Jane thanked the driver and hastened into the operations office on the first floor. A teletype was clicking out the latest weather reports and the radio operator was busy giving the pilot of the special plane final information on the wind and visibility at Cheyenne.
Miss Comstock, who had been talking to the night chief of operations, turned to Jane.
“I was afraid we weren’t going to locate you,” the chief stewardess said, visibly relieved at Jane’s arrival. “This is an important trip and I knew I could count on you to make a good impression.”
The night operations chief joined them.
“This special is going through ahead of everything,” he told Jane, “and we can’t have it delayed if Mrs. Van Verity Vanness gets air sick and they have to slow the schedule or set the ship down at some field to wait until she feels better. In other words, it’s up to you to see that she is so comfortable from now on and so busy she won’t have time to think about complaining.”
“Is she ill now?”
“Salt Lake said she looked like a ghost and Rock Springs just cussed when I asked him how she looked. One thing, we’re going to get that special off this field and from then on it’s up to you to see that Mrs. Van Verity Vanness holds together until we land in Chicago.”
Charlie Fischer strolled in and glanced at the weather report coming in on the teletype.
“Plenty of visibility and a good tail wind. I’m going to take that three-engined demon up where there’s plenty of room and ride it for all it’s worth. You can put me down for about 160 miles an hour from here to Omaha,” he told the night operations chief.
“If you can do that, you’ll whittle better than half an hour off the schedule we’ve worked out,” said the night chief.