, yet they were the wealthiest people Linda had ever known.

“It’s just like a fairy-tale,” whispered Dot, as the girls left their evening cloaks in a beautiful blue satin boudoir. “But what is there for a girl like this to look forward to? Why, she has everything!”

“Almost too much,” said Linda.

“But her fame probably won’t last more than ten years at the most. I read somewhere that even that is a long time for an actress. After that she has to take character parts, and ‘what have you’.”

“That seems tragic—giving up what you like to do best. I expect to fly till I die.”

“That’s just what your Aunt Emily says—only she means it differently. That you’ll meet your death in the air.”

Linda laughed, and she and Dot hastened to join Mr. Von Goss, who was waiting for them at the foot of the marble staircase.

“I sort of feel as if we were butting in,” whispered Linda. “Do I look terribly countrified—or small-townish?”

“My dear, you’re as pretty as any star here, and lots prettier than some,” replied Dot, reassuringly.

“Well, you surely look sweet in that peach chiffon, Dot. You look like Paris itself.”

“Of course I do!” laughed the other girl. “I’m not going to have any inferiority complex. And don’t you, either, Linda!”

Taking them into his charge, Mr. Von Goss led the girls about the luxurious rooms, introducing Linda to everybody as the most famous girl flier in the world. It was evident from his manner that he was entirely convinced that she was the real Linda.

The effect of the reception as a whole was startling, overpowering. Linda felt almost as if she wanted to gasp for breath, so overcome was she by the brilliancy of it all. It was only when she met Ann Harding, her favorite actress, that she really felt at home.

Miss Harding was amazingly beautiful—far lovelier than she seemed on the screen, if such a thing were possible. Her rich, low voice was charming, her complexion perfect, her golden hair like the pictures of a fairy queen. Yet there was something sad in her beautiful brown eyes. She and her husband had recently parted.

“Oh, I am so thrilled to meet you, Linda Carlton!” she said, holding Linda’s hand in hers. “I am only an amateur flier, but I love it so. And I have read about every single thing you have ever done.”

Linda blushed deeply at the praise; she wished she could summon courage to tell Miss Harding that she was her favorite star, but she was too shy to utter the words. She was afraid it might sound like idle flattery, thought up on the spur of the moment.

Dot, however, came to her rescue.

“You’re Linda’s favorite actress, Miss Harding,” she announced, calmly. “She goes to see all your pictures—two or three times. Especially the one where you played a character named ‘Linda.’ Do you remember?”

“Indeed I do,” replied Miss Harding. “And I loved that part.”

The three girls sat down in a corner and actually were able to talk flying without any interruption for about ten minutes. Then someone came to claim Miss Harding, and Mr. Von Goss appeared for his protegees.

Nothing was said, during the entire reception, of the trouble Linda was in, or of the fact that another girl was actually playing her part. The director had asked the girls not to mention the fact, and they were glad to accede to his wishes.

He took them to another room, a spacious hall with a beautiful shiny floor and a marvellous orchestra, and introduced some younger men to them, so that they could enjoy the dancing. Then a sumptuous supper was served, and the party broke up before midnight.

“I never thought the reception would be over so early, Mr. Von Goss,” remarked Dot, as the director drove the girls back to their hotel in his car. “I always thought Hollywood went in for wild parties.”

The man shook his head.

“No. If anything, the stars keep earlier hours than ordinary people. Many of them have to be on location early in the morning, and their work is long and tiring. All the considerate hostesses arrange for their parties to be early affairs.”

“One more mistaken idea shot to pieces,” laughed Dot.

“We’ve had a marvellous time, Mr. Von Goss,” said Linda, as the car stopped at the Ambassador. “We never can thank you enough. And I’m so glad we could go tonight, for we’ll probably be flying home tomorrow.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not so sure we can clear things up by then. But I hope so. At any rate, I’ll meet you both at the airport at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

The girls said good night to Mr. Von Goss and went to their room, but they found that they were not sleepy. The party had been too exciting to settle down and forget it so soon.

“It does kind of get into your blood,” remarked Linda, as she took off her most elaborate evening gown. “All the rush and splendor and excitement, I mean.”

“Weakening?” teased Dot.

“You mean go into pictures myself, if I had the chance? No—never! Why, you can’t tell me Ann Harding’s happy. Or Joan Crawford.... No, it’s not satisfying, like flying. I know what I love best, and I mean to stick to it!”

“Wise girl!” was the comment. “But you surely have Mr. Von Goss worried.”

“No wonder. He says he advanced that other girl fifteen thousand dollars, just for the use of my name, and he’s already spent at least a hundred thousand on the story and the sets.”

“It seems as if you just couldn’t let him down, Linda.”

“I’m not letting him down. I never made any promises to him. He’s being let down because he was so careless.”

For at least an hour the girls continued to discuss the party and the stars, until at last they settled down to sleep, thankful that they had no need to get up early in the morning.

They combined breakfast and lunch the following day at noon, and went to the flying field a little before two o’clock to be on hand when the false Linda should arrive.

Linda was intensely excited. She tried over and over to picture to herself what this meeting would be like, whether the girl would be humble and sorry, whether she would try to work on Linda’s sympathies by telling of some pressing need she had for money, or whether she would be flippant and self-assured, still insisting that she was the real Linda Carlton.

Mr. Von Goss’s car appeared shortly after Linda and Dot arrived, and they recognized Mr. Leslie Sprague in the back seat. Both men nodded to the girls, who had dismissed their taxi and were standing beside one of the hangars, talking to an attendant.

“See your names in the paper, girls?” he was asking them.

“No. When?” inquired Dot.

The mechanic picked up a newspaper and handed it to them. There was a picture, somewhat poor, to be sure, of Linda and Dot in their flying suits and an account of their arrival, recalling the incident of their strange landing at Kansas City. Underneath were the names, “Miss Sallie Slocum and Miss May Manton.”

“How did they ever get that picture?” demanded Dot.

“Snapped it when you weren’t looking. Those newspaper reporters are up to all sorts of tricks. The beacon light is bright, and he had a special camera.”

Linda looked serious.

“This may make trouble for us, Dot,” she said, in a low voice.

The director and his secretary got out of the car and advanced towards the girls just as an airplane loomed into view. Linda stared excitedly at the sky, trying to make out what kind of plane it was. It was not an autogiro.

“There she is!” shouted Mr. Von Goss, and Mr. Sprague took off his hat and waved it violently into the air.

“The secretary’s pretty keen about the false Linda, or I miss my guess,” whispered Dot, in her companion’s ear. “Look how excited he is! How wildly he’s waving!”

The aviatrix, who was just overhead, suddenly banked her plane, and made a turn to the left. Then she nosed her plane higher into the air.

“Doing some stunts for us!” exclaimed Mr. Von Goss. “She’s a great little flier, all right—”

“She’s—she’s going away!” faltered Linda, in deepest disappointment.

“Probably forgotten something,” remarked Leslie Sprague, casually. “I was almost certain, anyhow, that she said three o’clock—not two. She’ll most likely be back at three.”

“You mean to say we’ll have to wait a whole hour?” demanded Dot, as the plane disappeared in the distance.

“That’s up to you,” returned Sprague, nonchalantly.

Mr. Von Goss reached into his pocket and extracted a clipping. It was the newspaper picture of Dot and Linda, with the fictitious names under it.

“Sprague showed me this,” he said, handing the clipping to Linda, with a suspicious look in his eyes.

Linda trembled in spite of herself, but Dot immediately explained how it had happened. Mr. Von Goss, however, looked doubtful of the truth of the story, and Sprague listened with a nasty grin on his face.

“We’ll have to talk this over later,” the director said finally. “I have an appointment now. As soon as the girl arrives, you better all come straight to the studio, where we can compare licenses, and so on.”

“Where is mine?” demanded Linda.

“Sprague’s keeping it. He’ll hand it over when the time comes.”

With a brief nod of good-bye, the two men drove away together, and the girls stood watching them in dismay.

“Something tells me that that young lady won’t be back here,” Dot said dismally.

“I’m afraid not. Maybe she even saw us, for her plane was pretty low. And if she had glasses—”

“Of course she had glasses! No girl who plays a tricky game like this one is going to go about unprepared. It would be like a gangster without a gun.”

They waited impatiently for over an hour, but nothing happened, and even the men did not return. Other planes flew into the busy airport, landed and took off, but there was no sign of Linda’s “double.”

Bored with the inactivity, they strolled over to the hangar where the Ladybug was housed, and looked her over.

“I’d fly over to the studio if I only had my licenses,” said Linda. “But I hate to break laws—even though it isn’t my fault.”

“That man has no right to keep them!” stormed Dot. “I’ll bet Sprague’s at the bottom of this.”

“He’s still trying to protect his girl-friend, I’m sure of that.... Well, Dot, we may as well go back to the hotel, for if she should arrive, I feel confident that Mr. Von Goss would call us there.”

Linda’s confidence, however, was sadly misplaced. For no one at the studio called to inform her that the other girl landed her plane right on the set a little after three o’clock.

With the neatness of a born flier, she brought her plane to the ground, climbed out of the cockpit and strolled into Mr. Von Goss’s office. The director had not yet returned, but Sprague was sitting at his desk. In a few words he explained the situation, but before the girl could make any reply, Mr. Von Goss walked in.

“You’ve heard the story, Miss—Carlton?” he asked, hesitating a little over the name.

The girl, who really resembled Linda to a remarkable degree, laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m used to things like that,” she said. “It used to worry me at first, but I never pay any attention to them now. Why, Mr. Von Goss, you can see for yourself how absurd the claim is! The girl’s real name—Sallie Slocum—has been printed in the newspaper twice.”

“Yes, of course that’s true. But how about those license cards?”

“Your detective will soon prove them counterfeits. And the signatures forged.”

Still, the man hesitated.

