Chapter Fifteen

"Hello Heroine"

Jane was up at seven the next morning and a few minutes later, went down to breakfast. In the lobby she purchased copies of all of the morning papers and went into the grill for breakfast.

An excellent picture of herself stared up from the front page of the _Globe_ and underneath the picture was a two column headline informing _Globe_ readers that they were about to read Jane Cameron's own story of the battle with the bandits.

Jane flushed and looked up to make sure no one had recognized her. But there were only a few at breakfast at that hour and she read the story from opening paragraph to the final dash. Jane had to admit that Ruthe Harrigan had done an excellent job of writing. The story was thrilling, from start to finish.

After breakfast Jane bought half a dozen copies of the _Globe_, paid her hotel bill, and took a taxi to the field. A pass was ready for her and the 8:18 was on the line, warming up for the trip west.

A messenger approached Jane with a message and she signed for it. Inside was a brief note from Mrs. Van Verity Vanness expressing her appreciation and with it a check, "a little token of my gratitude," wrote Jane's passenger. The stewardess' eyes blinked as she looked at the check. It was for one thousand dollars!

Jane's knees felt weak and she grasped a nearby handrail for support. A thousand dollars! Why, it didn't seem possible. But it was possible, for a thousand dollars was only pin money to the millions which Mrs. Van Verity Vanness controlled.

Jane felt almost uncomfortably rich. There had been $500 for selling the story and now the thousand dollar check. She had spent less than $10 for her room, breakfast, taxi fare and the papers. Why she would have at the very least $1,490 when she returned to Cheyenne. It seemed unbelievable but she had the checks.

The day chief of operations at Newark came up.

"There's a sound crew from a news reel outside. They want you to pose and say a few words. It's good publicity for the line."

Jane was glad that it was almost time for the plane to depart, for facing a movie camera was a real ordeal. Her mouth went dry and chills ran along her back as the sound man held the microphone close. Somehow she managed to say a few words, and then she hurried back to the 8:18. Two minutes later the big tri-motor was roaring west, and late that night Jane would be back at Cheyenne.

There was a strong headwind and they seldom got above a hundred miles an hour, with the result that they were more than an hour late when they reached Chicago.

Jane changed planes there and had a lunch at the field. Then the tri-motor sped westward again. There was a light passenger list, only nine aboard the fourteen-passenger craft, and none of them recognized Jane, for which she was grateful.

Night came as they roared over the rich farm lands of Iowa and from Omaha west, Jane dozed, lulled by the rhythmic beating of the three great engines.

The wind increased in force as they neared the Rockies, and the speed was well under a hundred an hour. As a result, it was nearly three o'clock when the lights of Cheyenne showed far ahead, under the left wing. Jane roused herself and straightened her uniform. She wondered if the girls would be at the field.

The big plane glided noiselessly out of the night into the glare of the floodlights. When it rolled into the hangar Jane peered anxiously toward the waiting room. Sure enough, Sue, Grace and Alice were there, all of them fairly dancing in their anxiety to greet her.

The young stewardess was first out of the tri-motor, and she ran to meet her friends.

"Hello heroine," said Sue, as she threw her arms around Jane in an affectionate embrace.

"Welcome home," added Alice, while Grace added, "let's see what the New York papers said about you."

Miss Comstock, who had been in the background, came up and greeted Jane warmly.

"You've done a wonderful piece of work for the stewardess service," she said. "Mrs. Van Verity Vanness sent the general manager a long telegram today, highly recommending the service and especially complimenting you. I'm sure that as a result of your outstanding work, we're all assured of jobs for a long time to come."

"But I didn't do anything unusual," protested Jane. "I simply did my job as I had been trained to do it, in the hospital and here at the field. It was nothing more than what will soon be routine to every one of us."

"Not every one of us will have bandits attack our plane the first time we're out, nor will we be carrying a woman who can sign her name to a check for a million dollars and know that she can cash it," put in Grace.

Jane looked at her wrist watch. It was just three o'clock.

"We'd better hurry home if we plan to get any sleep tonight," she said.

