"This whole damned plane is full of Lardner's men. They were laughing at the trick they pulled on the airlines. Seems they forced the pilot to land, threw out both pilots and the hostess. Lardner was waiting at the private field and he came aboard."
"You're sure Lardner's on this plane?" Drake asked. "You didn't dream all this?"
"Listen, Cinderella." Puffy was himself again. "This sky bird is headquarters for every ex-con in Chicago. I don't know why they didn't throw us off with the hostess, but I sure wish they had."
A hard smile twisted Drake's lips.
"I think," he said, "that we're going to see Sylvia Fanton much sooner than I had planned. Unless we do some fast thinking we may not see her alive."
hey sat quietly as Drake studied the country under the plane. He tried to discover some landmark listed on the map. There was nothing but scarred, snowcapped mountain peaks. A sprinkling of toothpick pines relieved the monotony of blinding snow, here and there. Gradually, as the plane droned on, even these were left behind. Ahead—only the white wastes.
From somewhere forward in the plane came a hard chuckle of laughter.
"Our hosts are coming to life," Drake said. "It's now or never." He pushed bare feet into the aisle and dropped, stretching his arms overhead with a yawn.