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 embarra.s.sing to come down and face them if the inspector should turn her down.

She lifted the biplane into the air and got alt.i.tude 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers became deathly ill and Jane herself was so sick she could hardly move. She managed to stagger ahead to the pilots' c.o.c.kpit 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 a.n.a.lyzed. 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."