Linda Carlton, Air Pilot

Chapter I

A Dangerous Ride

A blue sports roadster, driven by a girl in a lovely crêpe suit of the same color, threaded its way through the traffic of Spring City's streets to the concrete road that led to the aviation field on the outskirts. Passing the city's limits, the car sped along under the easy assurance of its competent driver, whose eyes were bluer than its paint, deeper than the dress that she was wearing. They were shining now with happiness, for the end of this ride promised the most thrilling experience of her life. That afternoon Linda Carlton was to have her first flight in an airplane!

She parked her car outside of the field and locked it cautiously. Jumping out, she fairly skipped inside the boundary.

A tall, good-looking young man in a flier's suit came from one of the hangars to meet her.

"Miss Carlton?" he said, extending his hand.

"Yes – Mr. Mackay. You see I'm here – a little early, I expect. You haven't forgotten your promise?"

His pleasant face darkened, and he looked doubtfully at the sky.

"I'm afraid it may rain, Miss Carlton. We've suspended pleasure trips for today. But perhaps tomorrow – "

"Oh, no!" she cried in deep disappointment, and the young man believed that her eyes grew moist. "I can't get away tomorrow, or any other day this week. You see I'm a senior at school, and I'm just rushed to death."

"Well, that's too bad," he said, looking again at the sky. "And of course it may not rain after all. But orders are orders, you know."

The girl looked down at the ground, probably, he thought, to hide the tears that would come to her eyes. She was so pretty, so serious, so anxious to go up. It evidently wasn't only a whim with her; she really wanted to fly – like Amelia Earhart, and Elinor Smith. How he hated to deny her!

"Isn't there something you could do?" she finally asked. "Take me up as one of your friends – not as a visitor to the aviation field… Why, Mr. Mackay, suppose your sister came to see you today, wouldn't you be allowed to take her up?"

"Yes," he replied, smiling. "But that would be on my responsibility, not the school's."

"Then," she pleaded, and she was radiant again with enthusiasm, "couldn't I be your responsibility?"

He nodded, won over to her wishes.

"If you put it that way, Miss Carlton, I can't refuse! But I'll have to take you in the plane I'm working on now – making some tests with – and it isn't the most reliable plane in the world. Not one we use to take visitors up in."

"But if it's safe enough for you, it's safe enough for me. I'm satisfied."

"I'm afraid your parents wouldn't be," he objected.

"There I think you're wrong," she asserted. "My father believes in taking chances. He has always let me do dangerous things – ride horseback, and drive a car and swim far out in the ocean… And my mother is dead."

"Very well, then," agreed Mackay. "Please come over here with me. I have been trying to fix up an old biplane, and I think I have her in shape now. But we'll both wear parachutes for precaution."

Her heart fluttering wildly from happiness, but not at all from fear, Linda accompanied the young flier across the huge field to the runway, where a biplane was resting in readiness for its test. Mackay put her into the cockpit, examined the engine again, and the parachutes, helped her to fasten one of the latter on, in case of an accident, and started the motor. A minute later the plane taxied forward, faster and faster, until it rose from the ground.

"Oh!" cried Linda, in a tone of deepest joy, although her companion could not hear her for the roar of the motor. "Oh, I'm so happy!"

Up, up, up they went, until they reached the clouds, where the atmosphere seemed misty and foggy. But it did not matter to Linda that the sky was not blue; nothing could spoil the ecstasy she experienced in knowing that at last she was where she had always longed to be.

Never for a moment was she the least bit dizzy. The sensation of floating through the air was more marvelous than anything she had ever dreamed of.

For some minutes she just allowed herself to dream of the future when she herself would be in control of a plane, sailing thus through the skies. Then she remembered with a start that if she ever expected her ambitions to be fulfilled, it would be necessary to learn how flying was accomplished. She began to examine everything in the cockpit. It was too noisy to ask her companion any questions, but she watched him carefully and tried to figure out what she could for herself. She identified the joystick, which controlled the plane, and she recognized the compass and the altimeter, which registered the height – now sixteen hundred feet – to which they had climbed. All the while she made mental notes of questions she would ask her pilot when they reached the ground.

Up, up they went until at last they were beyond the clouds, and saw the bright sunshine about them. It was symbolic to Linda; she resolved that in after life, whenever she was unhappy or distressed, she would fly on wings to the clear sunlight above. It was almost as if there she would actually find God.

She was so happy that it was some time before she noticed the queer sound the motor was making. Then, glancing questioningly at her companion, she saw a tight, drawn look about his lips, a ghastly pallor in his face. Something was evidently wrong! The motor made an uneven sound, threatening to stall, and the plane went into a tail-spin. Mackay was frantically leaning forward, doing something she did not understand.

"Motor's dying!" he cried, as he managed to right the plane. His voice shook with greater dread than he had ever before experienced. For, fearless though he was for himself, he was scared to death for the pretty girl at his side.

What a fool he had been, he thought, to allow her to come! He would give his own chances of safety that minute if she could be sure of her life! So young, so sweet, so utterably lovely! A great lump rose in his throat, as he took another look at his engine. But he was helpless.

Grim with terror, he pointed to her parachute. And then, to his amazement, he realized how perfectly calm she was!

"You step off first," he said, thankful they both had their parachutes. "I'll stay with the plane as long as I can."

Never in his life did Ted Mackay go through such a horrible moment as that instant when Linda Carlton, at a height of two thousand feet, stepped so bravely from the edge of the plane into the yawning space below. Even if he himself were killed, he could never know sharper agony. Yet the girl herself was gamely smiling!

He managed to pilot the plane a little farther, in the hope that when it did crash, it would not come anywhere near her, and then, when he could no longer keep it from falling, he stepped off himself.

Down he went, and his parachute opened with perfection, but he, in his tenseness, thought only of Linda, and of her luck with hers. And he prayed as he had never prayed before in his life, not even at his most perilous moments, where death seemed most certain.

No descent ever seemed so slow, so prolonged, but at last he reached the ground. And there, still smiling at him, was lovely Linda Carlton!

Chapter II

Graduation

"Thank Heaven you're safe!" cried Ted Mackay, as he disentangled himself from his parachute. "You certainly are a game little sport, Miss Carlton!"

"I don't see why," returned Linda. "People jump from planes with parachutes every day!"

"I know. But it was all so sudden. And it is always a pity when anyone's first flight ends disastrously. It makes you feel that you never want to see an airplane again."

"Well, it won't make me feel that way," replied the girl, lightly. "I'd go up again right away if you'd take me."

"I'm afraid I can't. But I'm mighty glad to hear you talk that way. I think you're cut out for a flier. Now let's hunt the wreck."

After they had located the damaged plane, and examined its shattered pieces, they hiked back to the aviation field together, talking all the while about flying. Linda asked Ted one question after another, which he answered as well as he could without having a plane to demonstrate, and he promised to lend her some books on the subject.

"You must come over and take a course of instruction at our Flying School," he advised. "As soon as you can."

"Oh, I hope to!" she assured him, eagerly. "Maybe after I graduate. Why, I'm almost eighteen! Most boys of my age who cared as much about it as I do would have been flying a couple of years. Because you can get a license when you're sixteen, can't you?"

"Yes… It's going to be fun to teach you," he added, as they approached the field, and Linda stopped beside her car. "Good-by! I'll expect to see you soon!"

His hope, however, was not fulfilled until two weeks later, when Linda again slipped over to the field, between engagements, for another ride in the air. This time she was only one among a group of visitors, and she went up in a plane that was both new and trustworthy.

Her time was so limited – it was a week before Commencement – that she had only chance for a few words with Ted Mackay. She told him that her class-day was the following Friday, and she timidly invited him to a dance which she was giving at her home the night before the event.

"Thanks awfully," he said, more thrilled than he dared tell her at the invitation, "but I couldn't possibly come… You see, Miss Carlton – I wouldn't fit in with your set."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Linda in disappointment, "We're not snobs, just because we go to Miss Graham's school!"

"Well, then, put it this way," he added: "I'm absolutely on my own – and I don't even have evening clothes!"

She smiled at his frankness, but she did not know that he told only part of his story – that he was supporting his mother and helping to put his younger sister through High School.

"All right, then – have it your own way – Ted," she agreed, holding out her hand. "I'll hope to see you some time after class-day."

From that hour on, it seemed as if every moment was filled with more things than she could possibly do. At last Friday came – as hot as any day in mid-summer, though it was still early June.

Soon after two o'clock the audience began to arrive, and at half-past, the twenty-two graduates, in their white dresses, with their large bouquets or American Beauties or pink rose-buds, filed in to take their seats on the flower-decked platform in the garden of the school grounds.

Fans waved, and the flowers wilted visibly, but nobody seemed to notice. For with the exercises the fun began, and everybody listened intently to the jokes and the compliments which came in turn to each and every member of Linda Carlton's class.

After Louise Haydock, the president, made her brief speech of greeting, the presenter took charge, and her remarks and her presents were clever without being cruel. Most of the latter she had purchased from the five-and-ten, but they all carried a point. To Linda Carlton she gave a toy car, because she thought that was what the latter was most interested in, and then she asked her to wait a moment, that she had something else for her.

Linda stood still, smiling shyly, and wondering whether her next gift would have anything to do with airplanes.

"Linda," continued the presenter, "we have this bracelet for you – in token of our affection. You have been voted the most popular girl in the class."

"Oh!" exclaimed Linda, and her eyelids fluttered in embarrassment. She was so surprised that she didn't know what to say. Some of the other girls, who had been secretly hoping for this honor, which was always kept as a surprise until class-day, had even prepared speeches. But Linda had never given the matter a thought.

"I – I – thank you so much," she finally managed to stammer, as she stepped forward to receive the bracelet.

The audience stirred and clapped, for the girl was a favorite with everybody in Spring City.

"She certainly looks sweet today," whispered Mrs. Haydock, the mother of Linda's best friend. "There is nothing so becoming as white."

"Yes," agreed her aunt, who had taken care of Linda ever since her own mother had died when she was only a baby, "but I do wish she hadn't worn those flowers. She had half a dozen bouquets of American Beauties, and she picked out those ordinary pink roses! Sometimes Linda is queer."

"Yes, but who sent them?" inquired the other woman. "Probably the reason lies there! Ralph Clavering?"

"Ralph Clavering wouldn't buy a cheap bouquet like that – with all his father's millions!" exclaimed Miss Carlton. "No; he did send flowers, but Linda didn't wear them. These had no card."

Their conversation stopped abruptly, for the class prophet was being introduced. Twenty-one girls on the platform leaned forward expectantly, anxious to hear what the future held in store for them. Of course nobody actually believed that this girl could foretell their lives, but it was always fascinating to speculate about their fortunes.

She began with the customary jokes.

"Sara Wheeler" (the thinnest girl in the class), "is going into the food business, but will eat up the profits. However, she'll weigh two hundred pounds before she goes bankrupt…

"Sue Emery, on the contrary, will finally succeed in reducing her weight – when she gets away from these girls and stops talking about it, instead of doing it – until she becomes Hollywood's star dancer…

"Linda Carlton and Louise Haydock – the double l's, we call them, because they are always together – will both marry wealthy men and become the society leaders of Spring City…"

At these words, Linda's Aunt Emily nudged Louise's mother, and smiled.

"That would suit us, wouldn't it, Mrs. Haydock?" she asked.

"Just what we want for our girls!" nodded her companion, in satisfaction.

It was over at last, the fun and the excitement, the class-day that the girls would keep in their memories for the rest of their lives. Hot, but happy, the graduates came down from the platform to find their friends and their families. Some of them wanted to linger, to talk things over, but Linda Carlton was anxious to get away. It had been wonderful to receive that beautiful bracelet, but somehow it would spoil it to talk about it.

And, in spite of all her happiness, there was a little hurt in her heart. Her father hadn't come home for his only child's graduation!

She came to where her aunt was standing, and put her arm through hers.

"Are you ready, Aunt Emily?" she asked.

"Of course, dear – if you want to go so soon. But wouldn't you like to stay and see your friends, and thank them?"

"Oh, I'll write notes," replied Linda.

"There's Ralph Clavering over there," remarked Miss Carlton, nodding in the direction of a tall, well-dressed young man on the other side of the lawn. "You could thank him for his flowers. He'll probably think it queer if you don't, especially since you didn't wear them."

Linda smiled carelessly.

"Ralph Clavering probably sent roses to half a dozen girls today," she said lightly. "It's his boast that he's in love with the whole class!.. No, I want to go home, Auntie. I'm tired."

"Certainly, dear. We'll go right away."

Nodding to friends as they walked across the beautiful garden where the out-door exercises had been held, they came to Linda's shining sports roadster, parked just outside the gate. It had been her father's present to her on the day that she was sixteen, and she had taken such care of it that even now, after a year and a half, it looked almost new.

"I think it was wonderful for you to receive the bracelet as the most popular girl," Miss Carlton said, as she got into the car. "Everything was really perfect – even the prophecy about your future."

Linda frowned at the recollection of those words; she hadn't liked that prophecy at all. As perhaps only Ted Mackay realized, her ambition was to fly, to fly so expertly that she could go to strange lands, do a man's work perhaps, carry out missions of importance. She wanted to be known as one of the best – if not the best – aviatrix in America!

Ever since she was a child she had had some such longing. Perhaps it was her father who had been responsible for it. Restless and unhappy after her mother's death, he had given his baby to his sister to take care of, and had wandered from one place to another, only coming home every year or so, to see how Linda was growing. As if to make up to her for his absences, he brought her marvelous presents – presents that were intended rather for a boy than for a girl. Early in life she had learned to shoot a gun, ride a horse, and drive a car. No wonder that she dreamed of airplanes!

Her aunt, on the other hand, disapproved of this way of bringing up a girl. She wanted Linda to be just like the other fashionable wealthy young ladies in Spring City, to spend her time at parties and at the Country Club, and later to marry a rich man – like Ralph Clavering. Naturally the words of the class prophet pleased her.

Nor had she any idea that Linda did not agree with her, for her niece had always kept her dreams to herself. There was no use talking about them, Linda thought, for her aunt would never understand.

"And I guess the prophet was about right," continued Miss Carlton. "Any girl that gets seven bunches of flowers from seven different boys, won't have any difficulty getting married."

"But I don't want to get married, Aunt Emily!" protested Linda.

"Not yet, dear – of course. Why, you're only seventeen! I couldn't spare you now – just when you're free to be at home with me. Besides, I think every girl should have two years at least to do exactly as she pleases!"

Exactly as she pleases! Why, that would mean learning to fly! Oh, if Aunt Emily could know the fierce longing in her heart to become a really fine pilot, to train herself to make her mark in the world!

"So I want you to have a happy, care-free summer," continued the other, totally unaware of her niece's thoughts. "At first I thought we would go abroad, but on the whole that would be too strenuous, after this hectic year. The other girls' mothers agree with me. Mrs. Haydock and I were talking about it today, and we've practically decided to go to a charming resort on Lake Michigan that she says is most exclusive. There you can be with all your best friends."

Linda said nothing; she just couldn't be enthusiastic about wasting three months in that fashion. When she had been hoping to stay at home and enroll for a course at the Spring City Flying School!

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, dear?" persisted Miss Carlton, as Linda steered her car through the wide gates of their spacious estate. "You could swim and drive and play tennis and dance to your heart's content! With Louise – and – and – the Claverings! Mrs. Haydock told me they are going there too. Why, you'd meet all the right people!"

Linda sighed. Aunt Emily's ideas of the right people were not exactly hers – particularly at the present time. She wanted to meet flyers, men and women noted in the field of aviation, not merely wealthy society folk. But she could not say that to her aunt; the latter was afraid of airplanes, and had only grudgingly given her consent that Linda go up in one. Naturally she had never mentioned her accident.