“The other girl said something about taking a test. Said she was the only licensed mechanic in the country. That made it sound pretty genuine to me.”

Again the girl laughed.

“That was a clever ruse,” she said. “But probably Miss Slocum has passed that test since I did, and thinks she knows more than I would.... No, Mr. Von Goss, I haven’t time to fool around here taking tests. I’ve got to be on my way tomorrow. So if you want me in the picture, you’ll have to let me go through my stunts now.”

“I don’t see how it can be done—” began the director.

“Very well, then,” agreed the girl. “I’d better give you back your check, because I’m really too busy to wait around here. After all, the money doesn’t mean much to me—and I don’t need the publicity!”

Mr. Von Goss looked at her keenly. She must be the real Linda, he thought, or she certainly wouldn’t talk like this. It never occurred to him that she was acting.

“No—I don’t want to give up now. We’ll go through with your part of the show.... Sprague, get the people on the wire....”

And so, while Linda and Dot were patiently waiting for their telephone call at the hotel, the impostor almost completed her part in the picture, promising to return for only a couple of hours’ work in the morning.

CHAPTER VI
THE FORGED SIGNATURE

“Good morning, Miss Slocum,” said Mr. Sprague, smugly, as Linda and Dot entered the studio at Culver City the following day.

Linda winced at the name, and looked around her, to see whether another girl could be entering at the same time. But there was no one except a strange young man sitting in the corner, who couldn’t possibly be “Miss Slocum.” The secretary was evidently giving her a dig; perhaps he was trying to trap her by calling her by the name which Dot had manufactured on the spur of the moment at Kansas City, and which had been repeated by the newspapers.

“Trying to be funny, Mr. Sprague?” inquired Dot, scathingly.

The stranger in the corner arose from his seat.

“This is Mr. Bertram Chase, of the police,” Sprague announced, calmly. “Miss Slocum and Miss Manton.”

The girls regarded the young man questioningly. He was in plain clothes—not an ordinary policeman.

“A detective,” explained Sprague, simply.

Dot became impatient; she wanted to get to the point of their visit.

“We should like to meet the aviatrix who calls herself Linda Carlton,” she announced, in a business-like tone. “Has she come in yet?”

“She is on the set now,” replied Sprague. “Going through her stunts. She has only a small part in the picture, so it can all be done at once.”

“Will you kindly take us out where she is?” asked Linda.

“In a minute, sister,” returned the man, condescendingly. “But we have some business with you first.”

Linda’s expression became freezing. She could not bear this insolent young man. He smiled in an irritating manner.

“We have examined your licenses, Miss Slocum,” he said. “And we believe the signatures have been forged. The real Miss Carlton brought hers today, and we compared the two. There is no doubt that hers is genuine.”

“What?” demanded Linda, in horror.

“Let us see them!” demanded Dot, entirely unconvinced.

Mr. Sprague nodded.

“Our friend, Mr. Chase, has them now. He will let you look at them.”

The young man, who could not have been a day over twenty-five, looked extremely embarrassed. Not like a hard-boiled detective at all, Linda thought. Indeed, he flashed her a look of sympathy, as if he did not share in Sprague’s accusation. Still, it was his business, and he had to go through with it.

He fumbled in his pockets and produced two cards, identical at a glance. The same numbers, the same printing—and what looked like the same signatures.

“Don’t let them out of your hands, Chase,” warned Sprague, evidently determined to be as nasty as possible.

“You see, ladies,” Chase said, almost apologetically. “This signature is forged.” He held up one of the cards. “Look at the capital ‘L’. It hasn’t been copied quite right.”

“Of course it hasn’t!” cried Dot. “But the other one is yours, Linda.”

“Yes,” agreed Linda, trembling in spite of her innocence, “I remember that mud-spot on mine. I got it on that treasure-hunt that Mr. Clavering planned, from Green Falls last summer.”

“Odd,” remarked Sprague, sarcastically. “That is the very mud-spot the real Miss Carlton identified her card by!”

“What do you propose to do?” demanded Dot, now thoroughly exasperated.

“Hold Miss Slocum under bail,” replied Sprague. “For forgery.”

Dot burst into a peal of laughter.

“It’s too absurd!” she exclaimed.

The young detective looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Shall we go out on the lot?” he suggested. “And see the stunts?”

“O. K. by me,” agreed Sprague.

“Are we to wear hand-cuffs?” inquired Dot, flippantly.

Sprague gave her a withering look.

“You are not being held at all, Miss Manton,” he said. “We’re not concerned under what names you care to travel.”

The young detective fell back and walked across the lots with the girls.

“I believe you are innocent, Miss—Carlton,” he said, his brown eyes already showing devotion to Linda. “Of course I have to take your money for bail, but I’m sure it will be all cleared up soon. I think that the other girl is the impostor.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Chase!” cried Linda, the tears dangerously near to her eyes at this expression of sympathy.

The group reached the lot, where the picture was being rehearsed. It looked so interesting, so thrilling,—had it been under any other circumstances, the girls would have only been too delighted at the opportunity. But now they could think only of the horrible fix they were in, with not a friend in this strange city to vindicate them.

Mr. Von Goss, who was buzzing busily about the lot, paid no attention at all to Dot and Linda—not even a formal nod of greeting as he passed them by. He had evidently decided that they were impostors, who had cleverly deceived him, thereby securing for themselves an evening’s unusual entertainment at his expense. Therefore, he preferred not to recognize them at all. The deliberate cut hurt Linda, for she had liked and admired the older man, and had found him exceedingly interesting.

The moving-picture aviatrix, however, was going through all sorts of stunts in a silver Moth, which had been brightly painted and decorated. Linda stood still, gazing at her enviously. Not that she wanted to be in the picture, but she would always rather be in the air than on the ground. And it looked now as if she were to be chained to the earth for several days to come, unless she or Dot could think of a way out of their difficulties.

“The girl’s too low!” cried Chase suddenly, in horror.

Linda watched her; she certainly was dangerously near to the ground. The roar of her motor was deafening. But, by a stroke of luck, she regained control, and abruptly pointed her plane upward, climbing without disaster.

“She’s good,” admitted Linda, in all fairness.

“Not so good as she looks,” remarked Chase. “I happen to know that plane and it will take a lot of punishment. But she’ll do that little stunt once too often.”

“You’re a flier too, Mr. Chase?” inquired Linda.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m a secret-service man, on the air force of the police.”

He looked right into Linda’s eyes, as if to tell her that his love of flying was another bond of sympathy between them.

“How did you happen to be called in—on an unimportant case like ours?”

“I’m here on something else. Connected with another case. And I know Mr. Von Goss personally, so he asked me to help him out.”

“I see.... I suppose I shouldn’t ask you for advice, Mr. Chase—but—I feel as if you would help me, if possible. What would you do if you were in my place?”

“Wire to somebody well known in aviation circles, who can come and identify you as the girl who flew the Atlantic alone. Because that is the important thing. That’s why Von Goss is paying the aviatrix thirty thousand dollars for a small part in one picture. Just because of that one fact!”

“Then friends wouldn’t help—in establishing my identity?”

“No. They ought to be people in aviation.”

Dot interrupted this conversation, by suddenly grasping Linda’s arm. “Look at Sprague!” she cried. “Look at the way he’s waving that hat of his to his girl-friend! Now what do you suppose the idea of that is?”

At the mention of his own name, the secretary turned to the girls.

“Miss Carlton is supposed to fly away—be lost to sight now,” he informed them, calmly. “It isn’t likely she’ll come back and land here, for that finishes her part.”

“You mean we’re not to see her?” demanded Dot. “That looks suspicious to me!”

“Oh, yeah?” returned Sprague. “Well, don’t flatter yourselves that Miss Linda Carlton has time to waste on a couple of upstarts from Toonerville, or wherever it was you came from. She’s a busy girl!”

Linda sighed deeply as she watched the plane disappear entirely from view. There was nothing to do now; Sprague and Von Goss were both against her. She might as well go back to the hotel.

“Come to the hotel this afternoon for that check for bail,” she said to Chase. “I’ll have it ready.”

Then, with a nod of farewell, she and Dot left the lot and went into a restaurant at Culver City for their lunch. But this time they were not interested in seeing the stars. Their own problems were too pressing.

“If I could only get in touch with Daddy,” said Linda, as she nibbled at her salad. “But I don’t know where he is, and I should hate to alarm Aunt Emily by telling her that I am being held under bail. No ... I guess the best idea is to wire Mr. Eckert.”

“That’s the stuff!” approved Dot. “Why not go over to that telephone and do it now, while I order something for dessert?”

Linda took the suggestion, and fifteen minutes later the girls started back for their hotel in Los Angeles. They felt like prisoners, unable to come and go at will. As a matter of fact, Dot was still as free as air, but she had no thought of deserting Linda.

They bought the afternoon paper on their way back to the hotel, and when they reached their room, Dot spread it out on her bed to read. But the first item that met her eye made her stare in horror. It was Linda’s picture, right on the front page, with the caption “Miss Sallie Slocum, impersonating Linda Carlton,” and underneath it, the whole dishonest story.

She read it in rising anger, determined to destroy it before Linda should see it. But her companion, noticing the look on her chum’s face, crossed the room and saw it for herself.

“Not a soul will believe it is really I!” she exclaimed. “Because it doesn’t look a whole lot like me.”

“No, it certainly doesn’t. It must be that same picture the reporter took of us both at the airport, the day we landed here in Los Angeles. Only I’m cut off. I’m not news any more.”

“No, you’re free, Dot.”

“Yet it’s all my fault!” She wound her arms around Linda. “Darling, I just can’t tell you how sorry I am for that silly prank!”

Linda patted her hand.

“Don’t think of it as your fault, Dot. That name business is only a side-issue. That girl would have gotten away with it, no matter what we did. She’d have thought up something else if she hadn’t had that to play on.”

“But I played right into her hands.”

