“Clinging against the strut, clutching the icy metal to save her life and the lives of all the men in the plane, the girl fought the cold and fatigue and growing numbness for forty minutes. Nick opened his throttle wide and the ship plunged through the darkness at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, despite the resistance of the débris that clung to the jagged spars of the broken wing-tip. He flew entirely by his compass now; the lights of towns below had been blotted out when the flood waters destroyed power-lines. He wondered how long the girl could stay there, for he realized the fight she was putting up to cling to the strut.
The lights of Little Rock blinked up ahead of them at last, and Nick circled the field and landed by the beacon light. The plane rolled out of the beam, and Nick turned back to the hangar. He taxied to the “line” and without stopping his motor scrambled out along the wing to help Miss Richardson to the ground.
But she was not there!
“Nick was stunned. He pictured her being torn from the strut by the fury of the wind; he visualized her falling into the black waters of the flood. Then he realized that she had fallen to the ground after he had landed; otherwise the plane would have been unbalanced, and he would have been unable to maintain it on an even keel. She was somewhere on the flying-field, probably having fallen in exhaustion, when the Douglas landed.
Borrowing a flashlight, and leaving the injured men to the care of Doctor Matthies, Nick hurried out across the flying-field, throwing the beam of light ahead of him, swinging it back and forth across the wheel tracks and out into the misty gloom of the flying-field. He broke into a run, splashing through the mud wearily. He reached the point where he had turned the ship out of the beacon light, then hunted downwind in the darkness toward the point where the plane’s wheels first had touched the ground.
Failing to find her there, he retraced his steps to the plane—and found her almost under the wing, lying prostrate in the muddy water of the field, unconscious and exhausted from her struggle with the elements of Nature. He picked her up gently and carried her to where an ambulance was waiting.
In the ambulance, with Nick and Doctor Matthies riding by her side, she opened her eyes and looked vaguely around her. She recognized them both presently; then her gaze wandered out the window of the car. At last she looked back at them.
“We made it, didn’t we?” she asked weakly. “Will—will Daddy get all right?”
Doctor Matthies patted her hand. “He’ll be all right,” he said softly. “He’s better now—he’s at the hospital.”
She was silent again for several minutes, and then smiled wanly.