THE LADYBUG!
Dot was the first of the two girls to come to consciousness. With a gasp
for breath, she pushed the cloth from her face and sat up. For a moment
or two everything swam about her; she didn’t know where she was.
She thought at first that she and Linda were on that deserted island in
the Atlantic Ocean where they had been stranded early in the summer. But
no; the ground was hard and dry—not a bit sandy—and there was no ocean
in view. That couldn’t be the explanation. For there was the Ladybug
within a few hundred yards!
She glanced at Linda and saw that she was lying motionless beside her on
the barren ground, her blanket thrown aside. With a cloth over her face!
In sudden panic Dot pulled it off desperately. Oh, suppose Linda were
dead!
“Linda! Darling!” she implored piteously, but there was no reply, no
movement from the inert figure. With a tremendous effort Dot forced
herself to rise and bend over her chum.
“Tell me you aren’t dead, Linda!” she begged, hysterically.
A faint flutter of her companion’s eyelids came as a response.
With a tremendous effort, Dot reached for the thermos bottle and held
water to Linda’s lips. At last the color came faintly back to the
aviatrix’s face, and she smiled faintly.
“I’m—all right—Dot,” she managed to whisper. “But what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Dot took a drink of the water herself, and felt more revived.
“Where are we?” asked Linda.
“Somewhere in Mexico. Don’t you remember? We were flying after that
girl, in Mr. Eckert’s Sky Rocket, and we came down for the night.”
Linda rubbed her eyes and looked about her. And caught sight of the
Ladybug, whose appearance had so amazed Dot a moment before. And rubbed
her eyes, and stared again.
“Am I crazy, Dot—or is that really an autogiro over there? Or am I
seeing things?”
“It’s the Ladybug,” replied Dot. “I’m positive. We couldn’t both be
dreaming.”
“But how did it get here? Is that girl around?”
“I don’t hear her. Unless she’s hiding.” Dot lowered her voice to a
whisper. “Have you got your revolver handy, Linda?”
Linda felt at her side, where she had put it the previous night when she
went to sleep, and sure enough, it was there. And, with the touch of
that revolver, memory of the scene that preceded unconsciousness
returned.
“I remember now!” she cried triumphantly. “I was wakened just as it was
getting light, by a big noise. I finally identified it as a plane. At
first I thought it was bandits, and I recall reaching for my
revolver.... Yes.... Then I saw it was an autogiro. It landed ... and a
man ... it was Sprague, I’m sure ... came and clapped that rag over my
face. That’s all.”
“How ghastly!” cried Dot. “I can’t seem to remember a thing myself. I
must have been sound asleep when he did it to me. But where is he now?”
“I know!” exclaimed Linda, with a sudden flash of understanding. “They
must have made off in Mr. Eckert’s plane! In the Sky Rocket—for it’s
gone.”
“Of course that’s it!” agreed Dot. “But how do you suppose they ever
spotted us?”
“Well, you see, the Ladybug can fly much lower than we could in the Sky
Rocket,” Linda explained. “They probably saw us in the air—when we
didn’t see them—and followed us about till they saw where we made our
landing. Then they waited for us to get to sleep, and for early morning
light to help them in landing and taking off, and then descended on us
with the chloroform.”
“Why do you think they wanted to swap planes?” asked Dot. “Because the
Sky Rocket is faster?”
“Yes. And it wouldn’t be so easy to spot in the sky as an autogiro.
Besides, by doing this, they know they will be throwing the police off
the clue. Pretty clever, I’d say.”
“Those two are about the slickest pair of schemers I’ve ever heard of.
There’s nothing they don’t think of.”
“And with each new trick they make a gain. Mr. Eckert’s plane is faster,
newer, and more expensive than the Ladybug.”
“True. But aren’t you glad to have the dear old Ladybug back again?”
asked Dot.
“I surely am. If she will fly. That’s another thing, Dot. You know that
man at the airport said that she had a damaged wing. So naturally, the
Spragues would be glad to get hold of a fresh plane.”
“I wonder whether they had trouble taking off,” observed Dot. “It’s not
any too easy.”
“No, but the ground’s very hard. I guess they haven’t had any rain here
all summer.... Come on, Dot, if you’re able to walk, let’s go over and
see the Ladybug. I’m dying to get a look at her again.”
“So am I,” agreed her companion.
Walking a trifle shakily at first, and feeling extremely weak and queer
after their experience, the girls went slowly to the spot where the
autogiro was resting. Like her owner, she, too, looked in bad condition,
as if she had been mistreated, and had travelled a great distance. And,
as Linda expected, the patch on the wing was split open again.
“No wonder they swapped planes!” exclaimed Linda. “I guess that girl was
pretty desperate. Well, thank goodness, I keep stuff on hand for
repairs.”
“And thank goodness you know how to do it!” added Dot, with admiration.
“Any other girl would be in a fine picnic in a fix like this!”
“Speaking of picnics, don’t you think we’d feel better if we ate
something? I don’t feel a bit sick at my stomach—only terribly weak.
Breakfast might help. They didn’t take our food and water, did they?”
“They didn’t take what we left out for breakfast,” replied the chum.
“But unfortunately we left most of our stuff in the plane.”
“Well, we’ll have to eat sparingly. But if I work fast, I ought to be
able to get off by noon, and we can surely fly till we find a place to
eat.”
“Have we gas?”
“Yes, I just looked. Enough to go a couple of hundred miles.”