“Perhaps. Only, any girl who would go to all this trouble to invent such a dishonest scheme would have succeeded somehow. Why, the licenses were really the most important thing. But how she ever managed to get them exchanged without that smart Sprague noticing, is more than I can account for.”

“Well, you must remember he wasn’t prejudiced against her as he was against you. He trusted her, so he probably wasn’t watching her closely.”

“I detest that man,” said Linda.

“So do I,” agreed Dot.

“Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” remarked Linda, with a yawn. “I think a nap would do us good.”

So, wisely acting upon the suggestion, the girls slept until Mr. Chase called at five o’clock for Linda’s check for one thousand dollars for bail.

“Which I hate to have to take,” he said, apologetically. “But I expect to give it back to you soon!”

CHAPTER VII
STOLEN!

Linda and Dot both felt terribly depressed, in spite of their luxurious surroundings. Indeed, both girls had showed more spirit on that deserted island in the Atlantic Ocean, where they had been stranded without any plane during the early summer. When both their food and their water supply were limited, and the chances of survival were small. But now there was nothing to do but wait—wait in this strange, lonely city, where their only friends—Mr. Von Goss and Mr. Chase—had turned out to be enemies. And now Mr. Chase was going away, flying south on important business, so that even he would be lost to them.

“But you will soon be free,” he had said, after he had heard that Linda had wired for Mr. Eckert.

“In time to stop that picture’s being shown, do you think?” inquired Linda. “I understand that the rest of it was completed, and that all that had to be filmed was my double’s part.”

“Yes, I believe that’s what Von Goss said. But surely it won’t be released for a month or so. I shouldn’t worry. You do hate publicity, don’t you?” he asked, sympathetically.

“I have always tried to shun it,” answered Linda. “But it seems that I am being punished now.”

But the young man had gone, and the girls were feeling very blue.

“We’ve got to pull ourselves together!” announced Dot, after a few minutes of somber silence. “Let’s step out and go to a show tonight! After all, you paid that thousand dollars bail, and we might as well get some fun out of it.”

“True,” admitted Linda.

“Not a picture this time. A theatre. I’m sick of movies.”

“So am I.”

“And let’s make a rule, with a forfeit of five dollars, if either of us mentions that aviatrix, or Sprague, or any other vermin we have met around the studio, we have to pay the other! Is it a go?”

“Does that include Mr. Chase?” asked Linda, slyly.

Dot poked her companion under the chin.

“I suppose not,” she agreed. “You couldn’t exactly describe him as ‘vermin’.... And besides, I can see that you were rather smitten. And did he fall for you? Whew!”

Linda blushed.

“He is a nice young man, don’t you think so, Dot?”

“Of course I do. But poor Ralph! How jealous he’d be, if he only knew!”

“Ralph will be furious because I didn’t wire to him to help us out. But after all, he’s only a personal friend, and of course his assertions about my innocence wouldn’t carry much weight.”

“We’re agreed, then,” said Dot, as she began to dress for dinner, “that the tabu subjects are Von Goss, movies, Sprague, and your double. At five dollars apiece!”

Linda laughed, but she felt much better. Trust Dot to find some fun in every situation, no matter how unpleasant or dangerous it seemed. They were able to get seats at a very good play, and in the excitement of the mystery involved, they forgot all about their own troubles, and had no need to worry about the forfeit.

It was lucky indeed that they were able to enjoy their evening, for the next morning held a most unpleasant surprise for them. They had gone for a walk after breakfast and returned to the hotel about eleven o’clock, hoping for some word from Mr. Eckert.

The telephone rang and Linda picked it up gaily, expecting it to be the message. But it proved to be a message of a very different sort a summons from a police-court in Los Angeles!

“The officer wants you to come downstairs immediately, Miss Carlton,” the operator told her.

“I’m going too,” announced Dot, following her companion into the elevator.

A uniformed policeman was waiting for Linda in the lobby. He was a rough, uneducated person of the lower class, evidently accustomed to bullying his suspects into submission. He did not return Linda’s feeble “Good morning,” but merely extended a piece of paper with his right hand.

“Your bum check!” he snarled. “For bail. You had no right to sign the name of ‘Linda Carlton’ anyhow, but besides that, there ain’t no funds to cover it—even if you say you are the real ‘Linda’.”

“No funds!” gasped Linda, staring incredulously at the man. “Why, I keep five thousand dollars in my check account—just to be ready for any kind of emergencies that may come up when I’m flying about the country!”

“That’s just the amount that was took out yesterday. By the real Linda Carlton.” His tone was jeering, as if he were enjoying the situation as he would a play.

“Oh!” cried Linda. “This is terrible!”

“I’ll say it is,” agreed the policeman. “Now get your hat, and come along with me. You’re goin’ to jail.”

The girls looked at each other in speechless amazement. This was too dreadful for words.

“Let me wire for the money,” suggested Dot, suddenly. “I can get it from my father.”

“Do as you like. But this here forger goes to jail—even if she is a pretty girl. That ain’t a gonna help her none now!”

“Oh!”

The tears came to Linda’s eyes, in spite of her effort to hold them back. She felt dizzy and weak. It was all like a hideous nightmare, from which, try as she might, she could not awaken. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a stifled sob came. Then, with a hopeless gesture of powerlessness, she decided to do as she was told.

She turned about desperately and walked towards the elevator like a criminal going to the electric chair. Dot, still trying to think of some way to save the situation, waited, hesitating, breathing hard. It was a tense and horrible moment—until Linda walked right into the arms of her dear old friend, Mr. Eckert!

“Linda, I’m here!” he said, putting out his arms to catch her, for he could see that she was blinded by tears. “Dear child, you’re not going to faint?”

Linda looked up in a daze, too astonished to believe that he was true. Had her imagination conjured up his kindly presence? But no; Mr. Eckert’s hands were on her shoulders, supporting her, keeping her from falling. And beside him was a large, fine-looking man in a blue uniform.

“Oh!” she gasped, in joy and relief, clinging desperately to the elderly man’s hand.

“What are you doing to Miss Carlton?” demanded the stranger in uniform, of the policeman. “Hounding her with abuse?”

“This here young lady forged a name and passed a bum check,” he whimpered.

“What name?” asked the other man.

“Claims she’s Linda Carlton, with five thousand bucks in a bank, where she’s already overdrew her account.”

“She is Linda Carlton!” announced Mr. Eckert. “I can testify to that—your superior officer, James A. Brenan, can testify to my knowledge, for he knows me well. He is Chief of Police in St. Louis.”

“How did you get here so soon, Mr. Eckert?” asked Dot. “We only wired yesterday.”

“We started immediately, sensing your trouble. And flew day and night. But I see that we got here just in time.”

“Ten minutes later I’d have been wearing prison stripes!” returned Linda, now almost herself again. “Oh, Mr. Eckert, I can never thank you enough.”

“I was only too thankful to be of use, my dear child,” said the kind-hearted man.

“What shall we do first?” inquired Dot, as the policeman made a move to slip away.

“Catch the thief,” announced Chief Brenan. “If she has forged a check for five thousand dollars already, she must have gone away as fast as she could.” He turned to the Los Angeles policeman. “Go and inform your station of this as fast as you can.... And meanwhile, we’ll go straight to the studio of the Apex Film Corporation and find out what we can about her from the director.”

The policeman departed, and Linda asked Mr. Eckert whether he weren’t terribly hungry and tired.

“Hungry, yes, but I haven’t had time to think about being tired yet. I want to get things all straightened out for you first, before I consider sleeping. We will arrange for a couple of rooms and order a meal before we go to Hollywood.”

In an incredibly short time the men reappeared from their rooms and ate a hasty meal that was both breakfast and lunch. Then the whole party, the two girls, and the two older men chartered a car for Culver City.

“Won’t it be fun to stick out our tongues at that Sprague insect?” laughed Dot, now enjoying herself hugely. “He was so condescending—so sure that the other girl was the real thing!”

“And I’m going to insist that they don’t show the picture under my name!” added Linda.

“It’ll serve Mr. Von Goss right. I’m glad he’s losing money. Remember how snippy he was to us yesterday, on the lot?”

“He certainly was. Wouldn’t even speak to us!”

“He may get his money back when we catch the impostor,” remarked Chief Brenan. “She can’t have had a chance to spend much of it.”

“I’ll wager she bought that plane that she was doing stunts with,” observed Linda. “It certainly was speedy. And she’d want to get out of the country as soon as possible.”

The short distance to Culver City was covered quickly in the high-powered car. Dot was the first to run into the studio when they arrived. She wanted to have the fun of saying, “I told you so,” to that “fresh Sprig,” as she liked to call him.

The same “publicity girl” took their cards. But, though Mr. Von Goss was in, she informed them that Mr. Sprague was no longer with the Apex.

“Fired?” asked Dot, hopefully.

“No, I believe not. He left yesterday—to be married to Miss Linda Carlton.”

“No, he didn’t!” contradicted Dot. “This is Miss Linda Carlton right here, and she’d rather be dead than married to that shrimp. Your actress wasn’t Linda Carlton at all—as we’re just about to prove.”

“Really?” remarked the girl, only slightly interested. It was a practice of hers never to frown or show emotion, lest she encourage wrinkles.

They passed on in to the director’s office, and Linda introduced the two men and told her story. When she had finished, Mr. Von Goss looked extremely worried, crestfallen, even defeated. For now Linda’s identity was established beyond a doubt.

“How then do you account for this license?” he asked, extending the one with the forged signature to Linda.

“Sprague’s doing, of course!” cried Dot, before Linda had a chance to answer. “He was in league with that girl. We just heard that they were married.”

“But how could he manage these licenses?” demanded Von Goss.

“He got hold of a blank somehow, and forged the name. Then when he had the chance to get hold of the real Miss Carlton’s, of course he exchanged them.”

The Chief of Police was listening to Dot’s logic with admiration.

