“Good idea!” returned Chase, immediately. “Which plane do you want, Linda?”
“I think I’d rather have the Sky Rocket,” returned the girl. “If you can manage the Ladybug. Because if I should find out that the Spragues have sailed somewhere in a boat, I might like to pursue them. And the Sky Rocket can go so much faster, and carry enough gas for a trip across the United States.”
“It’s all one to me,” agreed Chase. “If you’ll trust me with the Ladybug.”
“Certainly,” Linda assured him. “Now I think I’ll go look the Sky Rocket over, and tighten some of those wires that I see out of ‘stream-line’. That makes a lot of difference, you know.”
Linda finished her job in less than an hour, and after they had eaten the remainder of their food supply, she gave Chase a few instructions about flying the autogiro. Satisfied that he knew how to manage it, the girls insisted that he take off first, flying back north along the sea-coast.
“And when you’re through, you can park the Ladybug at the Los Angeles airport,” concluded Linda. “I’ll pick her up there, after the girl has been caught—by us, or somebody else.”
She and Dot stood watching the young man take off and soar into the air, until he was finally lost to sight. Once again they were alone, but with more hope of success than they had had before. Now both planes had been regained, and they had the Sky Rocket to rely on. They felt, with it, that they had the world—or better still, the air—at their command.
“There must be a seaport pretty near here,” said Linda, as she and Dot climbed into the powerful yellow plane. “If the Spragues haven’t left from there, they at least ought to be able to find out by wire what vessels have left the coast.”
She flew straight down to Cape San Lucas, a seaport town, which boasted of a sizable airport. It was terribly hot here, when she brought the plane to the ground; the heat seemed to rise in waves to hit them in the face as the girls climbed out of the cockpits. For the airport was located behind the town, and that morning no ocean breezes brought cooling refreshment to landward.
It was a large airport, and it kept attendants who could speak all the principal languages. The man who came forward, a dark Mexican, surprised the girls by speaking perfect English.