_Chapter XXVII_ THE SHOWDOWN
When Janet regained consciousness she was aware of a roaring that filledher ears. It was as though a great storm was sweeping down upon her.Then, from the motion, she realized that she was in an airplane. Her headached terrifically and she made no attempt to move for several minutes.
As her eyes became accustomed to a dim glow of light ahead she coulddistinguish the figure of a man at the controls in the small cabin theywere in.
Janet shifted her weight and the man turned instantly, focusing aflashlight on her.
"Keep still or I'll crack you again," he warned and from the fiercenessof his voice Janet knew that he would not hesitate to carry out histhreat.
The pulse of the motor lessened and she felt the craft sinking, to settlesmoothly into a little circle of light. It was then that she learned theywere in an autogiro.
Her captor opened the door and ordered her out.
Still with her head throbbing wildly, Janet managed to get out. There wasa bad scratch on her left leg that had bled rather freely.
To her anxious questions, the flyer gave only the same answer, "You'llfind out later, maybe."
Janet was forced to allow her hands to be tied behind her and then wasled to a small shelter tent. There was a blanket on the ground and theflyer tossed another over her.
"Don't make any attempt to escape," he warned.
The portable electric light which had guided the autogiro down into thebasin was snapped off and Janet passed the remainder of the night indesperate anxiety, wondering what was happening back at camp and themeaning of her abduction.
With the coming of dawn she hoped to learn more about the camp, but shewas doomed to disappointment for her captor appeared and dropped thecanvas fly which covered the front of the tiny tent.
It was well after daylight when she heard another plane approaching. Itlanded nearby and a few minutes later she heard men's voices, one of whomshe recognized as that of the flyer who had brought her there. Then theplane which had just landed roared away and it was shortly after thatwhen Janet heard a series of booming explosions.
Suddenly her tent flap was jerked roughly aside and her captor, a stocky,heavy-set man with a mass of black hair, ordered her to her feet. Janetstruggled to get up, but she was numb from being in one position so long.The man half cuffed her upright and then hurried her toward the autogiro.
The motor of the queer looking plane responded instantly and they rosealmost straight out of the valley, which Janet judged must be somedistance from Sagebrush. As they gained altitude she looked across thedesert. Although it was several miles away, it seemed almost a stone'sthrow to Sagebrush, hardly recognizable now with the flames stillconsuming the few structures left in the village. Janet saw that the setfor the desert airport had been destroyed. But what was more importantwas the swarm of planes which were climbing off the desert floor.
Like angry hornets they were buzzing around. Suddenly one of them shottoward the autogiro and the rest followed. Janet heard her own pilotshouting in anger, but the autogiro was slow and the movie planes werearound it almost instantly.
In the foremost was Curt Newsom and Janet felt her blood chill as she sawthe rifle in Curt's hard hands.
Under the warning muzzle of the gun, the autogiro settled toward thefloor of the valley and in less than three minutes the other planes weredown around it while cars raced toward them, clouds of desert dust risingin their wake.
Bertie Jackson was in the first car and when she saw Janet her faceblanched. Helen and her father were in the same machine.
"Are you all right?" asked Helen anxiously, for Janet was white-faced anddeep hollows of fatigue were under her eyes.
"A little tired," confessed Janet. "What happened? Was this something inthe plot I wasn't supposed to know about?"
"Tell us where you've been and why?" said Henry Thorne, and Janet brieflyrelated the events. She didn't like to do it, but there was nothing elseshe could do under the circumstances and her story implicated BertieJackson.
"She's jealous, that's all," snapped Bertie. "The whole story is trumpedup."
Then Curt Newsom took a hand.
"Let's look at this thing squarely. How much were you and these twoflyers paid to slow up production on 'Kings of the Air'?" He shot thequestion at Bertie.
"You're impertinent," she blazed.
"Sure, but you're likely to go to prison. Setting fire to buildings isarson, you know." There was no humor in his words and Bertie looked fromone to another in the group around her. Each stared at her with scornfuleyes.
Defiant to the end, she flung her head back, "Well, what of it?" shedemanded.
"Only this. You'll never work in another picture for anybody." It wasHenry Thorne speaking, quietly and firmly, and Bertie turned away.
The two flyers, the one who had abducted Janet and the one who had bombedthe set, talked. Janet didn't hear the whole story, but she and Helenlearned enough to know that another rival company was implicated. It wasBertie who had set fire to the dry old houses in Sagebrush and who hadsupplied the flyers with information on the plans of the company.
When they finally returned to what little was left of the village, HenryThorne spoke quietly to the girls.
"Don't worry now," he assured Helen. "There'll be no more delays. We canerect another set on the desert without too much loss of time and we'llhave to live in tents, but that is endurable."
Turning to Janet, he surprised her.
"Janet, I'm going to put you in Bertie's role. We'll shoot the scene inthe field restaurant over again when we get back to Hollywood, but I needsomeone right now to step into Bertie's place and you can handle thepart. What do you say?"
"I'll do my best," promised Janet.
"I know you will." Then Henry Thorne hurried away to attend to one of thehundred details that are the worry of a successful director and Janet andHelen faced each other.
"It looks like 'Kings of the Air' is going on to a successful conclusionnow," said Janet. "I'm so happy."
"And I'm happy that you are getting Bertie's part. Do you suppose we'regoing to be able to keep on in the movies?"
"That," smiled Janet, "is something I couldn't even guess. If we don'twe'll go home this fall with the memories of the most thrilling summerany two girls could have had."
They turned to rejoin the rest of the company, unaware of the furtheradventures in Hollywood and in New York which were to befall them beforewinter came.
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Transcriber's note:
--Obvious typographical errors were corrected except for a few amusing ones.
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