He disappeared into an office, and returned with the map in question, marking the best spot on the beach for Linda to make her landing. Then he had the Sky Rocket pushed out on the runway, and the engine started.
“Watch the planes that arrive and leave here,” Linda shouted into his ear as she climbed into the cockpit.
“I’ll be on the job!” the man assured her. “And happy landings to you!”
The Sky Rocket taxied along the runway, and left the ground a minute later, as if it, too, were eager to be in the skies again, on the chase. Over the beach of Waikiki, past Diamond Head, southeast over the Pacific Ocean again, Linda directed her course, sure that at last she was within sight of her goal.
CHAPTER XVI
MISSING!
The girls had been away from Spring City for ten days when Mr. Carlton, Linda’s father, returned from his trip abroad and arrived at his sister’s home, expecting, naturally, to see his daughter.
“Hello, Emily!” he exclaimed, walking in as he so often did, without any notice, and kissing his sister nonchalantly, as if he had been absent a week instead of six months. “Where’s Linda?”
“Hollywood,” was his sister’s reply.
“No!” exclaimed the man, in a tone of deepest disappointment. It had always been a matter of extreme satisfaction to him that Linda had never been carried away by the lure of fame and fortune, and accepted a motion-picture contract.
“Don’t look so horrified, Tom!” laughed Miss Carlton. “I only wish she were safely acting for the movies. Instead of that, she’s chasing wildly around Mexico after a couple of criminals.”