The first section of the Night Flier came in from the west three minutes ahead of schedule and with a capacity load. While the passengers stretched their legs and visited about the flight over the mountains from Salt Lake, Sue stowed her kit away in the pantry.

With departure time at hand, she forgot the nervousness which had gripped her earlier and became a calm, self-contained nurse.

“The best of luck,” whispered Jane as she squeezed her friend’s hand.

Sue herded her passengers into the cabin and closed the door. The landing stage was wheeled away and the Night Flyer lumbered out of the hangar on the first lap of the long flight to Chicago.

Jane watched the lights of the plane until they were pin-points in the east.

It was Sue’s task to make her passengers comfortable for the night and she went along the aisle, adjusting seats, turning off lights, and bringing out the thick, warm blankets from the supply closet. In half an hour she had the task completed and only one passenger, an elderly man, had elected to read, selecting a Cheyenne paper with the latest news.

As they sped east, Sue wondered at her own nervousness which had been so evident before the flight. Now everything seemed so matter-of-fact. She felt as though she had been flying for years.

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.

“That’s your job. All I do is run this crate.”

Like Jane, Sue was finding out that pilots who on the ground were the pleasantest and most friendly flyers, were more than likely to be martinets when they were at the controls of a big passenger plane.

Sue took the rebuff good naturedly. Of course it was her job to keep the passengers from being alarmed.

Franklin Grove was the last of the emergency landing fields she saw, before the “soup” swallowed them and they looked out into a solid wall of rushing grey, so thick it almost hid the wings.

Passengers looked anxiously toward Sue, and one or two of them summoned her. To their questions, she replied as truthfully as she could that they had struck a bit of bad weather, but that the radio beacon was guiding the pilot and they expected to soon be out of the fog and into clear weather.

That explanation satisfied them for the first half hour, but after that Sue found herself in trouble and a rising fear gripping her own heart. The questions the passengers asked were more difficult to answer.

Why weren’t they out of the fog? They were late now getting into Chicago. Did the pilot know where he was? Why couldn’t they land and wait for the bad weather to clear?

Sue answered them as best she could and tried to remain calm, putting on the best professional manner of a trained nurse.

Her signal light glowed again and she went forward. The chief pilot looked years older.

“We’re in trouble,” he told her frankly. “I’ve lost my radio bearings and the gas is getting low. Have your passengers fasten their safety belts and see that there is no smoking. If we crash we don’t want any extra risk of fire.”

Sue returned to the cabin, hoping desperately that her face would not give away the gravity of their situation when she asked the passengers to put on their safety belts. She went from one to another, adjusting the belts, and informing them that they were about to land, but she didn’t add that it was likely to be a crash landing. When everyone was fastened to the seats, Sue reported to the chief pilot.

“Get back in the cabin. We’re going down,” he said curtly.

Sue watched the altimeter.. The needle dropped gently from the 3,000 feet at which they had been flying, but the wall of fog still enveloped the earth.

They nosed through it carefully, the air speed cut down to a hundred miles an hour. Even that speed was a terrific one at which to crash into the ground. Sue was too busy thinking about her passengers to sense her own emotions.

For five minutes the pilot groped his way down and suddenly the nose of the big ship shot through the fog. The plane flattened out 200 feet above the ground and skimmed along over farmhouses with the motors roaring heavily.

Suddenly the ship heeled over and for a sickening instant, Sue thought they were crashing until she caught sight of an airport and knew the pilot was sliding in for a fast landing.

As the plane touched the ground the motors sucked the last fuel from the tanks. The tri-motor rolled up to the hangar and Sue looked at the name painted above the large doors. They had come down at Joliet, nearly thirty miles south of their course.

The pilot came back.

“Weather’s still bad around Chicago,” he announced. “We’ll have taxis here in a few minutes to take you in.”

Sue helped her passengers collect their hand baggage and sheperded them into the taxis. In half an hour the last one was safely away for Chicago, and Sue had time to sit down and have a little cry all by herself.

They remained at Joliet until mid-afternoon, when the fog cleared and they hopped the short distance to the field at Chicago. It was then that Sue learned that the second section of the Night Flyer was down at Sterling, Illinois, with the weather west of Chicago still foggy and little chance of it clearing before mid-evening. Sue could imagine the wrath of Mattie Clark, who had been anxious to reach Chicago that morning.

