ery attempt to elude the pursuer and Jane was
astounded at the tricky flying which could be done with one of the big
transports.

Back and forth they roared through the sky, twisting and turning, until
it became a real game. Then the roar of another motor came to Jane's
ears and she looked back to see Charlie dropping down on her. That was
her cue to stop chasing the tri-motor and attempt to save herself.

She dropped her own plane into a quick, twisting dive, that caught
Charlie unawares and he missed her the first time, but he came fighting
back, his own machine gun spouting blanks. For twenty minutes they
twisted and turned, first Charlie gaining the advantage and then Jane.
Then she saw a red flag waving from the camera plane. It was the signal
for the dive on which she was to release the smoke pot.

Charlie was well above her, diving again. Jane waited until his plane
was almost on her. Then she spun her own ship into a twisting plunge
and tripped the trigger of the smoke pot apparatus.

Almost instantly a cloud of thick, heavy smoke rolled out of the
fuselage behind her and Charlie's plane disappeared for a second in the
smoke screen.

Jane watched the altimeter. She had been up 3,100 feet when she
released the smoke pot. At a thousand feet above ground she was to
level off and scoot back to the Cheyenne field.

She had been too busy warding off Charlie's attack to watch just where
they were and was surprised to find herself just north of the home
field. For all Jane knew they might have been thirty miles away.

The biplane spun down dizzily, the speed increasing until the wing
wires screamed in protest. But it was good action and Jane knew the
movie cameras would catch every bit of it as the smoking plane
thundered toward the ground.

She felt remarkably cool as the speed increased. She had every
confidence in the sturdy old biplane and at 1,800 feet she pulled the
stick back a bit to see how the plane responded. To her horror there
was no lessening in the angle of the dive and she turned quickly. The
controls had jammed and the tail of her plane was ablaze, set afire in
some way by the smoke pot.

Chapter Twenty-one

Too Much Action

For a moment sickening panic gripped Jane. Then she remembered that
Charlie had insisted that she wear a parachute and there was plenty of
time for her to bail out of the falling plane.

Jane looked back. Charlie's ship sped out of the trail of smoke and she