“You’re a bright girl,” he said. “And you’ve figured it out just about right.” He turned to Linda. “You should never have let your own licenses get out of your hands.”

“I had no idea Mr. Sprague was dishonest,” she said. “But the worst part of it is, that now I have to fly with a false license.”

“We’ll get yours back when we catch that couple!” promised Von Goss. “Because we’ve got to catch them. Why, I paid her thirty thousand dollars for her part in the picture—and if my picture is not shown, I’ll lose thousands more....”

He looked terribly discouraged.

The Chief of Police rose.

“We must go back now and get to work. Have you any idea, Von Goss, where this couple went, or what kind of plane they flew in?”

“I heard Sprague say something about South America for a honeymoon,” the man replied. “He told us to keep his mail for him, till he came back, as he wouldn’t have any definite address. But I haven’t any idea whether they expected to fly, or what kind of plane they used if they did.”

“The girl didn’t buy your plane—or steal it?” asked Linda.

“No. It’s still out there. We needed it today for some stills.”

“What kind of plane did she own when she came to the studio?”

“She didn’t own any. She told me that she had left her autogiro at Spring City, and had flown west with a friend.”

“And you believed every word of it!” was Dot’s taunt. “And never even asked to see her license, until we showed up and made it necessary.”

“It’s all true,” agreed the director. “I’ve been a fool.”

“If we only knew what kind of plane, it would be so much easier to follow and catch her,” remarked Linda, sadly.

Mr. Von Goss rose from his desk, and followed the group to the door, lingering beside Linda, as if he were trying to get up courage to say something to her. For such a self-possessed man, he seemed unusually nervous.

“Miss Carlton,” he said, in a humble tone, “won’t you please do that part of the picture for me?” It seemed strange that a man who could tell stars what to do, should speak so deferentially to Linda.

“Oh, no, Mr. Von Goss,” she replied immediately. “I couldn’t possibly. I’m all keyed up for a chase. I want to catch this girl, if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

“Then let me pay you, say fifty thousand dollars for the use of your name, and let me show the picture as it is. Nobody would ever guess that it isn’t you. For she does look astonishingly like you.”

“Wouldn’t I love to see that girl!” said Dot.

Again Linda shook her head. “I don’t want my name in moving-pictures, Mr. Von Goss,” she said with quiet determination. “Besides, I shouldn’t like people to think I flew in the dangerous, spectacular way that girl did. It is harmful to the whole cause of aviation. No; you cannot use my name in connection with your picture.”

Von Goss knew that she meant what she said, and there was no use of any further argument. But he was in a terrible fix, and he didn’t know how to get out of it without losing a great deal of money. Certainly he couldn’t use the name of the girl—whatever it was—for when she was caught, the whole world would know that she was a criminal.

A solution of his problem, however, suddenly suggested itself to Linda.

“I have it, Mr. Von Goss!” she cried, turning about. “Use Ann Harding! She’s a flier, and a popular actress besides. She can do the stunts, and probably will prove more of a drawing card to the public than I could hope to be.”

“Ann Harding!” repeated the man. “But she belongs to another studio.”

“Borrow her! Pay her! You’ll save your picture.”

“I believe you’re right, Miss Carlton,” he admitted, with a sigh of relief. “That ought to save the situation.”

The four visitors left the studio and hurried in their car back to the hotel. But no news of the couple had been received by any of the Los Angeles police. Linda therefore determined to pack a box of supplies and to set out, that very afternoon, on the search, inquiring at the airports they passed as they flew towards Mexico.

Just before sitting down to her late lunch with Dot, she wired the news to her aunt, informing her of her plans, and asking that additional funds be put into her checking account. Then she called the airport on the telephone.

“This is Linda Carlton,” she said. “I want you to have my autogiro in readiness for a long trip. Plenty of gas and oil. I will call for it inside of an hour.”

“Linda Carlton?” repeated the voice at the other end of the wire. “Autogiro?... Must be some mistake.... Miss Carlton flew away in her autogiro last night, about eight o’clock. She paid the bill, and said she wouldn’t be back!”

CHAPTER VIII
IN HOT PURSUIT

Linda replaced the telephone receiver and sat motionless, staring at the wall of the hotel bedroom. The worst had happened. The autogiro was stolen. The Ladybug! Her dearest possession.

“What’s the matter?” asked Dot, realizing that her chum must have heard bad news.

In a few words Linda explained the situation.

“And the worst of it is, that girl evidently didn’t have any difficulty at all about doing it. Just walked into the airport at night and demanded the plane. They handed it over to her without so much as a question.”

For once in her life, Dot remained speechless. There was not a single word of comfort she could think of to offer to her companion.

“She’s had almost a whole day’s start,” Linda added dismally. “Here it is three o’clock, and she must have pulled out at dark last night. She’s probably out of the United States by this time. And nobody even on her trail yet!”

“Our police always catch the wrong person, anyway,” remarked Dot, grimly.

“Don’t be too hard on them, Dot. They’re not all like that dreadful specimen that came for me this morning. And in a case like this, they would probably put the air-force on duty. Men of a much higher type.”

“Like Mr. Chase, for instance.”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do, Linda?”

“Call the police headquarters first. Tell them to get in touch with all the airports possible, so that any autogiros can be reported. But I’d like to go after that girl myself, too!”

“In what?”

“‘In what?’ is right! Oh, if I only had a plane! If Ted Mackay were only here—or even Ralph, with his autogiro! But do you realize, Dot, that I’m bankrupt? I can’t buy a plane, or even hire one, now that that girl took everything I had in the bank.”

Her companion nodded. “If somebody would only lend you one,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Eckert—”

“I’ve thought of him. But he has to get back to the school immediately. Why, Dot, this is the twenty-ninth of September! We’ve wasted a whole week, just to establish the fact that I am Linda Carlton! Isn’t it just too absurd!”

“It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. And now you’ll lose your chance at that teaching position, unless you give up trying to get your Ladybug back.”

“I can’t do that. I couldn’t give up now. No, I’ll call the police headquarters, and then I’ll wait around until Mr. Eckert wakes up from his nap. We’ll surprise the men by having dinner with them.”

It was indeed a surprise, as Linda expected, when she and Dot met Mr. Eckert and Chief Brenan in the lobby of the hotel that evening at seven o’clock. Naturally, both men thought that the girls had flown away early in the afternoon.

“I’m tied to the earth again,” Linda announced immediately. “But not by the law this time.... That girl flew off in my autogiro!”

“No!” cried Mr. Eckert, incredulously. “Why, there isn’t anything she won’t steal!” He smiled grimly. “Did she leave you your own clothing, Linda?”

“Yes,” replied the girl. “But that’s about all.”

“You should have had me wakened the minute you heard the news. If you had done that, you might have been on your way by this time.”

“You mean—?” gasped Linda.

“In my plane, of course. Take it and welcome, my dear child!”

Linda seized his hand and tried to stammer out her thanks. But she was too much moved by his generosity to say anything.

“How will you get back to St. Louis in time for the opening of your school?” inquired Dot.

“By the commercial air-line,” replied Mr. Eckert. “Now come in and eat some dinner, and after that, you can make your plans.”

It seemed to Linda almost too good to be true. To have the privilege of flying that new, fast biplane, which she had admired so much that morning. It had a cruising speed of a hundred and fifty miles an hour! Surely, in it, she could catch her own Ladybug.

“You’ll start early tomorrow morning, I suppose?” asked Mr. Eckert, as they seated themselves in the dining-room.

“Yes,” answered Linda. “The police are already on the job, in communication with all the airports, which are to keep a watch out for all autogiros that pass overhead or land for gas. We’ll find out what reports have been turned in, before we take off in the morning.”

“And will you go along, Miss Crowley?”

“Certainly,” replied Dot. “I’m just as anxious to recover the Ladybug as Linda is.”

“It may mean dangerous business.”

“It’s bound to be exciting!”

After dinner Chief Brenan telephoned to the police headquarters to find out what information had been gained. Three autogiros, he learned, had been spotted, but only two of them had been stopped. Neither of these was the Ladybug. The third, it seemed, had been seen early in the day, flying southeast across California toward Arizona. Two secret-service planes had already been sent out in that direction.

With Mr. Eckert’s help, Linda sketched out a course to follow. She would head straight for the city of Yuma, in the extreme southwest of Arizona, stopping there for the first night. Then she would go over the border into Mexico.

Dot, in the meanwhile, took charge of the practical preparations for the trip. She arranged to leave their box of clothing at the hotel, and packed all the supplies for the trip. Water in gallon jugs and thermos bottles, canned food, blankets in case they were forced to camp out at night, field glasses and first-aid kit—and finally, upon Mr. Eckert’s suggestion—a revolver.

The whole party breakfasted at dawn the following morning, and Mr. Eckert accompanied the girls to the airport, to sign the necessary papers for the release of his plane, the Sky Rocket. It was a beautiful new biplane, of the latest model. Painted yellow, with a companion cockpit, it stood in readiness on the runway, as if inviting Linda to climb in and fly.

Her eyes were shining in happy anticipation as she skipped forward and climbed into the cockpit to peer at the instruments. Everything for convenience and comfort seemed to be provided. Altimeter, clocks, compass, parachutes—even a wireless, with transmitting radio wires placed inside the wings, so that messages could be sent and received.

“It’s marvellous, Mr. Eckert!” she exclaimed, as she seated herself at the controls, her hand fingering the joy-stick.

“Aren’t you even going to give her a trial flight, Miss Carlton?” inquired the mechanic, skeptically.

“Miss Carlton can pilot any plane that’s made!” replied Mr. Eckert, proudly. “She never needs any instruction. But,” he added, coming closer to Linda, “don’t forget that this isn’t an autogiro. Don’t try to land her on top of a building!”

Linda smiled.

“I only wish I had my own license,” she said.

“I shouldn’t worry about that,” returned Mr. Eckert. “The police aren’t going to make any more mistakes about arresting you.”

“I should hope not!” exclaimed Dot.

A minute later the mechanic started the motor, and Linda taxied along the runway, waving good-bye to Mr. Eckert. A few hundred feet further, and the Sky Rocket rose into the air like a bird, soaring up to the skies. The usual fog common to the early morning climate of California had lifted, and the sun shone brightly as Linda directed her course towards the mountains. She let out the throttle to its maximum as soon as she reached a good safe height; a hundred and fifty miles an hour did not seem an abnormal speed, but it was a thrilling experience. Linda loved her own Ladybug, but after all, this was an exciting change.

Over the orange groves of southern California they passed again, then, even higher up in the air to clear the San Jacinto Mountains, over the city of Imperial—on towards Yuma. The flight was nearly four hundred miles, but Linda covered it in less than four hours. At noon she landed the Sky Rocket at the airport of Yuma, Arizona.

Being a large airport, the men had already been informed by radio of the stolen autogiro, and the attendant who came out to greet the Sky Rocket was prepared to answer Linda’s questions.

“A giro stopped here yesterday for gas and oil,” he said. “And we filled her up. Put a patch on one wing, but the couple wouldn’t wait long enough to have it done right. That must have been about three o’clock in the afternoon. We got the radio soon after that, to take the licenses of all the giros we got a look at.”

“What did the people look like? Were they a man and a girl?” demanded Dot, excitedly.

“Yeah. A married couple, I believe.”

“On their honeymoon?”

“Can’t tell you that. They didn’t act mushy.”

Linda smiled.

“Did they give you their names?” she inquired.

“And did the girl look like—Miss Carlton?” put in Dot, before the man could answer Linda’s question.

“Couldn’t say she did, except that all you girl fliers look something alike. But her face was pretty dirty, and her helmet was pulled down low.... Yeah, they gave their names. A Mr. and Mrs. Bower, of Texas.”

“Oh!” gasped Linda, in disappointment. “We’re looking for people named Sprague.”

“They wouldn’t be likely to give their right names, Linda,” Dot reminded her. “Why, that girl thinks nothing of swiping a new name to fit her fancy!”

“True,” admitted Linda.

“And another thing,” added the attendant. “There was a secret-service flier here this morning already. After them. A nice-looking chap, in a gray monoplane.”

“Could it have been Mr. Chase?” demanded Dot.

“Yeah. I think that was the name.... Well, he crossed the border, hot on their trail. Shouldn’t be surprised if he had ’em by now, for he flew a fast plane!”

The news was encouraging, so after a bite of lunch and a hasty inspection, the girls flew away again, heading south now, avoiding the Gulf of California, and crossing over into Mexico.

They passed over the California river and continued an easterly course, avoiding the mountains near the coast, and pointing inland before they turned southeast again. From their height in the air they could not see the ground without glasses, but as Linda dipped lower, they could distinguish how barren and desolate it was. There were no trees; only short, stumpy underbrush scattered about, with big patches of bare, hard earth between. A most unattractive part of the country.

The engine of the plane continued to throb evenly; it was in perfect condition. At least, Linda thought, her plane was giving her no worry. But then, planes were more like automobiles now; the accidents were oftener due to the pilots themselves than to faulty motors.... But thus far, she had accomplished nothing. There had been no sign of an autogiro, or indeed of any kind of plane, since they left Arizona.

“We may be flying too high,” she remarked, as the hours passed without any success. “I’m afraid to dip too low with this plane.”

“Yes, that must be the trouble,” responded her companion. “They could come down amongst those bushes and camp for the night, and we’d never see them. It seems like a wild-goose chase to me.”

“You don’t want to give up?”

“No, not as long as we can get any news at all. And they can’t go on forever without gas. They’ll have to stop at airports every once in a while to refuel, and then they’ll be caught.”

“Some of these little Mexican places may not have been informed,” observed Linda. “If they didn’t speak English—or didn’t have a radio.”

On and on they flew, over this hot, deserted land, so uncultivated and barren. The sun sank and twilight came on—and still no sign of a town or an airport where the girls might land.

“I’m afraid I’m lost,” Linda admitted to Dot, when it became too dim to distinguish the ground even with the aid of glasses. “I’ll have to fly lower, and look for a landing. I think remember a place a couple of miles back.”

She circled about and began flying in the opposite direction, cautiously gliding a little nearer to the ground.

“Do you mind sleeping out tonight, Dot?” she inquired.

Her companion made a face. She had read enough about Mexican bandits not to relish the prospect.

“I suppose we’ll have to,” she said. “Anyway, we have plenty of food.”

Darkness was coming on fast; there was nothing to do but take a chance at landing. Beyond them stretched great black mountains, deep and forbidding, inhabited, they felt sure, by all sorts of wild animals. These must be avoided at any cost; so Linda went back to the spot she had selected and prepared to make a dangerous landing. How thankful she was that she had had plenty of experience in spot landings!

Keeping the plane still high enough to maintain the glide to the spot, she combined maneuvers to accomplish her purpose. From a glide, she went into a side-slip until she lost altitude, then, as she approached the landing-mark, she gradually reduced speed with the forward slip, straightening out just as she reached the ground. And landed on the exact spot she had selected!

“Good work, Linda!” cried Dot, admiringly.

Linda grinned.

“I was afraid I might be out of practice,” she said. “Spoiled by my Ladybug. It’s a satisfaction to know I can still land an ordinary plane. I guess she’ll be all right, just here.... Now for some food! I’m starved.”

“So am I. And thirsty too.... Where shall we make our camp?”

They looked all about them. In spite of the gathering darkness, they could see bare ground everywhere; only a few clumps of dry bushes in the distance. It was not exactly the spot one would select to camp out, if given a choice.

“Not too near the plane,” said Linda. “Though I guess we don’t need to build a fire. I don’t believe we could find any wood. No; let’s just open a can or two, and eat oranges and biscuits for tonight. Anything would taste good now.”

They prepared their meal and ate it almost in silence, for they were too weary to talk. Then, crawling into their blankets, although the night was exceedingly mild, they went to sleep under the stars.

The first faint rays of light were appearing when Linda was abruptly awakened by a familiar sound over her head. She sat up, reaching instinctively for her revolver at her side, and looking about her for some animal which might be the cause of the noise. But the sound, now more loud than before, was not that of an animal. It grew nearer, almost deafening—over her head. An airplane, of course! Now fully awake, she looked up into the skies. The plane was descending; a flashlight was turned into her face. Blinded for an instant, she looked away. Then, as she turned her gaze upon it again, she saw it on the ground. And, wonder of wonders, it was an autogiro!

Excitedly she turned to her companion. But Dot was still sleeping peacefully. That wasn’t surprising; it had always been hard to waken Dot. Alarms right beside her bed never had any effect.

“Dot!” she whispered, disentangling herself from her blanket, and edging up nearer to her chum. “Dot! Wake up!”

But Linda stopped suddenly; she couldn’t say anything more. With the speed of a bolt of lightning, a man ran at her, and, grasping both Linda’s hands with one of his, he clapped a wet rag over her face with the other. She had just time enough to identify her attacker as Sprague, when she fell to the ground unconscious. And, although she did not see what happened next, the same fate was accorded to Dot.

Both girls had been chloroformed!

CHAPTER IX
THE LADYBUG!

Dot was the first of the two girls to come to consciousness. With a gasp for breath, she pushed the cloth from her face and sat up. For a moment or two everything swam about her; she didn’t know where she was.

She thought at first that she and Linda were on that deserted island in the Atlantic Ocean where they had been stranded early in the summer. But no; the ground was hard and dry—not a bit sandy—and there was no ocean in view. That couldn’t be the explanation. For there was the Ladybug within a few hundred yards!

She glanced at Linda and saw that she was lying motionless beside her on the barren ground, her blanket thrown aside. With a cloth over her face! In sudden panic Dot pulled it off desperately. Oh, suppose Linda were dead!

“Linda! Darling!” she implored piteously, but there was no reply, no movement from the inert figure. With a tremendous effort Dot forced herself to rise and bend over her chum.

“Tell me you aren’t dead, Linda!” she begged, hysterically.

A faint flutter of her companion’s eyelids came as a response.

With a tremendous effort, Dot reached for the thermos bottle and held water to Linda’s lips. At last the color came faintly back to the aviatrix’s face, and she smiled faintly.

“I’m—all right—Dot,” she managed to whisper. “But what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Dot took a drink of the water herself, and felt more revived.

“Where are we?” asked Linda.

“Somewhere in Mexico. Don’t you remember? We were flying after that girl, in Mr. Eckert’s Sky Rocket, and we came down for the night.”

Linda rubbed her eyes and looked about her. And caught sight of the Ladybug, whose appearance had so amazed Dot a moment before. And rubbed her eyes, and stared again.

“Am I crazy, Dot—or is that really an autogiro over there? Or am I seeing things?”

“It’s the Ladybug,” replied Dot. “I’m positive. We couldn’t both be dreaming.”

“But how did it get here? Is that girl around?”

“I don’t hear her. Unless she’s hiding.” Dot lowered her voice to a whisper. “Have you got your revolver handy, Linda?”

Linda felt at her side, where she had put it the previous night when she went to sleep, and sure enough, it was there. And, with the touch of that revolver, memory of the scene that preceded unconsciousness returned.

“I remember now!” she cried triumphantly. “I was wakened just as it was getting light, by a big noise. I finally identified it as a plane. At first I thought it was bandits, and I recall reaching for my revolver.... Yes.... Then I saw it was an autogiro. It landed ... and a man ... it was Sprague, I’m sure ... came and clapped that rag over my face. That’s all.”

“How ghastly!” cried Dot. “I can’t seem to remember a thing myself. I must have been sound asleep when he did it to me. But where is he now?”

“I know!” exclaimed Linda, with a sudden flash of understanding. “They must have made off in Mr. Eckert’s plane! In the Sky Rocket—for it’s gone.”

