Willie’s mouth dropped, but, be it said to his everlasting credit, he never faltered. Three minutes later they were in the air flying an air-lane in the dark.
Rosemary shuddered as she thought what the outcome of this journey might be. Not that night flying over a regular air route, such as they were to follow for hundreds of miles, is usually hazardous. It is not. The way is “fenced” in by code signals broadcast by radio stations along the way. If the pilot is on the beaten path he hears a series of dot signals. If he swings to the right, this becomes dot-dash, and if to the left it becomes dash-dot, so he never loses the way.
“Unless—” the girl whispered to herself. She had seen to it that Willie’s motor was O.K. She smiled grimly as she thought of the month’s pay it would cost her.
“But if I had chartered one of our own planes, it would have taken half a year to pay up.” That, with her mother back in Kansas looking to her for part of her support, was not to be considered. “I just had to come!” she told herself. “I promised. And that little French girl would never call unless there was some great need.”
“Listen to that motor!” Willie chuckled in her ear. “Never heard it rattle along so sweetly.”
“No,” Rosemary agreed, smiling down deep in her soul, “I guess you never did!”
“For all that,” she thought, “he’s a real sport, shooting away like this into the night without asking a single question.”
“Willie!” she exclaimed aloud, “We’re getting dot-dashes! You’re off the course.
“There!” she sighed ten seconds later. “That’s O.K.”
So they zoomed on into the night.