“Now, now,” she laughed shrilly, and if Nike had been making less noise the sound might have startled the people beneath them, for it was so harsh and bitter that it was uncanny.
By that time the gas indicator showed that the plane required replenishing, so she poured in the reserve tank, calculated how long it would last her, did some mental figuring, then increased the speed until it was going at a dangerous rate. She had not done enough flying so that she was any too familiar with the surface of the country, so she zoomed high to avoid mountains. Her next act was to shut off the engine to listen for other planes whose pilots might be following her. As Nike glided to earth the woman heard two of them. One seemed to be far behind her; it might have come up when Roberta failed to land on the flying field. The other was directly south, apparently coming straight across her course.
Having ascertained that there were two planes in the air, Mrs. Pollzoff opened her throttle again, turned the machine as if she were returning to the field and glanced at the indicator to be sure that her nose and tail lights were on. Looking toward the other machines she mentally calculated their course and watched the one which was coming to the south of her. She noted with a scowl that when she came around it swerved off its route considerably, but the second pilot exhibited his lack of interest in her movements by rushing steadily forward, zooming to be well out of her way, and passing on toward the Canadian border.
“If you are following me I shall give you a good run for your money,” the woman snapped furiously.
She lifted Nike’s nose, climbed gradually to seven thousand feet, leveled off, then proceeded at an even keel, racing at the machine’s top speed; then she started to descend, going more and more slowly, until the altimeter registered two thousand feet. At that level she shut off her engine a moment to listen, glanced at the chart, and then convinced that the larger plane was determined to keep tabs on her, she shut off the lights, and risked a smash-up by gliding to a thousand feet. She could see the larger plane high and in back of her, the roar of its engine sufficient to drown that of Nike; then she opened the throttle, keeping the head and tail lights out, throwing a cover over the dim light in the cock-pit, and began to climb slowly.