Chapter XVI: Help From the Sky

It was full day when Cora awoke.

For a moment she looked around her, dazed. Then, as she realized where she was, she sprang from the rope mattress to the floor. All the events of the previous day rushed over her mind like a flood.

She was greatly rested and refreshed, although her muscles ached from contact with the rude mattress on which she had slept.

A sickening sense of her position sought to take possession of her, but she resolutely thrust it back. She would not begin this new day by being a coward.

She looked at her watch, but in the excitement of the day before she had forgotten to wind it, and it had stopped. She set it at a guess, and held it up to her ear a moment before she returned it to its place. Its lively ticking seemed to say: "Cheer up! cheer up! cheer up!"

She threw open the door and stepped outside. The sun had risen and was flooding the wilderness with glory. The cool morning air was delicious with the odor of the pines. She drank it in in great draughts, and it put new life and hope into her.

There was no sign of a stream anywhere near, and her ablutions had to be scanty. She found a little pool of water in a slight depression, and was able to wash her face and hands. She did not dare to drink of the standing water, but its external use refreshed her. Then she thought of breakfast.

It seemed a grim joke to call it that, when her whole food supply consisted of a soup cube and a chocolate tablet. But she hunted around in the vicinity of the cabin, and found some blackberry bushes that were fairly well laden. She picked the berries with great care, for she knew how fond snakes were of such localities, and she had a lively memory of the encounter with the rattlesnake the day before.

The berries and the chocolate tablet furnished her morning meal. It was not a substantial or satisfying one, and it required considerable self-control not to supplement it with the remaining soup cube. But after looking at it longingly, she put it back in her pocket. A time might come when it would be worth a king's ransom to her.

And now that she had eaten, Cora bent all her thoughts on the problem of escape.

What ought she to do? Ought she to leave the cabin that had proved an ark of safety and try once more to find her way through the trackless woods? Suppose night came on again, and she still found herself not only in the woods but far from the cabin.

Or would it be wiser to stay right where she was until her friends should find her? She knew perfectly well how desperately they were hunting for her. Her heart ached as she realized the agony they were suffering. She could see the wild distress on the features of Jack and the other boys, the tear-stained faces of Bess and Belle. She knew that by this time they would have raised a hue and cry that would set scores of people searching for her. Would they not have as good a chance of finding her where she was as anywhere else in the woods? In fact, would not some of the lumberjacks know of this lonely cabin in the forest, and think perhaps that she had sought refuge there?

To stay where she was meant inaction, the hardest thing in the world for her just then. She would have nothing to do but to think, and she would eat her heart out with anxiety.

On the other hand, she faced the perils of the woods if she left the shelter of the cabin. Bears and panthers roamed the forest in the daytime as well as at night. Lynxes and wildcats, too, though less dangerous, were not to be despised, and there was the ever-present danger of snakes.

While she was pondering the best plan to pursue, she heard the humming of a motor.

She jumped to her feet in wild delight. Could that be the motor of a car with people searching for her? It must be. What else could it be?

But the next instant she realized, with a sinking of the heart, that no car could possibly penetrate those tangled woods.

Still the strident buzz persisted. It was a motor. She was too familiar with the sound to be mistaken.

She sprang to her feet, and as she did so a branch caught in the veil that was wound round her hat. She reached up to disentangle it, and her eyes rested on a tiny spot in the sky that was not a cloud, and that was momentarily growing larger.

Then she understood.

The motor was that of an aeroplane!

She ran to a more open spot where she could get a better view.

The aircraft was flying at a height of perhaps a thousand feet, and was moving at a high rate of speed. Nearer and nearer it came from out of the west, while Cora watched it with fascinated eyes.

Here was something that spoke of the great world that she seemed to have left behind. It was a link that brought her once more, if only for a moment, in contact with civilization.

And up there on a precarious perch, a mere atom in the blue immensity of the sky, was the aviator. How Cora envied him! No forest held _him_ in its iron clutch. He was free as the bird whom he resembled in his flight. He could choose what path he would. He was free while she was a prisoner. Perhaps he was flying now straight toward friends and home and love. His roving eyes could perhaps at that moment see Camp Kill Kare, which she perhaps might never see again.

She dashed the tears from her eyes and looked again.

Now the aviator was flying lower. And his speed had perceptibly lessened. What did it mean? Was he seeking a more favorable current of air? Was he in doubt as to his course?

Louder and louder grew the buzz of the motor, and lower and lower came the plane. Like a giant bird, it was now describing great circles, and with every one its distance from the earth was lessened.

