Eagles! Great, huge, ominous birds, traveling through the air with the speed of machines. Involuntarily, she reached for her gun.
"No use!" shouted Nancy, in terror. "Too many of them!"
Realizing the truth of Nancy's words, Linda did the only thing possible: swiftly, almost recklessly, she landed on the ground, expecting to be dashed upward again, or the plane turned over, pinning her and her companion beneath. But miraculously, nothing disastrous happened; the autogiro had come down vertically and stopped. That, then, was the wonder of this marvelous little machine! Had it been any other kind of plane, the girls would surely have been injured—and possibly killed!
They had landed in a small clearing between the trees. Shutting off her engine, Linda turned, gasping, to her friend.
"Would you ever believe, a thing like that if you read it?" she demanded.
"The landing—or the birds?" inquired Nancy, still breathless with excitement.
"I really meant the birds, for I knew that the autogiro was wonderful. I've seen them land and take off before, though of course I never tried anything like this."
"Well, I did read about big birds bothering pilots one time—in a newspaper, I guess. But I didn't think much about it."
They waited quietly for a while until they felt calm again. The birds had flown on immediately; there was nothing to prevent their taking up their journey again. Ordinarily Linda would have been apprehensive of a take-off in so small a space, but after her landing, she felt confident. The autogiro rose instantly, almost vertically, and they were on their course again.
"I'm going to get Dad to buy me an autogiro!" Nancy announced. "This has decided me."