Sue went to the office of the personnel director to be assigned quarters while in Chicago and learned that the line had leased two apartments nearby which would accommodate eight girls. They could cook their own meals there or go out to restaurants as they preferred, since the line’s only obligation was to domicile them while at the Chicago end of their runs.

“I talked with some of the passengers who came as far as Joliet with you,” said the personnel chief, “and they gave me some fine reports of your calmness. I feel that I owe Miss Hardy at Good Samaritan a letter of real appreciation for the girls she recommended.”

After leaving the personnel office, Sue looked at the bulletin board. The Coast to Coast Limited with Jane aboard would be in at five o’clock and she decided to wait for her.

Sue enjoyed a late lunch at the restaurant and then walked out on the ramp to watch the arrival and departure of the planes.

A crimson monoplane was being loaded for a run to Kansas City, while a trim, blue biplane was waiting for four passengers for Detroit. It all seemed so matter-of-fact, and Sue knew that after her flight through the fog that morning she would never again be afraid of flying.

Chapter Seventeen
An Ultimatum to Mattie

Sue met Jane when she stepped off the Coast to Coast Limited and together the girls went to the apartments which had been leased by the air line. They were in Chicago for the night. Sue booked out early the next morning and Jane later in the day.

Grace and Alice, also in Chicago, had been down town shopping that afternoon, but they all met at the apartment. There was an attractive kitchenette, but the girls were tired and they had dinner at a nearby restaurant. Later they walked to a neighborhood movie where they enjoyed the feature program.

When they returned to the apartment, Mattie Clark was there, still mad at the long delay which had kept her away from Chicago.

“Imagine having to stay out at the emergency field at Sterling almost all day,” she stormed. She turned on Sue angrily.

“If you hadn’t been so pig-headed back in Cheyenne, I’d have been on the first section and at least arrived during the daytime.”

“You can thank me you weren’t on the first section,” replied Sue calmly. “We got lost and were coming down for a crash landing when the fog cleared at Joliet and we sneaked down there. I was scared to death.”

Mattie looked at Sue skeptically.

“You don’t seem to believe me,” said Sue.

“Well, it’s a good story,” said Mattie.

Jane’s anger had mounted steadily and it got away from her.

“That’s enough, Mattie. We might as well have it out right now. I think you’re mean and small. You’re doing everything you can to make it unpleasant for Miss Comstock, and now you’re insulting Sue, because you know Sue is too even-tempered to fight back. Now just get out of here and after this keep out of my way.”

Mattie was furious and her face flamed with anger, but before she could reply, Alice stepped in.

“What Jane said goes for Grace and me,” she said. “The less we see of you, the better.”

“You’ll all be sorry for this,” flared Mattie as she slammed the door and went into the apartment across the hall.

“I’m sorry this had to happen,” Jane told the others, “but Mattie is out for trouble and she’s going to get it. From now on keep your eyes open, for she’ll trick you if she can.”

The stewardesses soon settled into the routine of the flights from Cheyenne to Chicago and return. It was interesting, pleasant work.

Jane banked the money she had received from the New York paper and from Mrs. Van Verity Vanness and when Charlie Fischer asked her if she’d like to take lessons in flying, she had the money necessary.

Charlie had a biplane at Cheyenne and between flights with the huge Federated planes, amused himself by hopping around the countryside and giving lessons to whatever pupils he could pick up. Of the stewardesses, Jane was the only girl who decided to take lessons.

Whenever she and Charlie were at Cheyenne, he took her up for flights, explaining the principles of aeronautics and letting her get the feel of the plane. One afternoon they flew to Denver and back, and on another occasion, went to Laramie.

Jane was blessed with air sense. When she had her hands on the control stick, she could almost anticipate every movement of the plane and Charlie praised her aptitude warmly.

The days rolled into mid-summer and July in Cheyenne was hot. It was refreshing to seek the coolness of the upper air in the late afternoon and Jane spent as much extra time aloft as she could afford. Then came the afternoon for her solo flight. The government inspector arrived and took his place in the rear cockpit.

Charlie Fischer looked up and grinned.

“Just forget the guy back there,” he said, “and you’ll get along fine.”

Jane’s throat tightened. Going up with a government inspector was quite different from going up with Charlie,

She opened the throttle and the biplane shot across the sun-baked field. Jane was glad the other girls were out on the line, for it would be embarrassing to come down and face them if the inspector should turn her down.