"You can go home," said Grace, "but Alice and I are ordered out on the eastbound mail. It's coming through in two sections from the coast this morning, and will be here in another fifteen minutes."

"Then I'll stay and see you off," said Jane. "Fifteen minutes, more or less, won't make much difference at this time of night."

Miss Comstock was busy in the commissary, checking supplies which were to go aboard the eastbound planes and the girls all lent her a hand.

They plied Jane with questions about the trip, the encounter with the bandits, and how she had gotten along with Mrs. Van Verity Vanness.

"She's an old dear," said Jane. "I don't care what the newspapers say about her, she certainly treated me splendidly, and just as we got to New York she invited me to accompany her as nurse and companion. She's planning a round-the-world trip as soon as her son recovers."

"And you turned that down?"

"I should say I did. Why, I wouldn't trade this job of mine for almost anything else in the world. You'll feel the same way before you're half way through your first regular flight as stewardess. There's a thrill to flying that can't be found in anything else."

"I'm willing to be shown," said Grace.

The planes from the west came in on time, both of them loaded to capacity. New crews took over the controls at Cheyenne and Grace and Alice stowed the food away in the pantries. They checked their passenger lists and when the planes were refueled, called their passengers aboard.

"Good luck," called Jane and Sue as they stood on the ramp and watched the big ships wheel out of the hangar. Then the planes roared away into a greying sky, which heralded the coming of another dawn.

A field car was available to take them to town and Miss Comstock joined them.

"Are you going to come out and see every ship off?" asked Jane.

"I should say not, but with all of the girls assigned to go out within the next 24 hours, I want to see that they get started right. After that, they'll be on their own."

"What assignment do we get?" asked Sue.

"You will be on the _Night Flyer_ while Jane is to take the _Coast to Coast Limited_. You'll go out tonight, while Jane's first trip is tomorrow morning."

"Then I'll plan to do plenty of sleeping in the next few hours," said Sue. "The _Night Flyer_ means a slow trip to Chicago for it stops at every airport."

Mrs. Murphy heard them come in, and appeared with her hair done up in curl papers and a faded kimono wrapped around her ample bulk. She insisted on going down and fixing a lunch, and over the kitchen table Jane spread out the New York papers. They read the stories, in great detail, and Mrs. Murphy appeared immensely pleased at the great publicity given to Jane's fine work.

"I could tell the minute I laid eyes on you, that you'd be a winner," she said proudly. "Now you'd best both be off to bed, for it's circles you'll be having under your eyes if you don't."

They thanked Mrs. Murphy for the lunch and hurried upstairs to undress and crawl between crisp, cool sheets just as the sun came over the horizon.

Mrs. Murphy came in later and adjusted the curtains on the porch, and the girls slept until mid-afternoon.

Sue, about to make her first flight alone, was nervous and excited. She fussed over the way her uniform fitted her trim figure and worried about what she would do if any of the passengers became ill.

"Just forget you're in a plane and think about ward duty back in Good Samaritan, then you'll know what to do," advised Jane.

They had supper with Mrs. Murphy and then a car from the field called for them. The _Night Flyer_ was due at ten o'clock, but Sue had at least an hour's work in the commissary and she wanted to have plenty of time.

Miss Comstock, looking rather worn and tired, was still on duty and Mattie Clark was also at the field, looking very neat and business-like in her uniform.

"There's two sections tonight on the _Flyer_," Mattie informed Sue. "I'm going out on the first section and you'll take the second."

"Sue is assigned on the first section," said Miss Comstock, who resented Mattie's infringement of her authority. "You take No. 2."

"But I want to be in Chicago early," protested Mattie.

"Both ships will be there within five minutes of each other. Besides, Sue is to be on the _Flyer_ regularly, and she might just as well get acquainted with the regular pilots who are on that run."

Mattie was silent, but it was obvious that she was anything but pleased at Miss Comstock's decision, and Jane knew more than ever, that Mattie was going to cause trouble for everyone else in the ranks of the stewardess corps.