“Of course that’s it!” agreed Dot. “But how do you suppose they ever spotted us?”

“Well, you see, the Ladybug can fly much lower than we could in the Sky Rocket,” Linda explained. “They probably saw us in the air—when we didn’t see them—and followed us about till they saw where we made our landing. Then they waited for us to get to sleep, and for early morning light to help them in landing and taking off, and then descended on us with the chloroform.”

“Why do you think they wanted to swap planes?” asked Dot. “Because the Sky Rocket is faster?”

“Yes. And it wouldn’t be so easy to spot in the sky as an autogiro. Besides, by doing this, they know they will be throwing the police off the clue. Pretty clever, I’d say.”

“Those two are about the slickest pair of schemers I’ve ever heard of. There’s nothing they don’t think of.”

“And with each new trick they make a gain. Mr. Eckert’s plane is faster, newer, and more expensive than the Ladybug.”

“True. But aren’t you glad to have the dear old Ladybug back again?” asked Dot.

“I surely am. If she will fly. That’s another thing, Dot. You know that man at the airport said that she had a damaged wing. So naturally, the Spragues would be glad to get hold of a fresh plane.”

“I wonder whether they had trouble taking off,” observed Dot. “It’s not any too easy.”

“No, but the ground’s very hard. I guess they haven’t had any rain here all summer.... Come on, Dot, if you’re able to walk, let’s go over and see the Ladybug. I’m dying to get a look at her again.”

“So am I,” agreed her companion.

Walking a trifle shakily at first, and feeling extremely weak and queer after their experience, the girls went slowly to the spot where the autogiro was resting. Like her owner, she, too, looked in bad condition, as if she had been mistreated, and had travelled a great distance. And, as Linda expected, the patch on the wing was split open again.

“No wonder they swapped planes!” exclaimed Linda. “I guess that girl was pretty desperate. Well, thank goodness, I keep stuff on hand for repairs.”

“And thank goodness you know how to do it!” added Dot, with admiration. “Any other girl would be in a fine picnic in a fix like this!”

“Speaking of picnics, don’t you think we’d feel better if we ate something? I don’t feel a bit sick at my stomach—only terribly weak. Breakfast might help. They didn’t take our food and water, did they?”

“They didn’t take what we left out for breakfast,” replied the chum. “But unfortunately we left most of our stuff in the plane.”

“Well, we’ll have to eat sparingly. But if I work fast, I ought to be able to get off by noon, and we can surely fly till we find a place to eat.”

“Have we gas?”

“Yes, I just looked. Enough to go a couple of hundred miles.”

Arm in arm they went back to their little encampment and ate the food which Dot had reserved for breakfast and drank the coffee in one of the thermos bottles. The remainder of the water they decided to keep for their flight, and they still had half a dozen oranges which Dot had purposely left out of the Sky Rocket, expecting to eat them during the morning.

Linda wasted no time. As soon as she had finished eating she set right to work on the damaged wing. It was not hard for her, for she knew every tiniest detail of the construction. How thankful she was that it was her own Ladybug that she had to repair, and not a strange plane!

Much to her delight, she found her own license cards on the seat of the cockpit. Evidently the girl had no further use for them.

After the repairs had been made to the outside of the plane, Linda tested the engine. It was not running so smoothly as she liked to hear it. A spark plug was missing. With a sigh, she set to work again.

Dot, who had cleaned up all evidences of their camp, watched her in dismal silence. The day grew hotter and hotter, the sun poured down mercilessly on Linda, bending patiently over her work while the perspiration streamed from her face. But it was fixed at last; everything was to her satisfaction.

“Let’s have an orange,” she suggested, wiping her face with her handkerchief. “Oh, maybe I wouldn’t like a good swim right now!”

“And we haven’t even water enough to wash our faces!” lamented Dot.

“If we only had that gallon jug we put into the Sky Rocket!”

“Oh, well, we will soon find a town, now that it is light enough to find our way.”

Dot brought the oranges, and they tasted good, although they had become exceedingly warm from the hot sun.

“Think we’ll have any trouble taking off?” she inquired, as they finished the fruit.

“I guess not. If the Sky Rocket could get off—and she evidently did—I’m sure the Ladybug can make it. It’s good hard ground all about.”

Linda sounded confident, but Dot’s heart was in her mouth until she saw the Ladybug actually rise from the earth and soar up into the skies—wherein lay safety.

Once again Linda’s heart was singing with rapture. She had enjoyed piloting that swift plane of Mr. Eckert’s, but after all, there was nothing like her beloved Ladybug. Why, the thing was almost human, the way it responded to her touch!

Another great advantage at the present time, when the girls had lost their way, was the autogiro’s ability to fly low. Now they could watch the landscape for towns and airports and landing-fields. Oh, it was good to have the Ladybug back again, if she couldn’t make a hundred and fifty miles an hour!

The country was so strange, so different from anything they were used to, that, in spite of its barrenness, they watched it in fascination. They came to the mountains and Linda nosed her plane upward, over the steep slopes covered with pine forests, until she was rewarded by seeing little villages on the other side. Straw-roofed houses dotted the landscape; there was evidence of farm-life, of some kind of civilization, though just what, the girls couldn’t make out from their height in the air.

Linda consulted her map, and familiarized herself with the names of several of the towns near the mountains, determined to fly on until she could find a good landing. She noticed the tracks of a railroad in the distance, and this she decided to follow, until it should lead to a station, and be identified as a town. Her gas was growing low, but she had no fear of a forced landing. In country like this there would be plenty of opportunities for an autogiro.

Half an hour later she hovered over a small Mexican town that provided an airport, and brought the Ladybug to earth.

A man who was obviously a Mexican came forward to meet them.

“Do you speak English?” asked Linda.

The man nodded, smiling.

Reassured, the girls climbed out of the cockpit, and Dot proceeded to tell their story, asking how she could notify the police in Los Angeles in the quickest time, so as to have them pursue the Sky Rocket instead of the autogiro.

“You can send a wire immediately, right from here,” the man replied. “At least—you can when the operator comes back. He’s off for supper now.”

“I am a wireless operator,” announced Linda, calmly. “If you are willing to trust me, I can send my own message.”

“O. K.,” agreed the man, who was beginning to decide that girls could do almost anything now-a-days.

“And I want to leave the autogiro here for the night, and have her filled with gas and oil,” she continued. “And go to some hotel for a meal. Can you recommend one for us?”

“There are several hotels,” he replied, proudly. “But I will send you to the best.”

It proved to be strangely unlike any hotel the girls had ever visited. It was a long, low stucco building, with stone floors on the first story, and bare boards above. The supper, too, was unlike American food, but it tasted good to the hungry girls who had had nothing but a couple of oranges since their breakfast. And the prospect of a roof over their heads, after their disastrous adventure of the night before, was extremely pleasant. After their hearty supper they sat out on the wide, roofless veranda until the night grew cool enough for sleep.

“But where do we go from here?” asked Dot, wondering whether Linda had had enough by now, and was ready to go back to Los Angeles.

“More pursuit,” returned her companion. “I feel under greater obligations than ever to catch that thief now—for she has Mr. Eckert’s plane. I’m responsible for it. We’ll fly around to all the airports for news. Their gas supply ought to be getting low, and they’ll have to stop somewhere to fill up. That’s the clue we’ll have to follow.”

“I wish we could get back into the United States,” remarked Dot. “I don’t like the bugs here in Mexico.”

“I don’t think we can hope for that, till we catch them. They’re going to steer clear of our police.”

“I suppose you’re right,” yawned Dot. “Well, let’s go get some sleep. We can’t tell what adventures may be in front of us tomorrow.”

“No, we can’t possibly tell,” agreed Linda.

CHAPTER X
A CLOSE CALL

“I think,” announced Linda at the breakfast table in the Mexican hotel the following morning, “that we’ll have to cross the mountains today.”

Dot groaned.

“What a pleasant little ray of sunshine you are, Linda!” she said.

“I don’t see why you object so to the mountains—in broad daylight, I mean. If there are bears and snakes in the mountains, they can’t attack us in the air, can they?”

“So long as we just stay up in the air, it’s all right. What I don’t care about is camping out in these wild spots.”

“I don’t expect we’ll have to,” Linda assured her. “But I am taking an extra tank of gasoline, in case we can’t find a place to refuel. Meanwhile, what I want you to see about is the food, if you will.”

“I’m to make a visit to the kitchen, I suppose?” inquired Dot. She made a wry face at the cereal she was eating. “Do you know, Linda, I could bear most anything if only we never had to eat another mouthful of this hotel’s cooking.”

Linda laughed.

“I know it’s not exactly like the Ambassador. Still, it’s a lot better than nothing, and we might be very glad to have it.”

Dot did as she was asked and raided the hotel kitchen, ignoring the indignant protests of the servants. Inside of half an hour the girls were back at the airport where they had left the autogiro, and Linda was giving the Ladybug a thorough inspection, for she did not have much confidence in the mechanic’s knowledge.

“Any news of the Sky Rocket?” she asked, as she completed her work to her satisfaction.

“No, not a thing,” replied the man.

Somewhat discouraged, the girls climbed into the cockpits and Linda taxied a short distance along the runway, but left the ground so quickly that the mechanic stood there staring at the autogiro with his mouth wide open.

Linda directed her course south, aiming to reach a larger airport before noon. Here she made a landing, refueled, and again inquired for news. A yellow biplane, it seemed, had been sighted that morning, flying low, going west towards the coast of the Gulf of California. Whether it was the Sky Rocket or not, no one could say. But at least it was a clue to follow.

“I told you we’d have to cross those mountains,” remarked Linda. “But please don’t start to worry about them yet.”

Linda changed her direction and headed the ship west, and they flew a monotonous course for a couple of hours. The sun glared down upon them, and the earth below looked parched and barren. So different from their own Ohio country in the month of October.

