“I was afraid there weren’t going to be any planes here at all,” he remarked to Miss Carlton as he left the porch. “It would have been humiliating to have all the pilots come over in cars.”
“Humiliating, perhaps, but very sensible,” returned the other. She watched the sky all the while he was gone and kept looking at her watch. Why, oh, why, must her precious child be the last to arrive?
Kit and Tom Hulbert, Sue Emery and Frank Lawlor returned with Mr. Clavering in a few minutes. They were all in high spirits, obviously unharmed by the storm, but they announced immediately that they had not found the treasure.
“Linda got it, of course,” said Kit. “But she deserves it, and I’m glad.”
Miss Carlton’s face lighted up with joy, not because her niece had won the prize, but because she believed she was safe.
“You have seen Linda?” she asked, eagerly.
Kit shook her head.
“No, Miss Carlton, we haven’t. Nobody has seen her since the storm. But we four got on the wrong track, and got lost, and Dot Crowley did the same thing. We all landed beside a river, where there was a house with the tower, but it wasn’t the right house.”
“Where is Dot?” inquired Miss Carlton.
“Coming. And you see that accounts for everybody except Linda, because Dad told me that the others have already arrived. So Linda must have the prize.”