A woman who had come through from ’Frisco was getting off at North Platte and Sue roused her just before they swooped down on the field. In ten minutes they were away again, with a radio order to stop at Grand Island to pick up a passenger for Chicago and another coast passenger would disembark at Lincoln.
The Night Flyer made most of the local stops, and as a result was anything but popular with the pilots. Most of the new men on the line drew the thankless job of piloting the Flyer, and the crew of Sue’s ship had been on only a little more than a month.
With a fair tail wind, they kept on time despite all of their stops, and they soared away from Omaha and over the muddy Missouri a few minutes after two a.m. with a new crew of pilots up ahead. The stewardesses made the entire trip from Cheyenne to Chicago, but the pilots changed at Omaha, unless piloting a special.
It was over this stretch of the line that Jane had encountered the thrilling experience which had brought her front page fame in every newspaper in the country and Sue looked out, halfway in the hope that something unusual enough to bring her fame, would happen.
But her hopes were doomed, and they went into Des Moines on time. The only field they missed was at Iowa City, and they sped over that one shortly after sunrise.
East of the Mississippi, they lost the sun in a murk of smoke and fog.
Sue’s light flashed, and she went forward to answer the call from the chief pilot.
“Weather around Chicago’s bad,” he said. “We may not be able to get through, so stall the passengers off if they get anxious about the time we’re due in Chicago.”
“But what will I tell them?” asked Sue.