“They crashed,” Betty explained. No mention of the decoy light. That would come later.
“We’re going to try towing it in,” said Lena.
“I’ll help you,” said Joe. “My boat draws a lot of water. Bill can take you all in. His boat is small.”
So it was agreed. Betty and the two strange girls piled into Bill’s boat. Betty called, “So long and good luck!” Then they were away.
“Lena is the strangest girl I ever knew,” Betty told herself as she settled in her place. She wanted terribly to talk, but if she did, she might say the wrong thing. So she said never a word—not, at least, until she sat across a table from Grandfather Norton in his secret den. Then she really opened up.
They talked for an hour. The old man’s voice was mellow. His words came slowly, thoughtfully, from a well-stored mind. Betty was not a child and still at times she sprang to her feet to exclaim, “Lena knew it was going to happen. She really knew!”
“Perhaps,” was the slow reply. “Then again, perhaps not. Some people are gifted with intuition, particularly women.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“Even I suggested first that the plane might try to make a landing,” he added. “There was the whole set-up, night, a plane seeking a landing place, and a light that seemed a beacon.
“And at the most, we must admit,” he added thoughtfully, “that this big friend of yours, Lena, might well have been the means of saving lives. It was a mere chance that saved the plane.”