Cora's heart seemed as though it would leap out of her body. There was no doubt now of the aviator's intention. He was looking for a place to descend!

But where? If he came down anywhere near where she was standing, he would be caught in the trees. But somewhere there must be an open spot that his keen eyes had descried, and it was there that he intended to make a landing.

Cora ran in the direction indicated by the plane.

She had gone perhaps two hundred yards, when she came to a large plateau which bore marks of having been swept at some time by a fire. So fierce had been the conflagration that trees and undergrowth alike had been burned to ashes in the holocaust. Even the stumps had crumbled into ashes, and there were several places in the wide expanse where a skillful aviator could make a landing without danger of injuring his machine.

As Cora came out into the open she saw that the choice had already been made. There was one long, graceful swoop, and then the giant flyer settled on the ground with scarcely a jar, ran for fifty feet or so on its wheels and stopped.

The aviator climbed out, rather painfully, as though cramped from long sitting. He rubbed his legs and flung his arms about vigorously as though to restore the circulation. Then he took some tools from a box under the seat and began to make some repairs in the motor.

His back was toward Cora, and the latter was running across the field to him when she suddenly stopped.

Who knew what this man might be? She was alone in this wilderness. Could she trust him?

But her hesitation was only momentary. Most men were chivalrous.

The aviator was on his knees as she approached. He heard her coming and sprang to his feet, very visibly startled.

"I didn't mean to startle you," panted Cora, with an attempt to smile. "I saw you come down here and I ran over as fast as I could. I had to see you, because I'm lost out here in the woods, and I was sure you would help me."

He was of medium height. The garments in which he was wrapped to protect him from the intense cold of the upper air made it impossible to tell whether his form was large or slender.

"You poor child!" exclaimed the stranger in great surprise and sympathy. "Don't be afraid to tell me all about it," he said. "Look!"

He took off his hat, and Cora's startled eyes saw two large braids of hair coiled tightly about his head.

_The aviator was a woman!_

The next moment she had her arms about Cora, and the latter was sobbing as though her heart would break.

"There, there, my dear," said the newcomer, patting Cora's disheveled hair, "go ahead and cry all you want to. It will do you good, and I know just how you feel. But you're all right now."

The revulsion from despair to joy had been so great that it was some minutes before Cora recovered her self-control.

"Oh," she exclaimed at last, as she smiled radiantly through her tears, "I'm so happy that I can hardly bear it! Surely God has sent you to me."

"I believe so," smiled the other, who herself was a mere girl, not much older than Cora herself. "But now go ahead and tell me just how you came to be lost."

She listened with the greatest sympathy and interest while Cora narrated all that had happened to her since the day before.

Then in her turn she explained that she was making a cross-country flight from Chicago to New York. She was bent on beating the best record ever made for the distance by either man or woman, and was in a fair way to do it.

"My engine began working badly a little while ago," she explained. "The ignition was balky and I thought I'd better come down and fix it before it got worse."

Cora looked at her with admiration, and expressed it warmly.

"I don't see how you dare to take such risks," she said. "It must take a tremendous amount of courage."

"Oh, I don't know," said the other modestly. "But there's a lot of satisfaction in beating the men at their own game," she added mischievously.

"We women all owe you a lot for doing it," laughed Cora happily. "It does the men good to have some of the conceit taken out of them. But just the same I startled you when I appeared so suddenly at your side," she added, with a spark of mischief in her eyes.

"Yes," admitted the other. "I didn't know that I was within miles of anybody at all you see."

"I'm sorry," murmured Cora, but the sportive look remained on her face.

"Well, now, I'll just put the finishing touch on the engine and then I'll be ready," said the aviatrix, who had introduced herself as Ruth Moore. "And you shall go with me."

"Me! With you?" gasped Cora.

"Yes. Why not? My machine has an extra seat. And you want to get out of this wilderness."

Miss Moore set to work, Cora assisting her, and the aircraft was soon ready to continue its flight.

"I never thought I'd be taking my first ride in an aircraft under such conditions," remarked Cora as her companion strapped her in.

"You're sure you won't be afraid?" asked Miss Moore, looking at her searchingly.

"I'm so happy at getting away from these awful woods that I'm not afraid of anything," replied Cora. "Then, too, I'm used to motor cars and motor boats, and that ought to help me in keeping my nerve. You needn't be afraid. I won't make any fuss."

"You're a girl after my own heart," laughed Miss Moore, as she adjusted herself in her seat. "Sit perfectly still now and leave everything to me."

She touched a lever and the aeroplane ran along a few yards and then soared skyward.