She lifted the biplane into the air and got altitude in easy circles over the airport. Then she started through the routine. As the thrill of the flight got into her blood, she forgot the inspector in the rear cockpit and gave her every energy to piloting the plane. With grace and skill, she directed the maneuvers until the inspector reached ahead, tapped her on the shoulder, and nodded toward the ground.

Jane cut the motor and they drifted down. Charlie Fischer was the first to reach the plane.

“How about it?” he asked the inspector.

“Just about perfect,” smiled the government official.

“Then I’ll get my license?” Jane asked breathlessly.

“There’s no question about that. I’m giving you an exceptionally high rating. Your license will be through shortly.”

It was another ten days, before the precious card with her license arrived from Washington and Jane showed it proudly to her roommates.

“It’s nice,” admitted Sue, “but what on earth will you do with it? You haven’t a plane and you can’t afford to rent Charlie Fischer’s.”

“I honestly don’t know,” confessed Jane, “but I wanted it. Some day I’ll be glad that I have the license and the ability to fly a plane.”

Mattie Clark was still causing trouble. Any other girl who so rankly showed her insubordination would have been fired within a week, but the fact that Mattie’s uncle was a company official saved her time and again. She knew she was treading on thin ice, but she seemed to take whole-hearted enjoyment in making Miss Comstock and the other girls miserable. Jane was her special hate.

Jane was still on the Coast to Coast, the crack run of the line, and summer had slipped over into August. A burning wind swept down out of the mountains and it was hot that morning when the eastbound Coast to Coast drifted in.

Mattie had been assigned to a westbound plane for the day, and was in the commissary while Jane checked over her supplies. As usual, Mattie made as many caustic remarks as possible, but Jane refused to answer.

Jane finished preparing the supplies to place aboard the plane and went out to call a field boy to help her carry the large hamper. When she returned with the boy, Mattie was still in the commissary and Jane looked at her sharply. Mattie flushed, but Jane thought nothing more of the incident.

The Coast to Coast was loaded and Jane sat on the jump seat at the rear of the plane. It was the usual crowd – a second-rate movie actress, several New York traveling men with flashy clothes, an elderly lady called east by a death in the family and the rest business men and women who had taken the plane to save time on their trip east.

Jane made sure that everyone had traveling kits, answered several questions about the weather ahead, and checked over her passenger list to see that everyone was in the proper seat.

The ship rolled out of the hangar and swept away into the east. Jane picked up the magazines and went along the aisle, offering them to passengers who cared to read. Most of them preferred to gaze at the landscape below.

They were east of Grand Island when Jane prepared lunch, serving sandwiches, a cool salad and an iced drink she had brought in a large thermos jug.

It was early afternoon when they cleared Omaha, with a stop scheduled ahead at Des Moines, the last one until Chicago. Council Bluffs had barely dropped out of sight when Jane began to feel ill. Just then a woman called her. She was feeling uneasy and Jane gave her a soda tablet.

She had hardly returned to her seat when everyone appeared stricken at the same moment. Her passengers became deathly ill and Jane herself was so sick she could hardly move. She managed to stagger ahead to the pilots’ cockpit and told them of what had happened. The big ship was turned about at once, roaring back for Omaha, while the co-pilot sent out a rush call for ambulances and doctors to meet it at the field.

By the time the tri-motor reached the Omaha field, Jane was too ill to move and everyone in the cabin was carried out and taken to the hospital for treatment.

Just before she left the field, Jane spoke to the chief pilot.

“Save the lunch,” she whispered. “It must have been that.”

He nodded and hurried away to see what he could find in the pantry.

Somehow the Omaha papers got hold of the story, and printed it on their front pages. As a result Hubert Speidel, the personnel chief, hurried out from Chicago on the first plane to make an investigation, and it was at Jane’s request that he had the food analyzed. Shortly after that he ordered an investigation to be held at Cheyenne and Jane, still weak from her sudden illness, wondered what he had learned.

Chapter Eighteen
Sue Plays Detective

Jane, who had been the most seriously ill of those aboard the Coast to Coast Limited, was in the Omaha hospital three days. She was far from well when she boarded a westbound plane for the inquiry at Cheyenne. The incident had brought unfavorable publicity to the line, and the personnel director was determined to get at the bottom of it.

