“Disappeared!” the others echoed. “But how—where——”
“Mr. Howard talked to Brent on the telephone,” Bruce continued with his tale. “After the crash last night, when Brent could drag himself free of the wreckage, he started out to find help. He thought he saw a light in the distance and made for that. The sleet and snow was thick and fast. He couldn’t go very swiftly, the ground was uneven and it was pitch dark but he kept on going as best he could. He knew he must come to something eventually. He had left Gale pinned in her seat by the branch of a tree which was too heavy for him, hurt as he was, to move.”
Bruce paused and not a sound came from the others. They were hanging breathlessly onto his every word.
“At last he saw a house ahead of him. He hurried forward but all his knocking on the door brought no one. He turned away and went on. Later he came to another place. By now he was worn out completely. He could hardly stand. He could do no more than stumble up to the door. The last he recalls was leaning against the door and as it gave way, of falling into the dark room beyond.”
“Go on,” in a faint whisper Janet voiced the feelings of all of them.
“Well, the next thing he knew he was in the hospital. The people who lived in the house he had come to had taken him there. At once he sent out a party to the plane, but when they got there Gale was gone.”
“No wonder,” Carol said. “It must have been hours after he left that the rescue party arrived.”
Bruce nodded and was silent.
“And they don’t know where Gale is?” Phyllis declared, rather than asked.
“No,” Bruce continued. “It had snowed a lot after the wreck and all around the plane the snow was unbroken. No footsteps to show how she had gotten out or in what direction she had gone.”