HIDE AND SEEK
The strong air current which spread horizontally over the thunderhead
blew Dorothy’s plane sideways and away from the cloud. An instant later
it was roaring downward in the thin air, quite beyond her control, a
self-propelled projectile rushing to its doom.
While shooting upward in the cloud, the violent and intensely rapid
gyrations of the airship caused her safety belt to become unclasped, and
had her parachute not caught in the cowling, she must have been flung
clear of the plane to a horrible death far below.
With her heels still hooked beneath the pilot’s seat, she wrenched the
parachute loose. Then she closed the throttle and half-suffocated by the
force of the wind and lack of breathable oxygen, she commenced to pull
the stick slowly backward.
A glance at the altimeter showed a height of eighteen thousand
feet—three air miles above earth—and three thousand feet above
Will-o’-the-Wisp’s service ceiling.
Notwithstanding the shut-off engine, the speed of the diving plane was
terrific. Dorothy felt the grinding jar of the wind-strained wings as
the nose began to rise in answer to the pull of the elevators; and
wondered helplessly if they would hold.
The air pressure was agony to her eardrums. Her head reeled. She was
well-nigh exhausted. She no longer cared very much what happened.
The plane dropped into a blanket of fog. She felt the wet mist on her
face, refreshing and reanimating her. Suddenly she realized that her
parachute was starting to fill and would shortly pull her out of the
cockpit. With her free hand she reached under the seat and brought forth
a sheath knife. A frenzied second later she had rid herself of the
flapping bag. As it flew overboard, she tightened her safety belt and
placed her cramped feet back on the steering pedals.
Though still fog-blind, she could at least breathe comfortably now as
the plane lessened speed in descent. Will-o’-the-Wisp still shook and
groaned, but no longer fought the pull of the stick. Up came the nose,
slowly but surely and with her ailerons functioning once more, Dorothy
gained control and sent the plane into a normal glide. The altimeter
marked five thousand feet. The dive had been over two miles long.
Another fifteen hundred feet and gradually the mist lightened until it
became mere wisps of smoky cloud. Long Island Sound had been left
behind. Below lay the wooded hills and valleys of the Connecticut ridge
country, cloaked in multi-shaded green. As she still headed north,
Dorothy knew now that she had been blown beyond New Canaan. She gave the
plane hard right rudder and right aileron and sent it swinging into a
long half spiral, which, completed, headed her south again. Almost
directly below, she recognized the Danbury Fair Grounds, with home just
twenty miles away.
Again her hand sought the throttle and as Will-o’-the-Wisp snorted, then
roared, Dorothy breathed a thankful sigh. Fifteen minutes later she had
housed her plane in its hangar, and was limping up the porch steps of
her home.
Lizzie, the Dixons’ servant, met her in the hall.
“Whatever is the matter, Miss Dorothy? You’ve had an accident—you’re
half-killed—I know you are! There’s blood all over your face—”
Her young mistress interrupted, smiling:
“You’re wrong again, Lizzie. No accident, though I know I look pretty
awful. I feel that way, too, if you ask me—”
“But the blood, Miss Dorothy?”
“It’s from a nosebleed, Lizzie. I assure you I’m not badly hurt. If
you’ll help me out of these rags and start a warm bath running, I’ll be
ever so much obliged. A good soaking in hot water will fix me up. Then,”
she added, “I think I’ll be real luxurious and have my dinner in bed.”
When the solicitous Lizzie brought up the dinner tray three-quarters of
an hour later, a tired but decidedly sprucer Dorothy, in pink silk
pyjamas, was leaning back against her pillows.
“My word, I’m hungry!” She seized a hot roll and began to butter it.
“I’m off bucking thunderheads for life, Lizzie. But you can take it from
me, that kind of thing gives you a marvelous appetite!”
“Yes, miss, I’m glad,” returned Lizzie, who had no idea what Dorothy was
talking about. “You certainly look better.”
“By the way, what’s become of Daddy? Hasn’t he got home yet?”
“Oh, Miss Dorothy, I’m so sorry. Sure and I forgot to tell ye—Mr. Dixon
won’t be home for dinner.”
“Did he telephone?”
“No, miss. He came home about quarter to five and packed his suitcase.
He said to tell you he’d been called to Washington on business and he’d
be gone a couple of days. Arthur drove him to Stamford to catch the New
York express—he didn’t have much time.”
Dorothy helped herself to a spoonful of jellied bouillon. “Any other
message?”
“Yes, miss. He said that Mister Terry hadn’t been found yet. I asked him
b’cause I thought you’d like to know. That was all he said. I’m sure
sorry I forgot it when you came in, but I—”
“That’s all right, Lizzie, I understand. You come back for the tray in
half an hour, will you? And if you find me asleep, don’t wake me up. I’m
tired to death. I need a long rest and I’m going to take it.”
When Lizzie came back she found Dorothy deep in the sleep of exhaustion.
She lowered the window blinds against the early morning light and
picking up the tray from the end of the bed, tiptoed from the room.
Morning broke bright and clear with no sign of yesterday’s mist and
rain. Dorothy remained in bed for breakfast and it took but little
persuasion on the part of Lizzie to keep her there till lunch time. She
still felt stiff and bruised and was only too content to rest and doze.
Toward noon she rose and dressed in her flying clothes. Immediately
after lunch she went out to the hangar. She slipped into a serviceable
and grubby pair of overalls, and spent the afternoon in giving
Will-o’-the-Wisp a thorough grooming. At quarter to five she was in the
air and headed for Long Island Sound.
