  “How do you go from here?” inquired Louise the next morning at breakfast, which had been arranged for seven o’clock so that the girls could make an early start. The skies were still dark, and it was raining, but the wind had died down, and with it the worst of the storm. “From here to Wichita, and then on to Albuquerque by tonight, I hope,” replied Linda. “We’ll be following the regular air-line. I think that is really the safest and best way. By tomorrow night I expect to land at Los Angeles.” “Do you have to cross Death Valley?” asked Louise. “Fly over it—not cross it,” corrected Linda. “But that has no terrors for me. And we shall miss the worst of the Rockies, following such a southern course.” “Take plenty of water and gas, in case you come down in the desert!” “That reminds me, Ted,” said Linda, turning to the big, red-haired young man at the head of the table. “Did you fill my Ladybug up?” “Yes, and gave her a hasty inspection, too,” he replied. “She looks O.K. to me.” “Then I’m not expecting any trouble,” returned Linda, for she had great confidence in Ted Mackay’s judgment and knowledge of airplanes. While Linda took time to call Miss Carlton on the long distance telephone, Louise insisted upon packing a lunch, and filling the thermos bottles with water and coffee. For she had never forgotten Linda’s first long flight when they had been stranded on a lonely prairie, far from food and civilization, and how grateful they had been then for the elaborate picnic lunch with which their hostess had supplied them. “You’re a brick, Lou!” Linda cried, as she kissed her good-bye. “Don’t forget to stop next week, on your way home!” Louise reminded her. The Ladybug’s engine roared, and she taxied a short distance, soaring soon into the skies. To her joy Linda found that flying conditions had considerably improved since the previous day. The storm was clearing, and up above the clouds, the sun was shining. Linda’s way lay straight before her, and she flew on and on, keeping a sharp watch all the time for other planes, until the clouds beneath her had completely dispersed. Passing over Kansas, she left Wichita behind long before noon time, and pressed on through the northern part of Oklahoma—into Texas, the state in which her father’s ranch had been located, when she took that daring night-flight for the surgeon who saved his life. At last, by consulting her map, she felt certain she had reached New Mexico. Both girls had been so thrilled in watching the country beneath them—so strangely different from the East—that they had not realized how late it was growing. Hunger finally drove Dot to consult her watch. To her surprise she found that it was after three o’clock. “Let’s eat!” she said to Linda, through the tube. “I’m starved!” “Where?” shouted Linda, surveying dubiously the ground beneath them, covered with dry bushes. There wasn’t a sign of civilization or cultivation anywhere about, and she had no desire to land. “Right here in the plane,” returned Dot. “You haven’t forgotten the lunch Lou packed for us?” “Good idea! And we’ll get to Albuquerque all the sooner. Something tells me that we’re not far off—if my calculations are correct.” “Well, we can’t be lost,” replied Dot. “For we’ve been following the beacon lights straight along the way. O. K., then. I’ll unpack. Thank goodness Lou fixed a lunch.” The sandwiches and coffee were delicious, and all the while Linda kept right on flying. But it was still light when the spires and buildings of Albuquerque loomed up in the distance. They landed at the airport and went to a hotel for the night, thankful that the day, though uneventful, had passed so pleasantly, and hopeful for clear weather to continue for the rest of their journey. The sun was shining brightly and the day was already hot when the girls took off from Albuquerque the following morning. For hours they flew over this hot, dry plateau region, where the water supply was scanty, and where they could see, even from their height in the air, the bare earth shining between the scattered clumps of grasses and shrubs. “We have to miss the Grand Canyon,” Linda told Dot as they came down at a small airport town in Arizona, to rest and get their lunch. “It lies up in the north-western part of the state, you know, and if we follow the most direct course to Los Angeles, we miss it.” “Maybe we can fly over it on our way back,” suggested her companion. “We’ll have more time to enjoy the scenery when we have settled with this impostor.” “Yes, that’s just what I think. So long as we get home before the first of October, I’m a free woman.” They continued their flight without any interruptions or disasters all that afternoon. They left Arizona behind and crossed into the great state of California, over the San Bernardino Mountains, where the climate was lovely. Orange groves blossomed everywhere, the air was sweet and delicious; they felt a great envy of the people who could always live in this beautiful region. At last they reached the city of Los Angeles, and spotted the new white city hall, as it rose in its majestic splendor, gleaming in the brilliancy of its electric lights. “Good old Ladybug!” exclaimed Dot, as the autogiro came to the ground at the airport, and she stiffly climbed out of the cockpit. “Never lets us down!” “Always lets us down—when we want her to,” corrected