y the large hamper. When she
returned with the boy, Mattie was still in the commissary and Jane
looked at her sharply. Mattie flushed, but Jane thought nothing more of
the incident.

The _Coast to Coast_ was loaded and Jane sat on the jump seat at the
rear of the plane. It was the usual crowd--a second-rate movie actress,
several New York traveling men with flashy clothes, an elderly lady
called east by a death in the family and the rest business men and
women who had taken the plane to save time on their trip east.

Jane made sure that everyone had traveling kits, answered several
questions about the weather ahead, and checked over her passenger list
to see that everyone was in the proper seat.

The ship rolled out of the hangar and swept away into the east. Jane
picked up the magazines and went along the aisle, offering them to
passengers who cared to read. Most of them preferred to gaze at the
landscape below.

They were east of Grand Island when Jane prepared lunch, serving
sandwiches, a cool salad and an iced drink she had brought in a large
thermos jug.

It was early afternoon when they cleared Omaha, with a stop scheduled
ahead at Des Moines, the last one until Chicago. Council Bluffs had
barely dropped out of sight when Jane began to feel ill. Just then a
woman called her. She was feeling uneasy and Jane gave her a soda
tablet.

She had hardly returned to her seat when everyone appeared stricken at
the same moment. Her passengers became deathly ill and Jane herself was
so sick she could hardly move. She managed to stagger ahead to the
pilots' cockpit and told them of what had happened. The big ship was
turned about at once, roaring back for Omaha, while the co-pilot sent
out a rush call for ambulances and doctors to meet it at the field.

By the time the tri-motor reached the Omaha field, Jane was too ill to
move and everyone in the cabin was carried out and taken to the
hospital for treatment.

Just before she left the field, Jane spoke to the chief pilot.

"Save the lunch," she whispered. "It must have been that."

He nodded and hurried away to see what he could find in the pantry.

Somehow the Omaha papers got hold of the story, and printed it on their
front pages. As a result Hubert Speidel, the personnel chief, hurried
out from Chicago on the first plane to make an investigation, and it
was at Jane's request that he had the food analyzed. Shortly after that
he ordered an investigation to be he