The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-09-05

| passing 1nhab1CanC OF the NIL Couu-
try could rescue him.
Vee-Vee was moved almost to pity
for the scheming little ex-nobleman
as she reviewed the hopeless as
poets of his problem.
If she had been the real heiress,
his former wife, he might have had
some faint hope that she would
have pity on him, secretly arrange
his rescue from the cabin after she
herself had been safely returned to
the bosom of her family.
But Ivan was well aware that the
girl for whom ransom was even now
being demanded was a nobody, that
the mistake as to her identity would
be discovered as soon as the Gram
dalls laid eyes on her. No, he could
hope for nothing from the girl he
had brought to such a pass.
Vee-Vee was washing dishes and
the prince was playing sulky game
of solitaire when Happy" made his
third reconnoiter from the door Of
the cabin,
He stood there for many minutes,
hand shading his eyes, which were
upturned to search the heavens. He
was evidently expecting Satan" to
arrive by airplane.
The prince, glancing up from his
cards, saw the preoccupation OF the
kidnaper and rose stealthily from
his stool.
He advanced on tiptoe to the fire.
place, wrested from Vee-Vee's hands
the frying pan she was washing,
and. still on tiptoe, advanced as
noiselessly as a cat toward the kid
naper, whose back was turned to the
room.
Wild thoughts fitted through the
girls brain. IF the prince shoulc
succeed in knocking out the kid
naper, the two of them-the prince
and she-would be free.
Il he failed, If some slight noise
or movement warned the kidnaper
in time, the prince might very well
die before her eyes.
And the chances were, Of course,
hundred to one that he would
fail, for Happy" had served long
apprenticeship in crime; he would
not be easily disposed Of by an anna
teur crook like the prince.
If, on the other hand, he did
succeed in stunning the kidnaper
and disarming him, she would have
lost her one friend, strange as that
friendship was.
do you see anything, Happy?"
she called out in a casual voice.
At her first word the prince
stepped dead in his tracks. conceal
ing the tell-tale frying pan behind
his back, and the kidnaper turned
his head to answer her:
Nothing yet"
Fifteen minutes later, the kid
naper, still slouching in the open
doorway, flung up the hand which
nursed the pistol and waved it Wild
ly over his head.
There he isl!l! He's going to land
in the next field"
vee-vee and the prince both ran
to the doorway. But If they had had
any thought of trying to escape, 1t
was swallowed up in the terrible
drama of the next few minutes.
For as Vee-Vee stared over the
kidnaper's shoulder, the plane,
which had been circling under per-
feet control, suddenly dipped and
careened wildly, plunging toward the
earth at sickening rate of speed
my God" Happy" cried out
hoarsely. Something's gone wrong
And he's going to land on that hill
lin the tree tops"
Before he had finished utterine
his prophecy it had been fulfilled.
The plane plunged straight for the
hill, turning over and over as II
whirled downward. Vee-Vee clapped
a hand to her eyes to shut out the
inevitable horror Of the catastro.
phe, but she could not help hearing
the crash, the splintering of wood.
| While she was still trembling
shielding her eyes there came ter
rife explosion, and she knew tina
Satan" at least would never troubl,
her again.
During the next minute sh
scarcely knew what happened, TO
she was too violently nauseated b,
the thing that happened on tn
placid, treacherous bosom Of the hill
She heard sobbing curses utteret
incoherently by the surviving kid
naper.