"Well, we'll talk our plans over later," said Miss Carlton, when Linda failed to make a reply. "I guess you're too tired to think about anything now. And," she added as she stepped from the car, "don't you want to leave your car here, and let Thomas put it away?"

"No, thank you, Auntie," she replied, for she did not like even so capable a chauffeur as Thomas to touch her precious roadster. "It'll only take a minute."

As Linda walked slowly back to the house, she was thinking of Ted Mackay. For she believed those wilted flowers at her waist were his. There had been no card, but they had come from a small flower shop at the other end of Spring City – not the expensive shop that most of her friends patronized. She would go over to the school soon, and thank him. But she would have to tell him that she was obliged to give up her own plans for the summer! Tears of disappointment came into her eyes, and she wondered if there weren't some way it could be arranged. Maybe if she asked her father…

The thought of her father drove everything out of her mind. He hadn't even bothered to come home! Nothing else seemed to matter.

As she entered the living-room, she found her aunt waiting for her.

"Come in, dear – and get some rest," said Miss Carlton. "You look so tired that you actually seem unhappy."

Linda forced a smile.

"Is something worrying you, dear? Or is it just the heat and the rush?"

"I don't know," answered the girl, sinking into a deep chair by the window. "I – I – guess I'm just foolish, Aunt Emily." There was a catch in her voice. "But I'm so disappointed that Daddy didn't come for my Commencement. And I wrote to the ranch three times to remind him!"

Miss Carlton nodded; her brother's ways were past her understanding. How anybody could be so indifferent to such a lovely daughter as Linda! And yet when he was home, no father could be more affectionate. It was just that he was absent-minded, that he hated to be tied down to dates and places. He might be at his ranch in Texas now, or he might have wandered off to Egypt or to South America, without even telling his family. He had been like that, ever since Linda's mother had died.

"I'm not so surprised at that as I am at his not sending you a present," commented Miss Carlton. "He may never have received your letters – or he may drop in a week late… But you mustn't let that worry you, Linda – you have to take your father as he is… And you must get some rest for tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" repeated the girl, vaguely.

"Yes. The Junior League Picnic. You haven't told me whom you invited."

"Why – I – a – "

"You forgot to invite anybody!" laughed Miss Carlton. "I know you – why, you're something like your father about social engagements, my dear! And of course all the nicest boys will be asked already! I know that Louise is going with Ralph Clavering – Mrs. Haydock told me today."

"That's fine," commented Linda, indifferently. "They're great pals."

"But whom will you ask? At this late date?"

"I really think I'd rather stay home, Auntie, if you don't mind. Because – well – Daddy might come – and I'd hate to be so far away. They're going all the way over to Grier's woods, I recall hearing Dot say, and you know that's at least fifteen miles."

"Of course, dear – do just as you like," replied her aunt, putting her motherly arms around her. "Only don't count too much on your father's coming!"

So Linda went to bed that night, little thinking that her plans would be changed the following morning, and that, in later years, she was to look back upon that day as one of the most wonderful of her whole life!

Chapter III

Her Father's Gift

As Linda had no plans for the day after her class exercises, she had intended to sleep late. But the arrival of her chum, Louise Haydock, accompanied by Ralph Clavering and his Harvard room-mate, Maurice Stetson, changed things for her.

At half-past eight her aunt came into her bedroom, half apologetically, half smiling.

"Linda dear, I want you to wake up," she said. "You have company."

"Yes?" replied the girl sleepily.

"You are rested, aren't you? And it's so much cooler. It's a real June day – the kind the poets write about!"

Linda sat up in bed, and blinked her eyes. Then suddenly she thought of her father. Did Aunt Emily mean he had come?

"Daddy?" she asked excitedly. "Do you mean he's here?"

Miss Carlton's smile faded; she had not meant to mislead her niece. It was cruel to disappoint her.

"No, dear. It's only Louise – with Ralph and another boy. They want you to wake up, and go on the picnic."

"Oh, I see… But you know I didn't invite anybody, Aunt Emily."

"That's just it. You're to go with this other boy. He's Ralph's room-mate, and he's here on a visit. You will go, won't you, dear?"