He held her hand as they took off. “Not scared?”
“Not after those mountains. Scared me half to death! Not you?”
“I slept through them,” he confessed.
“Oh, darling, what you missed. Utterly spectacular as well as utterly terrifying.”
“More ahead, I gather, though not so high. I’ll stay awake now.”
He may have, but Daisy did not. She woke several hours later to find herself leaning against his shoulder, even colder and stiffer than before, and with a pain at her waist where the safety belt had cut into her. She groaned as she straightened.
Alec couldn’t hear her groan, of course. He smiled and shouted at her, “Sleep well? We’re going down.”
Ahead, the sun was low over white topped mountains.The peaks were widely spaced, Daisy noted hopefully. With luck, crossing the range would not require stunt flying.
After a low pass to inspect the ground, they made a bumpy landing in a field on the outskirts of the little logging town of Bend. Several horse-drawn carts—buckboards, Bessie called them—which had been headed out of town altered course to come and inspect the aeroplane. Each carried several men, and not a one wore a fedora or a trilby. Those not in caps or cowboy hats—Stetsons—had on bowler hats. Daisy felt vindicated.
They were loggers returning to the forests after spending their Sunday off in town. With Dipper promising largesse, they willingly agreed to transport gasoline.
“Will a little place like this have enough to spare?” Daisy wondered.
“We don’t need a full tank. Only eighty miles to go, as the crow flies,” Bessie told her.
Alec went off to the railway depot, determined to find a telegraph operator and let the authorities in Eugene know they were coming, and why. “Helpful chap,” he reported when he came back. “I signed off with my full title, including ‘Scotland Yard,’ which isn’t exactly correct but is more likely to be recognized than ‘C.I.D. Metropolitan Police.’ I hope it will get someone’s attention.”
As soon as they took off, to a great cheer from the loggers and townspeople, Daisy’s worries returned. The fact that bowlers like Pitt’s were common here did not actually mean anything, she realized. The one thing she had no doubts about was that Eugene was his home.
“Darling, what if Pitt’s already got there and disappeared?”
Alec shrugged, grinning. “Whole trip makes no practical sense,” he shouted back. “We should have stayed in New York and started a hue and cry. Not my job to chase American crooks.”
“If it was, you’d have done it the practical way. You did send off those telegrams before we left.”
“I asked someone to send them. Dipper says his friends aren’t keen on paper-work, so who knows?”
“Lambert will have reported what happened.”
Shaking his head, Alec said, “My guess is Lambert will have done a bunk. He’ll send in his resignation from home.”
Daisy had to admit it wouldn’t surprise her.
The last of a glorious sunset reflected rosily off the river as they landed at the Eugene airfield. Though the town had looked quite small from the air, it had a proper aerodrome, with well-kept grass, a hangar with a wind sleeve, tarmac, and a petrol pump. There was a small building, from which a man in uniform emerged as they taxied towards it. He stood with hands on hips, watching.
Bessie had been flying the aeroplane. She stopped on the tarmac and blissful silence fell as she switched off the engines. The man came over.
“Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher?” he called up to Dipper.
Alec had folded back the cabin’s hood as they rolled across the grass. Standing up, he said, “I’m Fletcher.”
“Judkins, Chief of Eugene City Police. You send a cable?”
“I did. I’m glad it reached you.” Alec started to climb down.
“You got identification?” the police chief asked, rathertruculently. Though he could have had no way of knowing if Alec’s credentials were genuine, he studied them carefully. “O.K.” he said, handing them back, apparently satisfied, “so what’s the story, Chief Inspector?”
Alec explained that the previous day they had witnessed the theft of a U.S. Post Office aeroplane and the kidnapping of its pilot. “We have reason to believe the pirate intended to make his way to Eugene City.”
“Oh yeah?”
