been without its mystery. There was the strange man, Danby Force, and his urgent need for going somewhere. Then too there was the dark woman with the bag which she had all but refused to trust away from her, even in the locked compartment of a trans-continental plane. What could she have in that bag? The girl thought of one instance when it had been believed that high explosives carried in a bag on an air-liner had brought disaster to a score of persons. “But of course it would not be that,” she told herself.

Rising from her place, she moved back to where the dark-faced one rode. She seemed fast asleep. But was this only a pose? She could not tell. Someone forward beckoned to her. Routine duties were resumed.

The hours passed quietly. At five o’clock they were over the Rockies. Marvelous moment! The golden sun was sinking over the distant prairies. The mountains, half white with snow, half green with forests, lay beneath them. They were beyond the timber line.

Suddenly the co-pilot’s light blinked at the back of the cabin.

“Signaling for me. I wonder why.” She moved swiftly forward.

“A storm roaring up the mountains from the west.” Mark Morris, the young co-pilot, spoke in short jerky sentences. “Going down here. Landing field of a sort. Laid out on the plateau. Hunting lodge below. No real danger. Get straps hooked up. Usual stuff.”

Rosemary understood. She passed swiftly along the aisle. A word, a whisper, a smile, that quiet, care-free air of hers did the work.

“Forced landing. What of that?” This was what the passengers read in her face.

What indeed? They swooped downward, bumped with something of a shock, bumped more lightly, glided forward, then came to a standstill.

The tall dark woman sprang to her feet, threw open the door, then swung herself down. She was wearing low shoes and sheer silk stockings. She landed squarely in eighteen inches of snow.

“Wait!” Rosemary cried in dismay. “Give her a hand up, some of you men. I’ll fix you all up right away.”

There were, of course, neither high boots nor leggings in the airplane cabin, but Rosemary was equal to the occasion. Tearing up a blanket, she was soon busy fashioning moccasins for the ladies.

“Tie these cords about the bottoms of your trousers,” she said to the men. “Yes, we’ll go down to the hunting lodge. Be three or four hours anyway.”

“Where’s the trail?” She spoke now to the young co-pilot.

“See that big rock?”

“Yes.”

“Blazed trail starts there. Easy to follow. About half a mile. Fine place. Been there three times. Big fireplace. Bacon and other things to eat. You’ll enjoy your stay,” he chuckled.

“All airways are beaten trails to our pilots,” Rosemary murmured.

A cold wind came sweeping up the mountain. Sharp bits of snow cut at their cheeks. They were impatient to make a start when, as before, the dark-faced lady held them up.

“My bag!” she exclaimed. “I must have it!”

“Safe enough here,” said Mark. “All locked up. We’re staying, the pilot and I.”

“But I insist!” She stamped the ground impatiently.

Five minutes of chilling delay, and she had it. Nor would she relinquish its care to the most courteous traveling man. She plunged through the snow with it banging at her side.

“Queer about that bag,” Rosemary murmured to Danby Force, who marched at her side.

To her surprise he shot her a strange—perhaps, she thought, a startled look.

“As if I had discovered some secret,” she thought to herself. “Well, I haven’t—not yet.”

After floundering through the snow for some distance, they came at last to a spot where a trail wound down the mountainside. Ten minutes of following this trail brought them to a long, low, broad-roofed building that, in the gathering darkness, seemed gloomy and forbidding.

“Fine place for a murder,” Danby Force whispered to Rosemary.

“Don’t say that!” She shuddered.

Stamping their feet on the broad veranda, they pushed the door open and entered. Danby Force struck a match. Directly before him, at the opposite side of the room, was a fire all laid in a broad fireplace. The young man’s second match set a mellow glow of light from the dancing flames searching out every dark corner. For the time at least, the place lost its forbidding aspect. Indeed it might well have been the banquet hall of some ancient British hunting lodge, of long ago.

Nor was the banquet lacking. Rosemary Sample was from Kansas. And in Kansas mothers teach their daughters to cook. Fragrant coffee, crisp bacon, candied sweet potatoes, plum pudding from a can, steamed to a delicious fineness—this was the repast she prepared for the guests of her trans-continental airplane.

All thoughts of the dark-faced lady’s mysterious bag, of Danby Force’s urgent need, and of the gypsies’ fortune telling were forgotten in the merriment that followed. One of the college youths, who had slept all the day, discovered an ancient accordion and at once began playing delirious music. The rough floor was cleared and all joined in a wild dance—all but the dark-faced one who sat gloomily in a corner.

From time to time as the music died away, Rosemary listened for the sounds that came down the chimney. There was a whistle and a moan, the sighing of evergreen trees and then a rushing roar as if a giant were blowing across a mammoth bottle.

“Be here all night,” she said to Danby Force at last.

“Guess so. Fine place for a murder.” He smiled at her in a curious way as he repeated that weird remark of a few hours before.

“Strange place for a—” Rosemary could not make her lips form that remaining word as, two hours later, staring into the dark, she whispered that line. She was in the bunk room at the back of the lodge. The women of the company were all sleeping there. The men had cots before the fire in the main room.

The dark lady had dragged her traveling bag into the farthest corner and had crept beneath her blankets after very little undressing. A very strange person, this dark lady. Rosemary did not exactly like her, but found in her a certain fascination. Even now, as she turned her face toward that corner, she fancied that she could see her eyes shining like a cat’s eyes in the dark. Pure fancy, she knew, but disturbing for all that.

Just when she fell asleep she never quite knew. She was always definite about the time of waking—it was just at the break of dawn. She was startled out of deep sleep by a sudden piercing scream. Instantly Danby Force’s words came to her. “Fine place for a murder.” But there had been no murder.

CHAPTER II
THE VANISHING BAG

“My bag! It is gone! My traveling bag! It has been stolen!” The young stewardess knew on the instant that the dark-faced lady was the one who was screaming. That the bag was truly missing she did not doubt.

“Well, it’s happened,” she thought to herself as she tumbled from her bunk.

What she said to the dark-faced lady was done in a more official manner:

“I’m sure it can’t be far away. Someone has moved it by mistake. We’ll dress, then we will have a look.” Her tone was calm enough, though her heart was not.

They did dress and they did have a look—several looks, but all to no avail.

To Rosemary this was distressing. The whole affair had gone off so extremely well until now. Of course no one