“What could be easier? Will you come aboard?” Jeanne climbed to her place at the wheel.
Ah, poor Jeanne! Had you but known!
A little thrill ran up the little flier’s spine as her plane took to the air. She felt restless, ill at ease.
“Ah well,” she whispered, “just one more incident in a flying gypsy’s life—nothing more.”
It was more, much more than that, as she was to learn.
Time passed. In Chicago it had been dark for two hours. Rosemary Sample was seated at her desk in her own private room. A radio head-set had been clamped down over her ears for two hours. She was reading a book. At the same time she was listening. She had not forgotten her promise to be on the air listening every evening she was at her home port, listening for that code number she had given so long ago, but never forgotten.
Of a sudden the book dropped from her nerveless fingers. A message of startling clearness had reached her ears.
“48—48! Petite Jeanne! One hundred miles north of Happy Vale, an abandoned farm. You will see my plane. Help! Come quick, or you may be too late!”
“Too late?” Rosemary repeated, springing to her feet.
A moment later she had Jerry, the mechanic, on the wire: