Chapter I
In the Fog

"My girl, you are in perfect physical condition," announced pleasant-faced Dr. Ginsley, who had served as the Carlton family physician for years. "I can't picture anybody in more radiant health."

"I thought so," smiled Linda Carlton, the pretty aviatrix who had been flying her Arrow biplane for the last three months. "But Aunt Emily wanted to make sure, before I go any further with aviation."

"Yes, of course, she's right. And what are you planning now?"

"A thorough course at a good ground school, so that I can get a transport license – that ranks the highest, you know. I – I haven't decided on any particular school yet, because Aunt Emily still opposes the idea. She wants me to have a coming-out party instead, like the other girls in Spring City. So I'm waiting for Daddy to come home."

"And if I'm a judge your daddy will let you go to the school," said the doctor admiringly. "I heard all about how you saved his life with your plane!"

"Oh, no!" protested Linda, modestly. "It was that wonderful surgeon – Dr. Lineaweaver – who did that. I was merely lucky enough to be able to get him in time."

The doctor chuckled.

"Well, luck or no luck, you made a long flight alone at night. I think it was marvelous. You can't tell me anything bad about the young people today. To my mind, they're finer and braver than they were in my day! And that's something from an old man…

"Well, good-by, Linda, and good luck! I suppose you're not flying anywhere today?"

"Oh, no! It's too foggy."

She opened the door of the waiting-room that led to the porch, and it seemed immediately as if the fog rushed right into the house. It was damp and penetrating, and so dense that it hid the doctor's gate from view.

Linda stepped out on the porch, and almost bumped into a woman with a small child in her arms. The stranger seemed almost to appear from nowhere, out of the obscurity of the fog.

"Oh, you must excuse me!" she cried, excitedly. "I'm that worried I can't see where I'm headed!"

"It was just as much my fault," replied Linda. "Or really, it wasn't either's," she added. "We'll blame it on the fog."

But the other did not seem to be listening, and looking closely at her, Linda saw how deeply distressed she was. Evidently she was very poor, for her worn blue serge dress hung about her ankles, as if it had been bought for someone else, and her brown straw hat looked about the style of 1900. But she evidently had no concern for her own appearance; she kept her gaze fastened on the doctor's face, and her eyes were filled with terror. Was it possible that the baby was dead – or dying? Linda paused and waited, wondering whether she might be of any help.

"Doctor!" gasped the woman, frantically. "My baby swallowed a pin! And I'm sure it's in her lungs now. She breathes so queer."

"When did this happen?" asked Dr. Ginsley, gently taking the child in his arms, and motioning Linda to come back into the house.

"Last week." The woman started to cry, and sympathetically, hardly realizing what she was doing, Linda put her arm about her.

"But why did you wait all this time to come to a doctor?" inquired the elderly man, trying to soften his disapproval by a kindly tone.

"Because," stammered the other, between her sobs, "because my mother thought it would be all right. One of my brothers swallowed a tack when he was little, and nothing happened. And – we live out in the country, and we're so awful poor!"

"I'm afraid it's too late now," sighed the doctor. "I'll make an examination, of course, but if the pin is lodged in the child's lung, there is nothing I, or anybody else – except that surgeon in Philadelphia – could do. And he's too far away."

The tears rolled down the woman's face, and the tiny little girl – about two years old, Linda judged – seemed almost to realize the death sentence, for she opened her blue eyes and uttered a pitiful little moan. And, strangely enough, she reached out her tiny hand towards Linda.

"You precious baby!" exclaimed the tender-hearted girl, touching her hot little fingers. "You are so sweet!"

It seemed almost as if the little girl tried to smile, and at this pathetic effort the distracted mother broke out into convulsive sobs, hiding her head on Linda's shoulder.

"She's my only girl!" she moaned. "I have three boys, but this baby has always been nearest to me… My – my little bit of Heaven!"

Silently, sympathetically, the doctor laid the child down on his table in the office, and got out his instruments, while Linda drew the heart-broken mother to a chair near-by.

"It is as you feared," he said, finally. "There is nothing I can do."

"But – this doctor in Philadelphia – ?" began the woman, seizing the one ray of hope he had mentioned. "Is the carfare there very much? Oh, sir, if you could only lend me some money to go, I'd work my fingers to the bone to pay you back!"

Dr. Ginsley shook his head sadly.

"I'd be glad to lend you the money, my good woman," he said, "but it wouldn't be a bit of use. The journey would take too long; the child can't live more than a few hours."

A shiver of horror crept over Linda as she saw the baby's pitiful breathing, and the mother's utter despair. Turning to the window she glanced out at the fog, thinking rapidly… Should she offer to take them, when it was only a chance at best – a chance in more ways than one? A few hours, the doctor said, were all that the baby had to live… Suppose Linda could get through the fog with her Arrow, would the trip be all in vain? Would she be risking her own life, to watch the child die in her mother's arms?.. Yet something inside of her compelled her to offer her services; she would be less than human if she didn't try to do something.

"I will take you and the baby in my plane, Mrs. – " she said.

"Beach," supplied the woman, unable to grasp what Linda meant.

"Oh, no! No, my dear!" protested Dr. Ginsley, immediately. "That would not be wise. It would mean risking two good lives to save one that is almost past hope… No, you mustn't do that – in this fog."

"I – I don't know what you mean," faltered Mrs. Beach. "An airplane?"

"Yes, yes," explained Linda, hastily. "I am a pilot, and I have a plane of my own. I will take you and the baby to Philadelphia."

"You mean that?" cried the woman, hysterically.

"Yes, of course I do. Come over to my house with me while I get ready."

"Linda, I don't approve of this," interrupted Dr. Ginsley. "This fog – your father – your aunt – I thought you had too much good sense to take foolish risks."

"Not when it is a case of life or death," answered the girl, quietly. "Come, Mrs. Beach! There isn't a moment to be lost."

She managed to smile at the doctor, who stood in the doorway, watching their departure, torn between his feeling of fear for Linda in the fog, and his admiration for her brave, generous spirit.

"Then good luck to you!" he called, as they went cautiously towards the gate.

"My husband is here in the buggy," said Mrs. Beach to Linda, as they reached the street. "I must stop and tell him."

"You are sure you are not afraid?"

"No! I believe in you, Miss! And, oh, I'd risk anything to save my little girl… Besides,I've always wanted to go up in an airplane."

After a word of explanation to the astonished man in the rickety old carriage, Mrs. Beach followed Linda across the street to the girl's lovely home. It was a charming colonial house, much too large for two people, as Miss Carlton, Linda's aunt, always said. For the girl's father was scarcely ever there, except for over-night visits.

Mrs. Beach, who under ordinary circumstances would have been impressed with its splendor, now hardly noticed the lovely house, or the beautiful room where she waited while Linda changed into her flyer's suit and helmet, and scribbled a hasty note to her aunt, who happened to be out shopping at the time. In an incredibly short interval she reappeared, her arms laden with woolen clothing – a scarf for the baby, a cap and coat for the mother.

While the gardener rolled the plane from its hangar, Linda fastened the parachutes on herself and her companion, and explained how to use them.

"You would have a hard time," she said, "with the baby." (She did not say impossible, though she believed that herself.)… "But perhaps we could strap her to you, with this extra belt, here, if an accident occurs… But don't let's worry! Probably nothing will happen, but we must be prepared at all times."

After a hasty examination of the gas, the compass, the oil gauge, and the other instruments, Linda started her engine, and listened to its even whir. Sound and steady as an ocean-liner, thank goodness! So she put Mrs. Beach into the companion cockpit beside herself, and with a heart beating faster than it had ever beaten, even on that occasion when she made her first solo flight at school, she took off into the thick grayness all about them.

As the plane left the ground, she carefully pointed it upward in a gradual ascent, hoping that perhaps she could get above the clouds. She must fly high – it would be dangerous crossing the Alleghenies. She hoped she could depend upon her instruments; they had never failed her yet.

Up, up they climbed, but always within the veil of gray that closed upon them so completely. No horizon was visible, it seemed as if they were floating inside a gray ball, with nothing to tell them where they were going. The child was asleep in her mother's arms, and Linda glanced questioningly at Mrs. Beach. But her expression was all maternal love; no fear of danger for herself seemed to have any part in her feelings.

Everything about the experience seemed queer, so detached from the world, so unreal. A mysterious journey that was no part of everyday life. More than once Linda wondered whether they were not flying unevenly, perhaps upside down! Oh, if she only had a gyroscopic pilot, that marvelous little instrument that would assure an even keel!.. She would ask her father to give her one for Christmas – if she lived till then! She smiled in a detached way; she thought of herself almost as another person, in a book or a play.

The plane was evidently dipping. Suddenly, with that sixth sense with which every good pilot is equipped, she felt a stall coming on. It was a sort of sinking sensation; then the ailerons on the end of the wings failed to function. She pushed the stick frantically from side to side – with no response! In that brief moment she glanced again at her companion, so absorbed in her child, and she knew that the mother would not mind going to her death if the baby could not live.

But Linda meant to do everything in her power to save them all. She had been in difficulties before, and she knew how to overcome them, if it were humanly possible. Fortunately she was flying high, so she immediately pushed the nose of the Pursuit forward and dropped the plane three hundred feet to regain speed. And then, oh, what a gorgeous feeling of relief swept over her, as she succeeded in coming out of that stall! The plane was now flying evenly. Her gasp of thankfulness was audible, but the woman beside her did not even notice.

"Maybe I'm not glad Daddy bought me an open plane!" she thought, as she flew steadily onward. "If I couldn't feel the wind in my face… Oh, you dear Arrow, you have never failed me!"

And then, miraculously, the fog lifted. Everything was clear in the sunlight; all her fears were gone – now she could make speed. Onward they went, over the mountains, and the rivers, through Pennsylvania, flying low enough to see the wonderful beauty of the early autumn in that lovely part of the country. At last they came to Philadelphia, and flew straight to the airport at the southern end of the city, and landed in safety.

"The baby is – breathing!" she asked, as she watched the attendant who came forward to welcome them.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Beach, rapturously. "Oh, I think you must be an angel, Miss Carlton!"

"If we are only in time!" returned the girl. "We taxi from here."

"But I haven't much money – "

"I have. Come! There isn't a moment to be lost!"

Linda left her plane with the attendant, and helped Mrs. Beach with her baby into the waiting taxicab. In half an hour they were at the hospital.

"You – you will stay with me?" questioned the woman, trembling.

"Of course."

The great surgeon was kindness itself. Mrs. Beach, who had feared that he would be brusque, was delighted. A nurse took the baby immediately into the operating room.

Linda was intensely hungry; it was long past her lunch-time, but she said nothing of it, while they waited tensely in that outer room. She had not failed the poor woman yet, and she would not now, at her most difficult hour.

At last the doctor appeared, his face beaming with smiles.

"Your baby is fine!" he announced. "And one of the sweetest little girls I have ever seen… The nurse is putting her to bed now."

Mrs. Beach burst into tears of happiness, and rushed forward and clasped the surgeon's hand in rapture.

"Oh, I can never thank you enough!" she cried. Then, drying her eyes, she added, "And how much do I owe you, Doctor?"

The great man had been taking in the woman's appearance, her poor clothing, her work-hardened hands.

"Five dollars," he said, not making the mistake of saying "Nothing," for he realized that she would resent charity.

"The Lord be praised!" she exclaimed, reverently. "Two angels I have met today – you and Miss Carlton! Two utter strangers who do things like this for me!" She buried her head in Linda's arms and wept hysterically in her joy.

After the bill was paid, the doctor told them that they might stop in to see the baby. Following the nurse, they tiptoed down a corridor and into a children's ward, where they found the little tot in a white crib, breathing naturally, sleeping the dreamless sleep of childhood.

"She had better stay here for a few days," advised the nurse. "You can find a cheap room a couple of doors away from the hospital." And she handed Mrs. Beach a card.

It was then, and only then, that the happy mother realized that she had not eaten since the night before.

"We'll get something to eat first," she said to Linda as they left the hospital together. "And then you will want to fly back home?"

"No," replied the girl. "I think I'll stay over night – to get a good rest, and fly by daylight. And besides, you will not be so lonely."

So, after sending her aunt a telegram to that effect, Linda Carlton treated her grateful friend to the best meal she had ever eaten in her life.