Arm in arm they went back to their little encampment and ate the food
which Dot had reserved for breakfast and drank the coffee in one of the
thermos bottles. The remainder of the water they decided to keep for
their flight, and they still had half a dozen oranges which Dot had
purposely left out of the Sky Rocket, expecting to eat them during the
morning.
Linda wasted no time. As soon as she had finished eating she set right
to work on the damaged wing. It was not hard for her, for she knew every
tiniest detail of the construction. How thankful she was that it was her
own Ladybug that she had to repair, and not a strange plane!
Much to her delight, she found her own license cards on the seat of the
cockpit. Evidently the girl had no further use for them.
After the repairs had been made to the outside of the plane, Linda
tested the engine. It was not running so smoothly as she liked to hear
it. A spark plug was missing. With a sigh, she set to work again.
Dot, who had cleaned up all evidences of their camp, watched her in
dismal silence. The day grew hotter and hotter, the sun poured down
mercilessly on Linda, bending patiently over her work while the
perspiration streamed from her face. But it was fixed at last;
everything was to her satisfaction.
“Let’s have an orange,” she suggested, wiping her face with her
handkerchief. “Oh, maybe I wouldn’t like a good swim right now!”
“And we haven’t even water enough to wash our faces!” lamented Dot.
“If we only had that gallon jug we put into the Sky Rocket!”
“Oh, well, we will soon find a town, now that it is light enough to find
our way.”
Dot brought the oranges, and they tasted good, although they had become
exceedingly warm from the hot sun.
“Think we’ll have any trouble taking off?” she inquired, as they
finished the fruit.
“I guess not. If the Sky Rocket could get off—and she evidently did—I’m
sure the Ladybug can make it. It’s good hard ground all about.”
Linda sounded confident, but Dot’s heart was in her mouth until she saw
the Ladybug actually rise from the earth and soar up into the
skies—wherein lay safety.
Once again Linda’s heart was singing with rapture. She had enjoyed
piloting that swift plane of Mr. Eckert’s, but after all, there was
nothing like her beloved Ladybug. Why, the thing was almost human, the
way it responded to her touch!
Another great advantage at the present time, when the girls had lost
their way, was the autogiro’s ability to fly low. Now they could watch
the landscape for towns and airports and landing-fields. Oh, it was good
to have the Ladybug back again, if she couldn’t make a hundred and fifty
miles an hour!
The country was so strange, so different from anything they were used
to, that, in spite of its barrenness, they watched it in fascination.
They came to the mountains and Linda nosed her plane upward, over the
steep slopes covered with pine forests, until she was rewarded by seeing
little villages on the other side. Straw-roofed houses dotted the
landscape; there was evidence of farm-life, of some kind of
civilization, though just what, the girls couldn’t make out from their
height in the air.
Linda consulted her map, and familiarized herself with the names of
several of the towns near the mountains, determined to fly on until she
could find a good landing. She noticed the tracks of a railroad in the
distance, and this she decided to follow, until it should lead to a
station, and be identified as a town. Her gas was growing low, but she
had no fear of a forced landing. In country like this there would be
plenty of opportunities for an autogiro.
Half an hour later she hovered over a small Mexican town that provided
an airport, and brought the Ladybug to earth.
A man who was obviously a Mexican came forward to meet them.
“Do you speak English?” asked Linda.
The man nodded, smiling.
Reassured, the girls climbed out of the cockpit, and Dot proceeded to
tell their story, asking how she could notify the police in Los Angeles
in the quickest time, so as to have them pursue the Sky Rocket instead
of the autogiro.
“You can send a wire immediately, right from here,” the man replied. “At
least—you can when the operator comes back. He’s off for supper now.”
“I am a wireless operator,” announced Linda, calmly. “If you are willing
to trust me, I can send my own message.”
“O. K.,” agreed the man, who was beginning to decide that girls could do
almost anything now-a-days.
“And I want to leave the autogiro here for the night, and have her
filled with gas and oil,” she continued. “And go to some hotel for a
meal. Can you recommend one for us?”
“There are several hotels,” he replied, proudly. “But I will send you to
the best.”
It proved to be strangely unlike any hotel the girls had ever visited.
It was a long, low stucco building, with stone floors on the first
story, and bare boards above. The supper, too, was unlike American food,
but it tasted good to the hungry girls who had had nothing but a couple
of oranges since their breakfast. And the prospect of a roof over their
heads, after their disastrous adventure of the night before, was
extremely pleasant. After their hearty supper they sat out on the wide,
roofless veranda until the night grew cool enough for sleep.
“But where do we go from here?” asked Dot, wondering whether Linda had
had enough by now, and was ready to go back to Los Angeles.
“More pursuit,” returned her companion. “I feel under greater
obligations than ever to catch that thief now—for she has Mr. Eckert’s
plane. I’m responsible for it. We’ll fly around to all the airports for
news. Their gas supply ought to be getting low, and they’ll have to stop
somewhere to fill up. That’s the clue we’ll have to follow.”
“I wish we could get back into the United States,” remarked Dot. “I
don’t like the bugs here in Mexico.”
“I don’t think we can hope for that, till we catch them. They’re going
to steer clear of our police.”
“I suppose you’re right,” yawned Dot. “Well, let’s go get some sleep. We
can’t tell what adventures may be in front of us tomorrow.”
“No, we can’t possibly tell,” agreed Linda.