The investigation was held in the administration building of the Cheyenne airport. In addition to Mr. Speidel, Miss Comstock was there, the pilots who had been on the plane, and Sue.

Jane was questioned first.

“Did you prepare the food which was placed aboard the plane that day?” the personnel chief asked her.

“Not all of it,” she replied. “The salad was supplied by the caterer, but I made the sandwiches and prepared the iced tea.”

“Did anyone else touch the food?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Was anyone else in the commissary while you were working?” continued the personnel director.

Jane was about to reply that she was alone when she remembered that Mattie had been there.

“Mattie Clark was there,” she said, wondering just what Mr. Speidel was attempting to learn from her.

“You know what caused the illness aboard the plane?” he went on.

“It was a strong irritant of some kind,” she replied, “but I wasn’t told at the hospital just what it was.”

The personnel director switched to another track.

“You wouldn’t have had any reason to place anything in the food, would you?”

Jane’s face flushed, and it was a struggle to keep from showing her intense anger, but she finally managed to reply “no,” in a calm voice.

“Do you know anyone who would do it as a grudge against you?”

“That question is hardly fair,” retorted Jane. “If I mention any names I might unjustly throw suspicion on someone who is not guilty.”

Through her mind, though, raced thoughts of Mattie and her promise of revenge. Mattie had been alone in the commissary long enough to dope the sandwiches or the salad, and she was capable of stooping to such a low trick. No matter what happened, as a result of the investigation, Jane resolved to see Mattie and have a talk with her.

“What do you know about this, Miss Comstock?” asked the personnel director, turning to the chief of the stewardess service.

“Very little, but I am sure that Miss Cameron is being treated very unfairly if anyone thinks she deliberately planned such a distressing incident as the one which took place aboard the Coast to Coast the other day.”

“But isn’t it true that Miss Cameron is one of your favorites?”

“I am no more partial to her than to the other girls. It happens that she is a most efficient and personable stewardess. I only wish that all of the girls were as capable as she.”

The pilots also spoke a good word for Jane, but she knew she was in a tight spot. Someone had prejudiced the personnel director against her and she strongly suspected the fine hand of Mattie Clark, working through her uncle.

Then Sue took a hand in the proceedings.

“I’ve been doing a little investigating on my own account,” she said. “It may interest you to know that a member of the stewardess staff bought the drug which was used to cause the illness aboard the plane.”

“What do you know about this?” demanded Mr. Speidel.

“Enough to clear Jane of any part in it,” replied Sue. “I have a sworn statement from the druggist who made the sale. He knows the stewardess who made the purchase and named her in the affidavit.”

Sue waved the paper and the personnel chief seized it eagerly.

“I think this investigation is over,” he said as he finished reading the affidavit. “I am sorry, Miss Cameron, to have caused you any embarrassment.”

Once outside, Jane hugged Sue enthusiastically.

“You were a peach to do that piece of sleuthing,” she said. “For a while it looked like I was in a tight place.”

“But you haven’t asked me who bought the drug,” said Sue.

“I don’t need to. It was Mattie. I remembered seeing her in the commissary the other day. Honestly, I hardly thought Mattie would stoop to such a trick. Why, think what would have happened if the pilots had eaten any of that lunch.”

“I did,” replied Sue, “which is one reason why I went sneaking around the drug stores in Cheyenne. Mattie was pretty sure of herself for she bought it in the store where we usually go for our sodas. The druggist didn’t want to give me an affidavit, but when I threatened to swing all of the stewardess trade to the store across the street he decided to sign.”

They were having dinner that night at Mrs. Murphy’s when Alice, just off a run from the east, came in.

“Guess who I saw leaving the field?” she said.

“Mattie Clark,” replied Jane.

“You’re a mind-reader. It was Mattie and she was going as a passenger. What’s up?”

Sue told Alice briefly what had taken place during the afternoon.

“Serves Mattie right,” said Alice. “Everything will be smoother now that she’s gone. But I’ve got some news none of you will guess.”

“Don’t keep us waiting too long,” smiled Jane.

“Roscoe James, the famous film director, came out on the plane from Chicago.”

“That’s nothing. Frederic March flew east with me the other day and never even looked at me,” said Sue.

“Yes, but Roscoe James stopped here.”

“Which means what?” asked Jane.

“His company, the Mammoth, is going to film an air story with the Cheyenne field for the background.”