They reached the mountains at last, and after assuring herself that there was plenty of gas in her reserve tanks, Linda flew dauntlessly towards them. As she approached, she noted a heavy cloud bank hovering directly above the mountains, and extending so far on either side that she gave up all thought of going around it. Instead she put the ship into a sharp climb and headed resolutely into it. She held the climb until she was several thousand feet higher to make sure of clearing the mountain safely, but as they had failed at this height to rise above the cloud, she leveled off.

Grayness was all about them, enveloping them like a blanket, and cutting off their view of either the mountains or the sun. In her powerlessness to see in this unknown region, Linda suddenly experienced a queer choking sensation, brought on by her helplessness. Scolding herself for this momentary weakness, she pulled back the joy-stick and nosed the Ladybug still higher up. But climb as she might, she could not get away from that cloud.

Dot, however, did not appear to be frightened at all. Wasn’t Linda always able to get the best of almost any bad situation, even if it were an unknown mountain range in a mist? She was singing cheerfully to herself, when all of a sudden, the words died on her lips.

Another plane was approaching—was almost on top of them! They had not been able to see it, because of the cloud, or to hear it, because of the noise of their own motor. But there it was, rushing headlong at them with the relentless speed of an infuriated animal. Dot held her breath and shut her eyes.

Linda saw it too, and flashed on her lights as a signal. But it was too late for signals; only a miracle could save them. With a sudden sharp turn she banked to the left, and went into a side-slip, dropping the plane fifty feet. The other plane passed over their heads, barely missing the rotor blades.

The perspiration had collected on her face in beads, and her hands were hot and moist. It had been a narrow escape!

But it evidently wasn’t over. Or could it be another plane? For the thing was almost upon her again, as if it, too, had dropped on purpose. She couldn’t believe her ears. Was it that girl—and had she recognized the rotor blades of the autogiro, and was trying to force Linda to land?

Her heart in her mouth, she banked again, dropping for the second time, determined to land now at any cost. The strain had been awful the first time, but now it actually unnerved her. Inside of that cloud—on the dangerous mountain side! No; she could not take another chance, not only with her own life, but with Dot’s. Wherever she came down, it couldn’t be as dangerous as this.

Gradually throttling her engine down to a slower speed, she began her descent by a series of glides. All the while watching for a glimpse of the solid earth beneath her.

Down, down they came, but still there was no ground visible. They must have passed over the mountains, she decided, and were descending into a valley. Or level ground, perhaps. That thought was encouraging.

“There it is!” shouted Dot, almost hysterically. “The earth, I mean!”

Linda breathed a deep sigh of relief. Never before had she been so thankful to see it, unless perhaps the first time she had made a parachute jump.

“It must be the plateau!” she cried, joyfully. “We must have passed over the mountains!”

Gently the autogiro settled down to a landing on the level ground beneath them. It was a fertile spot in comparison with the other places in Mexico where they had landed. The earth was not nearly so parched or barren, and here and there, between the underbrush and the bare spots, a kind of coarse grass was growing. Perhaps, Linda thought, the land was used by someone for grazing.

“Quite a pleasant spot,” remarked Dot gaily, as if they had been on a picnic instead of face to face with death.

“See the mountains over there?” asked Linda, for they were out of the range of the cloud through which they had just passed.

“Yes. But they’re far enough away that I really don’t mind. If a bear wanders over to visit us, we’ll feed him some Mexican food.”

They climbed out of the cockpits, carrying their box of provisions in their arms, when they saw a sight that made them stand breathless in horror. About five hundred yards away they beheld a great mass of flame, shooting up to the sky.

“It’s a plane!” exclaimed Linda. “It must be the one we almost crashed against.”

With one thought in mind, the girls both dropped their box and started to run. Oh, if a human being were caged in that burning cockpit! It was too dreadful to think of—a death like that.

But before they had covered fifty yards of the intervening distance, they saw a parachute floating down to the earth. They stopped instantly, waiting in breathless suspense. Suppose it were Sprague, with his supply of chloroform? Tensely alert, Linda pulled her revolver from her belt.

But it was not Sprague. The man who floated down let out a cry of horror when he recognized Linda and Dot. Though why he should be so horrified, the girls did not know.

The man was Bertram Chase!

He disentangled himself from his ropes, glanced at his burning plane, and let out a groan.

“You!” he cried. “And to think, I almost killed you!”

“You couldn’t help that,” said Linda gently. “It seems we almost did for you, too. If you hadn’t jumped.”

“That wasn’t your fault. My plane caught on fire somehow—a leak, I think, in the gas feed. That’s why I jumped.... But that had nothing to do with you.... But I actually tried to force you down—the second time, I mean. The first was accident.”

“But why?” asked Dot, incredulously.

“I saw your rotors, the first time I passed over you. And knew it was the autogiro. And thought that girl was piloting it, of course. How did you girls ever get hold of it again?”

“Then you didn’t get the report from the Los Angeles headquarters?” inquired Linda.

“What report?”

“That we exchanged planes. My double stole our Sky Rocket, and left us the Ladybug instead.”

“And got away with it?” demanded Chase.

“Yes. We’re still after them. But where have you been in the meanwhile?”

“Flying around these mountains, without any touch of civilization. I even made a search on foot, but it proved to be a false clue that I was following. But tell me the story, while we take a walk over and examine my poor ship.”

Briefly Dot related the facts of the night-adventure with Sprague and his wife, as the three young fliers approached the burning mass. The flames had somewhat subsided, and only a smoking, blackened frame remained.

“Was it yours, Mr. Chase?” asked Linda sympathetically, thinking how dreadful she would feel if it were the Ladybug.

“No,” he replied. “It belonged to the secret service. It was an old boat, but I was fond of it. And I’ve lost a lot of my things.... I think,” he added, gloomily, “that I’d better hunt about for some water, to put the fire entirely out. I don’t want to start a prairie fire, or whatever you call it.”

“Do you suppose there is a stream anywhere about?” asked Linda.

“I hope so. If we’ve got to stay here for the night.”

“Then come back to the Ladybug and get a can to fill, in case you do find water. Bring some back to us, if possible, and then we’ll give you some supper. Real Mexican food—if you like it.” It was Dot who made this offer, and she winked slyly at Linda as she concluded.

The young man wandered off, and the girls turned to their preparations for supper. The food had already been cooked, so they decided to eat it cold.

It was some time before Chase returned with the can of water and the announcement that he had found a stream, and had succeeded in putting out the fire. He sat down gloomily beside the girls, but he made no motion to eat.

“Don’t look so sad, Mr. Chase,” said Dot. “They’ll give you another plane.”

“It isn’t that,” he replied, morosely. “It’s my foolhardiness. When I think of what I did to you, I’d like to shoot myself.”

He looked so pathetic, so utterly downcast, that Linda didn’t know what to say. But Dot, in her characteristic manner, tried teasing him. Very solemnly she handed him Linda’s pistol.

“If you really want to shoot yourself, go off away from us, where you won’t clutter up the landscape!”

The young man laughed in spite of himself.

“Snap out of it, Bert!” she commanded, using his first name on purpose. “And have some of this delicious Mexican food. I don’t know its name, but it tastes like week-old hash to me.”

Smiling again, Chase accepted the paper plate she held out to him.

“Just imagine, Bert,” Dot continued, afraid to stop talking lest he become sad again, “that we’re here on a picnic, with the autogiro, and this delicious supper. And you’re lucky enough to be the young man chosen—out of hundreds of admirers of Miss Linda Carlton! Why, you have no idea how many young men in this country would give their best hats to have your chance!”

Linda flushed at this remark.

“Now, Dot,” she protested. “You’re being silly!”

“I am not. I’ll enumerate them, if you like. There’s Ralph Clavering, and Harriman Smith, and—”

“Hush, Dot!” cried her chum, putting her hand over her mouth. “That’s about enough out of you!”

Chase, who by this time was grinning broadly, bowed in acknowledgment.

“All joking aside,” he said, “I realize what an honor it is. And that’s just why I feel so rotten about doing those two mean things to you, Linda.” He was so in earnest that he did not realize that he had used her first name. “Accusing you of forgery the first time I saw you, and then almost killing you. You, who have never done anything wrong in your whole life!”

“Come now, that’s putting it on a little bit too thick!” remonstrated Dot. “Linda’s not such a saint as that. I remember many a time that she climbed cherry trees that didn’t belong to her, and skinned out of school—”

“That’s enough about me,” interrupted Linda. “It’s getting so dark, I think we ought to make our plans for the night.”

“I suppose we have to stay here,” remarked Dot, with a sigh.

“Why the sigh?” asked Chase.

“Oh, I don’t care for camping out—in Mexico.”

“I don’t blame you—after being chloroformed,” sympathized Chase. “But you don’t have to, tonight. For I found a straw-covered shack over near the stream where I got our water. You girls can have that. I’ll stay up here, beside the autogiro.”

“You have redeemed yourself, Bert!” exclaimed Dot, jumping to her feet, and shaking his hand. “For one night at least, we’ll be safe!”

CHAPTER XI
FLIRTING WITH DEATH

The little Mexican adobe house which Bert Chase had discovered was the funniest Linda and Dot had ever seen. A one-room affair, with a slanting straw-covered roof, and no windows. Only two doors, opening back and front.

“I’d almost rather sleep under the stars,” remarked Linda. “For there are probably all sorts of bugs in the corners and cracks.”

Dot shivered. “Still, bugs are better than bears and snakes, that might come wandering down from those mountains,” she said. “And besides, it would be ungrateful not to use the house after Bert found it.”

“It will be protection from the sun in the morning,” added Linda. “Because this Mexican climate gets pretty hot.”

So, spreading their blankets on the floor and propping the doors open with sticks, they lay down on their hard bed and fell fast asleep, not to awaken until quite late the following morning.