Half an hour later, with an altitude of ten thousand feet, she was
cruising over yesterday’s course above the Long Island shore, when she
spied a biplane coming across the Sound. In an instant she had her field
glasses out and focussed on the newcomer.
“That’s him!” she murmured ungrammatically, though with evident relief.
“Now for a pleasant little game of hide-and-seek!”
The Mystery Plane was flying far below, so continuing on her course at
right angles, she watched it with hurried glances over her shoulder.
When she reached the Long Island Shore line, it was a mile or so behind
and below Dorothy’s tailplane. So waiting only long enough to be sure
that her quarry was headed across the Island, she banked her plane and
sent it on a wide half circle to the right. Long Island, at this point,
she knew was about twenty miles wide.
Dorothy’s plan for trailing the Mystery Plane and doing so without being
seen, was as simple as it was direct. The farther end of her circular
course would bring her over Great South Bay and the South shore of Long
Island at approximately the same point for which the other plane seemed
to be bound. She would arrive, of course, a minute or two behind the
other aviator. And as she planned, so it happened.
From her high point of vantage, Dorothy, swinging on her arc a mile or
so to the east, was able to keep the other amphibian continually in
sight. She watched him pursue his southerly course until he came over
the town of Babylon on Great South Bay. Here her glasses told her that
the bearded aviator turned his plane to the left, heading east and up
the bay in her direction.
Below her now lay the Bay, hemmed in from the Atlantic by long narrow
stretches of white sand dunes. For a second or so Dorothy thought they
would pass in the air, her plane far above the other. But before she
reached that point, she saw the other make a crosswind landing and taxi
toward a dock which jutted into the Bay from the dunes. Just beyond the
dock an isolated cottage stood in a hollow on the bay side of the dunes.
There was no other habitation in sight for over a mile in either
direction.
“Aha! Run to earth at last!” muttered Dorothy contentedly. Maintaining
her altitude, with Babylon across the bay to her right, she continued
her westward course above the dunes.
A few miles past the cottage she flew over Fire Island Inlet. When she
was opposite Amityville, she came about. Shutting off her engine, she
tilted the stick forward and sent Will-o’-the-Wisp into a long glide
which eventually landed her on the waters of Babylon harbor.
Dorothy stripped off her goggles and scanned the waterfront. Slightly to
her left she spied a small shipyard, whose long dock bore a large sign
which carried the legend: “Yancy’s Motor Boat Garage.”
“Good. Couldn’t be better!” exclaimed Miss Dixon in great satisfaction.
“Atta girl, Wispy! We’re going over to have a talk with Mr. Yancy.”
She gave her plane the gun and taxiing slowly over the smooth water,
through the harbor shipping, presently brought up at the Yancy wharf and
made fast.
“Hello, there! Want gas?” sang out a voice above her, and Dorothy looked
up. A smiling young man, dressed in extremely dirty dungarees was
walking down the wharf toward her.
“Hello, yourself!” she returned as he came up. “No, I’m not out of gas,
thank you. I want to hire a boat.”
“Better come ashore, then.” The man wiped his palms on a piece of clean
cotton waste and gave her a hand up. “We’ve got plenty of boats—all
kinds, lady. Got ’em fast and slow, big and little. Just what kind of a
craft do you need?”
“Something with plenty of beam and seaworthy, that I can run without
help. I’m not looking for speed. I may want to take her outside—I don’t
know.”
The young man pointed down the wharf to where a rather bulky motor boat,
broad of beam and about thirty feet waterline was moored head out to a
staging.
“Mary Jane—that’s your boat,” announced Mr. Yancy. “She’s old and she
ain’t got no looks, but she’s seaworthy and she’ll take you anywhere.
You could run over to Paris or London in that old craft if you could
pile enough gas aboard her.”
“She looks pretty big,” Dorothy’s tone was dubious. “Think I can handle
her by myself?”
“She is big,” he admitted readily, “but she runs like a sewing machine
and she’s all set to be taken out this minute if you want her.”
“I’ll look her over anyway,” she declared and led the way to the landing
stage.
Stepping aboard the Mary Jane, she peeped into the small trunk cabin
which was scarcely bigger than a locker, but would give shelter in case
of rain. She observed that there were sailing lights, compass, horn and
a large dinner bell in a rack, and two life preservers as well. In one
of the lockers she came upon a chart. Stowed up in the forepeak were an
anchor with a coil of line and three five-gallon tins of gasoline. A
quick examination showed the fuel tank to have been filled.
The motor was a simple and powerful two-cylinder affair, with
make-and-break ignition, noisy, but dependable; the sort of engine on
which the fishermen and lobstermen along the coast hang their lives in
offshore work. It seemed to Dorothy that it ought to kick the shallow
old tub along at a good ten-knot gait. The boat itself though battered
and dingy, appeared to be sound and staunch so far as one could see.
“I’ll take her,” decided Dorothy. “That is, if she’s not too expensive?”
“I guess we ain’t goin’ to fight about the price, mam,” asserted Yancy.
“How long will you be wantin’ her and when do you expect to take her
out?”
“Not before nine tonight—and I’ll hire her for twenty-four hours.”
“O. K. mam. You can have her for a year if you want her. How about your
air bus?”
“She’ll be left here. I want you to look after her. I don’t think
there’ll be any wind to speak of. She’ll be all right where she is.”
“We’re going to get rain in a couple of hours, so if you’ll make her
secure, I’ll have her towed out to that buoy yonder. I’ll rest easier
with her moored clear of this dock.”
“I’ll pull the waterproof covers over the cockpits and she’ll be all
right,” returned Dorothy. “Then we can go up to your office and fix up
the finances.”