Linda Carlton's Island Adventure. Lavell Edith
observed, with a smile.
"Talkative!" repeated Linda, "All you ever wanted to do was sleep! Every time I looked at you on that flight to Canada, you were peacefully dozing!"
"And she still has a bad habit of dropping off," teased Ted.
"So long as that's the only way I 'drop off,' I'm satisfied," concluded Louise.
In spite of their frivolous talk, Linda had been thinking seriously about the autogiro, and had entirely made up her mind about it.
"I'll take it," she announced. "If you surely approve of it, Ted."
"I do, absolutely."
The salesman looked at her in amazement. Never had he made such an easy sale before. But he did not meet people like Linda Carlton every day!
"Don't you want to try it out?" he suggested. "I can show you how to fly it in a few minutes."
"I have flown one before," she told him. "But I would like to take it up for a few minutes if you don't mind. Am I to have this particular one? I have a certified check in payment."
The salesman blinked his eyes in further consternation. The check right there, the girl ready to take the plane home with her! It was a moment before he could catch his breath.
"Of course," he finally managed to answer. "I'll have her started for you immediately. And – would your friends care to go up with you?"
"Sure!" exclaimed Ted. "We're your best friends, aren't we, Linda? So oughtn't we to be privileged with the first ride?"
"You certainly are!" replied the famous aviatrix, squeezing Louise's hand in her excitement and delight. "Come on!"
It was the Mackays' first flight in an autogiro, and though they were very much crowded in the passenger's cock-pit, they insisted that that only added to the fun. With a sureness which Ted watched in admiration, Linda took off and flew round and round the field, putting the new plane through all sorts of tests, proving conclusively that all the claims for it were well-founded.
Fifteen minutes later they came slowly down to earth, landing on the exact spot from which Linda had taken off.
"Unscramble yourselves!" she cried to her passengers, as she climbed out of the cock-pit. "Let's go pay our bill."
"She's great, Linda!" approved Louise, as her husband helped her out. "I'm for her, even if she is a funny-looking bug."
"Sh!" cautioned Linda, solemnly. "You might hurt her feelings. She's – she's – a lady!"
"Ladybug!" exclaimed Louise, with a sudden burst of inspiration.
"Ladybug is right!" agreed her chum enthusiastically. "You've named her for me, Lou!"
Chapter II
The Aviation Job
"It's marvelous!" exclaimed Linda, as the salesman came to meet her after her test-flight in the autogiro. "Will you have her filled with gas and oil, while I sign the contract? I'll take her with me."
The salesman smiled at Ted Mackay.
"In the same way any other woman would buy a hat," he remarked, to Louise's amusement.
"You found it easy to fly, Miss Carlton?" he inquired.
"Wonderful!" she replied. "So simple that a child could almost do it! It certainly is the plane of the future, or of the present, I should say."
"We'll probably see one perched on everybody's roof within the next five years," teased Louise, although in reality she shared her chum's admiration for it.
While the mechanics gave the autogiro a thorough inspection, the little group strolled to the office to sign the papers and to meet the president of the company.
The salesman introduced Mr. Pitcairn, and added, proudly, "This is the Miss Carlton, of world-wide fame! The only woman who ever flew the Atlantic alone! And I have had the honor, to sell Miss Carlton an autogiro!"
Linda blushed as she shook hands, and her eyelids fluttered in embarrassment. She could never get used to public admiration. Immediately she began to talk about her new possession.
"I want it for every-day flying," she explained. "I think it will be wonderful for that."
"We believe that it is," agreed the older man. "And we are honored indeed, Miss Carlton, that you have chosen it. It will be a feather in our cap."
"Miss Carlton never thinks of things like that," remarked Louise. "But I guess we're glad that she doesn't!"
While Linda signed the necessary papers, and handed her check to the salesman, the president inquired what her plans included now that she had graduated from the Ground School with such success.
"I don't exactly know," she replied. "I want to get some kind of aviation job – I am more interested in the use of planes in every-day life than I am in races and spectacular events, though I understand that these have their place. Of course I haven't found anything to do yet, but I mean to try."
"You expect to give your whole time to flying?" asked the other. He had thought, naturally, that a girl in Linda Carlton's circumstances would just do it for sport.
"Yes – a regular full-time job. I'm not sure what – not selling planes, for I don't believe I'd care for that. And not the mail – unless I can't get anything else. You don't happen to know of any openings, do you, Mr. Pitcairn?"
"Let me see," he said. "Things are a little slow now. Of course there are the air-transportation companies, but their routes are about as cut-and-dried as the mail pilot's… I take it you would rather have a little more excitement… There's crop dusting, during the summer. You have heard of that, no doubt?"
"Yes, I have read about it."
"You know, then, that one plane flying over a field can spray as many plants in a day as a hundred of the ordinary spraying machines?"
His listeners gasped in astonishment. What marvelous advances in progress aviation was bringing about!
"I happen to know of a company in the South that is just forming," he continued. "Because of lack of capital, they are in great need of pilots with planes of their own. If you are interested, I am sure they would be glad to take you on."
"That sounds very interesting," agreed Linda, eagerly. "I'm sure I'd like that. And an autogiro ought to be especially adapted for this kind of thing. I could fly so low – and land so easily – "
"Exactly! Incidentally, you'd be doing our company a big favor by showing the public new uses for an autogiro. If Miss Carlton, of international reputation, flies anywhere, the account of it is sure to be in the newspapers!"
"I wouldn't count too much on that, Mr. Pitcairn," protested Linda, modestly. "I really am not 'news' any more… But I shall be grateful for the name of this firm, if you will write it down for me. Where is it located?"
"In Georgia – the southern part," he informed her. "Here is the address," he added, handing her a card. "And I will write myself today to tell them of their good fortune!"
"Georgia!" repeated Louise. "It's going to be awfully hot there, Linda. Compared with Green Falls – or even Spring City."
"Why not pick a job in Canada?" suggested Ted. "You'd like Canada, if you didn't choose the coldest part of the year to visit it."
Louise shuddered at the memory of their adventure during the preceding Christmas holidays.
"I never want to see Canada again!" she said. "And I don't believe Linda does either!"
It was not the memory of that cold night in the Canadian woods, or of the cruelty of the police, however, that made Linda frown and hesitate now. Nor did the heat of the South trouble her – weather was all in the day's work to her. But the thought of the distance between Georgia and Ohio, and what such a separation might mean to her Aunt Emily, deterred her from accepting the offer immediately. It hardly seemed right to be away all winter and spring, and then to go far off again in the summer.
"Would I have to promise to do this all summer, if I took it on?" she inquired.
"No,