“Fog again!” yawned Dot, as she finally got up stiffly and walked to the door. “I’m sick of these fogs.”

“It’ll probably clear up soon,” Linda reminded her. “I’ve read that early morning fogs are the common thing in this part of the country.”

“Let’s hunt that stream Bert was talking about, and get a good wash,” suggested Dot. “Before we go back to the autogiro.”

They found it not far from the little house, and although it was shallow and narrow, the water was clear and refreshing. They felt much better as they made their way back to the spot where the Ladybug had landed.

For several minutes they could see nothing because of the fog, and they began to feel worried. Suppose something had happened to Chase or to the autogiro during the night! What a desolate place to be stranded!

Before these dismal thoughts could really take hold of them, they spied the dim outlines of the Ladybug, shadowy in the fog. She was still there! Their means of escape.

Dot placed her hands at her mouth, and gave a war-whoop for Chase.

“Yo-ho-ho-ho-Bert!” she shouted.

“Yo-ho, girls!” came the reassuring reply. “This way!”

Then they distinguished a fire, and a moment later, came upon him, contentedly cooking a fish.

“Where did you get it?” demanded Dot.

“Caught it. Early this morning,” he replied. “I felt guilty about eating so much of your food last night, so I tried to get a contribution. That stream widens out about a mile below your little house, so I went down and tried my luck.”

“You’re a peach!” exclaimed Dot. “Because all we have left is coffee and that terrible Mexican bread. It’s a wonder they don’t learn how to bake in Mexico.”

“It surely smells good,” observed Linda. “How soon can we eat?”

“As soon as you girls make the coffee. I brought up a fresh supply of water this morning. We’ll boil some of it, to take along with us for drinking, while we have the chance to do it.”

It turned out to be a delicious as well as a merry meal. While they ate, the fog gradually lifted, bringing a clear, if hot day, for their flight.

“We must be pretty near the coast of the Gulf of California,” said Linda. “So I think perhaps our best plan would be to fly across to the peninsula. I have an idea that girl is going to abandon the Sky Rocket as soon as she can, for it’s pretty conspicuous.”

“What would she do to get away, if she hadn’t a plane?” demanded Dot.

“Hide somewhere, or take a boat for South America perhaps. Now that she and her husband are out of the United States, it would be easy enough for them to book passage on a small steamer—without being noticed.”

“Is your autogiro in good condition?” inquired Chase. “I mean—I didn’t damage it yesterday, did I?”

“No. You know you never touched me. But I’ll look her over before we start. And put in that tank of extra gas I was carrying in the passenger’s cockpit.”

“Perhaps I could help you?” suggested the young man. “I don’t know much about the inside workings of a plane, but maybe two heads are better than one.”

Dot let out a peal of laughter.

“Linda is a graduate airplane mechanic,” she said. “She is the only woman in the country with a mechanic’s license!”

Chase stared in open-mouthed amazement.

“Whew!” he exclaimed. “I do take off my hat to you, Miss Linda Carlton!”

“You’d better!” laughed Dot.

“Oh, don’t be so silly,” put in Linda, anxious to be off. “Let’s all go over to the Ladybug now.”

While Dot put the equipment into the autogiro, Chase filled the gasoline tank and Linda gave the boat a hasty inspection. Apparently everything was ship-shape.

They climbed into the cockpits and Linda started the rotors in motion. It was Chase’s first experience in an autogiro, and he watched her with absorbed interest. The ease with which the Ladybug rose into the air seemed nothing short of miraculous to him, accustomed as he was to the prolonged taxi-ing of a fast plane.

With the aid of her maps and compass, Linda was able to judge their location pretty definitely, and she flew westward to the Gulf of California, aiming to stop first at an airport to make inquiries about the Sky Rocket, and to refuel. They passed over the plateau, and caught glimpses of several Mexican villages, which, however, seemed too small to boast of airports. At last, however, about noon, she spotted a town of some size, with beacon sign-posts, pointing to an airport. Here she made her landing.

“We’ll be out of luck if they don’t speak English,” remarked Dot.

“Don’t worry about that,” returned Chase. “I can speak Spanish, and they all understand that down here.”

But it wasn’t necessary, for one of the attendants at the field spoke English perfectly.

“Have you seen a yellow biplane?” demanded Dot, as the man came out of the hangar. “A fast plane?”

The attendant nodded.

“Yes,” he replied. “I did. We got a radio yesterday, telling us to be on the look-out for a stolen plane. I’m pretty sure I saw her yesterday, but she didn’t stop here.”

“She wouldn’t,” remarked Dot, bitterly.

“What direction did she take?” asked Linda.

“Straight across the Gulf. Due west.”

“Due west for us, then,” announced Linda. “Fill up my tanks, for we want to leave with all possible speed.”

Inside of ten minutes they were off again, more encouraged than they had been since the beginning of their pursuit. It looked now as if they really might catch those criminals.

In their eagerness to follow hot on the trail, not one of the three fliers even thought of lunch. Later in the day they were to regret this omission sorely.

An hour of flying brought them to the coast, but Linda did not stop. Out over the water she flew, her heart beating rapidly with the expectation of victory ahead.

But in her excitement, she had not realized how wide the Gulf of California was at this southern part. Two hundred miles, at least, if she kept her course straight. She had covered only a little more than half of this, when she saw to her horror that her main tank was exhausted. Twelve gallons of gas in the emergency supply, and almost a hundred miles to go!

What a fool she had been, not to put an extra tank into the cockpit! To think that after all her experience, she should be endangering three lives by her carelessness! To be forced down in the water! To meet death in a way she had not thought of, since her flight across the Atlantic Ocean!

She slowed down her speed and gazed all about her at the limitless expanse of water beneath them. No land in sight—not even a boat to which she could signal. Parachute jumping would be of no use, and she did not carry life-preservers.

She glanced again at the indicator; conserving gas as well as she could, it was nevertheless rapidly disappearing. Ten minutes more, perhaps—and then a watery grave! She grew panicky, more for her companions than for herself. She would have to tell them of their fate.

Trying to keep her voice from shaking, she called into the speaking-tube:

“We’re out of gas. We have to come down. Be prepared to jump clear of the ship!”

Chase and Dot looked at each other in incredulity. The young man thought Linda was joking, but the girl knew that it was not her chum’s habit to make ghastly jokes. If Linda said danger, she meant it. Desperately Dot reached for the glasses and peered anxiously about them in all directions.

Linda, her lips tight and her heart tense, continued to guide the plane and to watch the indicator. Five minutes more, perhaps—and then—what? The hungry waves, tossing beneath her, seemed to make their greedy answer.

A sudden hysterical cry from Dot sounded above the roar of the motor.

“Land!” she shouted, wildly. “Bank to the right!” And then, fearing that Linda had not heard her, she repeated her message through the speaking-tube.

Although Linda could still see nothing with her naked eye, she did as she was told, thankful that she was high enough in the air to gain considerable distance by gliding. Two minutes passed; the gas ran dry, but now the island was in sight. By careful manipulation, Linda thought she could make it.

With a series of side-slips, she gradually made her approach, coming nearer and nearer to the land as she descended, until she was actually over it. Then, with a dead-stick landing, so much easier with an autogiro than with an ordinary plane, she slowly came down on the sandy soil of the beach!

“Oh, thank Heaven!” cried Dot, in an ecstasy of relief. “A miracle, if there ever was one.”

Chase said nothing for a moment; he was speechless with admiration.

“Pretty tight squeeze,” admitted Linda, as she wiped the perspiration from her face. “If it hadn’t been for you, Dot, I’d never have seen it.”

Still trembling from their experience, the girls climbed out of the cockpits with Chase’s assistance. At last the young man found words to express his admiration to Linda. But she was too ashamed of her lack of foresight to accept any praise. She was still terribly vexed with herself.

“Now we’ll have to explore,” announced Dot. “Do you suppose anybody lives on this island?”

“I’m afraid not,” replied Chase. “Or they’d have been here to see us by this time. It looks pretty barren and forsaken to me.”

“No trees! No shade at all!” added Dot.

Nothing, indeed, but a dry underbrush, and the sort of weeds that grow in sandy soil. The little group walked all around the island, and found it to be very small. Probably it was not even shown on most maps, though Linda did recall seeing some dots in the southern part of the Gulf. And of course nobody lived there.

Dismally they came back to the beach where the Ladybug was resting.

“Is there any food left at all?” asked Chase, trying not to appear too eager.

“Not a crumb,” replied Dot. “Though we do still have about a gallon of water.”

“The first thing to do,” he said, “is to climb up on the plane and hoist a signal of distress. So we’ll catch a ship, if one goes past. If you’ll get me something to put....”

He glanced shyly at the girls. As they were both in khaki flying-suits, there was no chance of using a white skirt or petticoat, as he had so often read of, in books about ship-wreck. But Linda immediately procured a large square of canvas which she kept on hand for repair, and he did the climbing at once.

When he came down again, he produced the fishing-line which he had improvised that morning and set about to try to catch a fish. Linda spent her time inspecting the plane, and Dot went about gathering underbrush for a fire, in case Chase was lucky enough to secure a catch.

Each of the three had taken a deep drink of water, resolutely trying to stave off their hunger by that means.

An hour passed, and another, without any sign of a boat, and the girls began to wonder whether they would have to spend the night on this tiny island, without any food. They were sitting back on the beach, near to the autogiro, talking a little, and searching the waters often with the glasses for the sight of a ship. The sun was already low against the horizon.

“I wonder how far we are from the peninsula,” remarked Dot. “Maybe we could swim.”

“Not on an empty stomach,” returned Linda. “Besides, we must be pretty far. According to my figures.... Oh, look, Dot!” She jumped gaily to her feet.

“What! A boat?” cried her companion.

“No. Only Bert—with a fish! But it surely does look good.”

“Light your fire, Dot!” the young man called as he approached. “The fish is cleaned—all ready to fry.”