Jane thanked the driver and hastened into the operations office on the
first floor. A teletype was clicking out the latest weather reports and
the radio operator was busy giving the pilot of the special plane final
information on the wind and visibility at Cheyenne.

Miss Comstock, who had been talking to the night chief of operations,
turned to Jane.

"I was afraid we weren't going to locate you," the chief stewardess
said, visibly relieved at Jane's arrival. "This is an important trip
and I knew I could count on you to make a good impression."

The night operations chief joined them.

"This special is going through ahead of everything," he told Jane, "and
we can't have it delayed if Mrs. Van Verity Vanness gets air sick and
they have to slow the schedule or set the ship down at some field to
wait until she feels better. In other words, it's up to you to see that
she is so comfortable from now on and so busy she won't have time to
think about complaining."

"Is she ill now?"

"Salt Lake said she looked like a ghost and Rock Springs just cussed
when I asked him how she looked. One thing, we're going to get that
special off this field and from then on it's up to you to see that Mrs.
Van Verity Vanness holds together until we land in Chicago."

Charlie Fischer strolled in and glanced at the weather report coming in
on the teletype.

"Plenty of visibility and a good tail wind. I'm going to take that
three-engined demon up where there's plenty of room and ride it for all
it's worth. You can put me down for about 160 miles an hour from here
to Omaha," he told the night operations chief.

"If you can do that, you'll whittle better than half an hour off the
schedule we've worked out," said the night chief.

Charlie turned to Jane.

"You going along?" he asked.

"It's my first regular trip."

"Means extra ballast," grumbled Charlie.

"Extra ballast nothing," retorted the night chief. "Our billion-dollar
passenger is air sick and unless we put a stewardess aboard and get
Mrs. Van Verity Vanness feeling better pronto, this flight will be a
washout and about $10,000 will fly out of this airway's sock and you
can imagine how the general manager would like that."

"You mean we're getting $10,000 for this trip across the country?"
asked Charlie incredulously.

"She paid before she started the trip in 'Frisco, but if we don't land
her in New York on time she'll stop payment on the check. So when
you're in the air