matter, though,” he added, “I can’t see that we have much responsibility in the matter. She refused to leave the bag locked in the plane where it would have been safe. Took the matter in her own hands. The bag was in her possession when it disappeared. So—o!” He smiled. “That about lets us out. We—

“Look there!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Even the gypsies are taking to the air.”

At that moment a stout dark-faced woman, wearing the typical gypsy garb, broad, bright-colored skirt and dazzling silk scarf tied about her head, was alighting from a small cabin-type monoplane. The plane was like a huge dragon fly. It had a bottle-green body and silver wings that glistened like glass in the sun.

The stout, dark woman was followed by a girl of some eight years. And after her, in a pilot’s garb, came a golden-haired girl who did not look a day over eighteen.

“It’s strange!” Rosemary’s tone expressed her surprise. “I saw those same people in Chicago, just before we took off. And now, here they are right with us.”

“Not so strange,” replied the pilot. “That giant bug of hers may be quite speedy. They probably took off later than we did and just in time to miss the storm.

“But look!” he exclaimed, “If that sort of thing is allowed to go on, what is to come of this bright new thing we call aviation? There’ll be a crack-up every day in the week. The papers will be full of them and no one will dare to travel by air. And all that because of rank amateurs and lax regulations. I’m starting an investigation right now.”

“Nice plane you have,” he said to the golden-haired girl.

“Oh yes, but perhaps a little too small.” The girl spoke with a pleasing foreign accent.

“You’re not a gypsy?” The veteran pilot smiled in spite of himself.

“But no.” The girl smiled back. “Not entirely. I am French. People call me Petite Jeanne. I was adopted by gypsies in France. Oh so good, Christian gypsies! This lady is Mrs. Bihari, my foster mother.”

“I suppose,” said Mark with a laugh, “that you traded a flivver for an automobile, the auto for a better one, the better one for a poor airplane, the poor plane for a good one?”

“But no!” The golden-haired girl frowned. “A year ago my own people were found in France. I had inherited property. This is my very own plane. And see!” She held out a paper. “This is my license to fly.”

“Mind if I take your ship up for a little spin?” Mark said bluntly.

“But no.” The girl spoke slowly. “That is, if I may go, and if she will go with us.” She nodded her head toward Rosemary.

Rosemary had little desire to fly in a small plane. She had always traveled in the magnificent big bi-motored transportation planes which, she believed, were safe as walking. She had it on the tip of her tongue to refuse, when the girl cast her an appealing look that she could not well disregard.

“Yes,” she said, “yes, surely I will go.”

Three minutes later they were in the air. Ten minutes later, with a sigh of relief Rosemary found her feet once more on the solid earth.

“You’d be surprised!” Mark whispered enthusiastically. “Never saw a better equipped plane, nor one in finer condition. That motor is a joy! The radio is perfect. Everything, just everything. If all the amateurs were as careful this world of the air would be one great big joy.”

“Wonderful little plane!” he exclaimed, gripping the little French girl’s hand. “And how wonderfully cared for!”

“But why not?” The girl showed all her white teeth in a smile. “We gypsy people have a saying, ‘Life is God’s most beautiful gift to man.’ This is true, I am sure. Then why should anyone do less than the very best that he might keep that gift?”

“Why indeed? And thanks for the good word.”

“Do you travel much?” It was a new voice that asked this question. The rather mysterious Danby Force had come up unobserved.

“Oh yes! We are gypsies. All gypsies travel much,” was the girl’s reply.

“Where will you go next?”

“Over the mountains to Cheyenne.”

“Ah, then you will be going part way back the way we came,” Danby Force said. There was an eager note in his voice. “I wonder if it would be possible for you to take a passenger and to pause for a brief time at a safe landing field?”

Rosemary started. So Danby Force meant to return. He was going back to the lodge. Had he, after all, taken the dark-faced lady’s bag? Had he hidden it there? Would he return and carry it away? If so, why? Why? Such were the questions that crowded her mind. And she did not like them. She did like Danby Force. She wanted to believe that he was incapable of doing a thing dishonest or dishonorable. She had not forgotten his delightful words about God’s invisible power in our lives.

But the little French girl was speaking. “If it will help someone,” she was saying. “We will take you over the mountains and stop at this safe place you speak of.”

“It will help—help a great deal, I assure you!” Danby Force exclaimed. “It may help three thousand people.”

“There it is again,” Rosemary thought. “Always speaking of thousands.”

“We might as well get over to the airport,” Mark, the pilot, suggested to Rosemary. “The dark lady has had ample time to lodge her complaint.”

They went, but much to their surprise found that no complaint had been filed. What was more, the dark lady had vanished. No one about the place could tell them how she had gone, nor where.

“It’s the strangest business I ever had anything to do with!” Mark grumbled. “Loses her bag, valuable papers and all, and still no complaint. But believe me!” he exclaimed, “we’ve not heard the last of this!” Nor had they.

CHAPTER III
THE “FLYING CORNTASSEL”

The evening after her arrival in Salt Lake City, Rosemary Sample, the young airplane stewardess, overheard a conversation that interested her greatly and at the same time strengthened her faith in the rather mysterious young man, Danby Force.

She might have thought of herself as an eavesdropper had not the incident occurred in that most public of all public places, the lobby of a large hotel, the Hotel Temple Square. Not that she was staying at so expensive a place. Far from that, she occupied a room in a clean, modest-priced rooming house. But Rosemary had a weakness for large downy chairs, soft lights, expensive draperies and all that and, since at this time of year this hotel was not crowded, she could see no reason why she might not indulge these tastes for an hour or two at least.

She was buried deep in a heavily upholstered chair, thinking dreamily of her home in Kansas, of her mother, father, and the young people of the old crowd back home. She was smiling at the name they had given her, “The Flying Corntassel of Kansas,” when, chancing to look up, she beheld a vision of beauty all wrapped in deep purple and white. To her astonishment she realized that this was none other than the flying gypsy’s adopted daughter who called herself Petite Jeanne. She wore a long cape of purple cloth trimmed with white fox fur.

At the same moment someone else caught the vision, Danby Force. And Danby Force had something to say about it.

“What a gorgeous cape, and what marvelous color!” he exclaimed. There was in his tone not a trace of flattery. He spoke with the sincerity of one who really knows beauty of texture