Linda, laughingly. “You’re going to leave her here at the airport while we go on to Hollywood?” asked Dot. “Yes, I think so. I’ll have the mechanics give her a thorough inspection in the meanwhile. But I don’t want to go tonight. Let’s have a good dinner and get some sleep and start out fresh tomorrow morning. We’ll have our box taken with us this time, and dress for the occasion. We don’t want to look like hicks from a small town.” While Linda turned to give her instructions to an attendant, a strange young man strolled up to the girls and stopped, evidently waiting for an opportunity to speak to them. It was growing dark, but the beacon searchlight at the airport was bright enough for them to see him perfectly. He looked at the autogiro, and then peered almost rudely into the faces of the two girls. Linda ignored him, but Dot was furious. “Pardon me, ladies,” he said finally, “but aren’t you the two girls who landed on the top of that newspaper building in Kansas City?—Miss Slocum and Miss Manton, I believe the names were?” Dot giggled. She couldn’t deny the fact. “So you’ve been taking a cross-country flight in this boat,” he continued. “I have a friend who is a reporter—he’s around here somewhere, for he stops here every day at the airport for news—and he’d like that story, if you’d give me a few facts.” “We don’t want publicity,” Dot said, immediately. “So please don’t let him print anything at all about us.” “Besides,” added Linda, “there’s nothing new in what we’ve done. Girls fly all over the country every day alone. It really doesn’t mean much more than driving a motor-car now-a-days.” “You’re right about that,” agreed the attendant. “It was a stunt to fly the Atlantic once, but now it seems rather common-place. The first person to go from here to Australia by plane will sure get a head-line.” “We don’t expect to try that!” returned Dot, laughingly. “That’s a little too far.” “By the way,” remarked the stranger who had looked so keenly at the girls, “did you girls know that Linda Carlton is here at Los Angeles—or rather, at Hollywood? You remember her—the first girl to fly from New York to Paris alone?... She has a contract with the Apex Film Corporation.” Linda and Dot looked at each other in distress. This was a fine situation indeed. What could they say? “My name is Linda Carlton,” the aviatrix finally announced, quietly. “Go on! Your name’s Sallie Slocum!” insisted the young man. “As you please,” shrugged Linda, turning to the attendant. “Nevertheless, I want this autogiro registered here as belonging to Linda Carlton, of Spring City, Ohio.” “O. K., Miss,” agreed the attendant, making note of the fact. Summoning a taxi, the girls stepped into it and closed the door without even so much as good-bye to the young man who had forced a conversation with them. “What gets me,” observed Dot, “is the way reporters seem to bob up anywhere and everywhere—just when they’re not wanted.” “True, but they have to get news, I suppose. And it was really my fault in the first place, for landing on a newspaper building. I would have to pick that out!” “Oh, well, who cares?” returned Dot. “It’ll blow over, and be forgotten.... What hotel are we going to?” “The Ambassador. I’ve heard so much about their ‘Cocoanut Grove’ that I want to see it.” A few minutes later the taxi stopped at the luxurious hotel, and the girls secured a room. They engaged it for only a couple of days, little thinking that they would have to remain in Los Angeles for a longer period of time. It was lots of fun to dress in evening gowns and sweep into the dining-room as if they were actresses. Even Linda admitted that she enjoyed taking off her flier’s suit at times, and just being a “regular girl.” “For tonight we’ll be absolutely care-free,” she said. “As if we hadn’t a thing to worry about!” “Which we really haven’t,” added Dot. They ordered an elaborate dinner and ate slowly, watching the people in the dining-room, hoping to catch a glimpse of a famous star or a celebrated flier. But if there were actors and actresses there, neither Linda nor Dot recognized them. “I wish there were a ‘first-night’ performance that we could attend,” remarked Dot, when, after dinner, they summoned a taxi to go to a moving-picture show. “Yes, it would be nice. But then, we probably couldn’t get in, anyhow. Unless I pretended to be the Linda Carlton who is in ‘Bride of the Air’.” Dot laughed. “That would be a mix-up. The other girl doubling for you—and then your pretending to be the other girl!” “Sounds kind of like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to me.” In spite of the fact, however, that nothing unusual happened, the girls spent a pleasant evening, and were glad of the chance to get to bed early. “For,” remarked Linda, as she undressed in the charming bedroom, “I am tired, even though we didn’t break any records crossing the country.” “It was fast enough for me,” agreed Dot. “I’d rather rest now and then, than dash off like Frank Hawks. And when you compare it to the way they used to cross the United States, it’s no less than miraculous.” “I know,” yawned Linda. “What was it that that movie said—twenty-four days in 1850?” “Yes, that was it, I think. Only I’m too sleepy to remember much now.... Wake me up early tomorrow, Linda. For it’s HOLLYWOOD!” |
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