# Adventure (magazine)/Volume 32/Number 6/There and Back

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from Adventure, January 30 1922, pp. 157–176.
The Cumberlands—airmen and moonshiners.
There and Back
A COMPLETE NOVELETTE
by Thomson Burtis
Author of “The Winning Chance,” “Vengeance,” etc."
LOUD and succulent smack, caused by the sudden stoppage of a lustily thrown slipper by the beaverboard walls of his boudoir, disturbed the noisy slumbers of George Arlington Hemingwood, shavetail, only slightly. His mouth opened and closed feebly. A deep sigh, and he was again immersed in repose.
“Come on, 'Duke'!” yelled Captain Kennard from his bedroom, across the sitting-room of the quarters. “The ham and eggs are ca-a-alling me!” he finished in an unmusical bellow.
“I am always deaf in the morning,” yawned Hemingwood, coming to a sitting posture and blinking owlishly at the slipper which was Captain Kennard's invariable messenger of wakefulness.
“The other slipper, aimed more carefully, follows anon, Duke.”
“That's the worst of sleeping in an exposed position,” grumbled Hemingwood as he climbed out of bed. “The lack of privacy around here is positively indecent.”
“Oh I was drunk last night, drunk the night before.
Gonna get drunk tonight if I never get drunk any more!
When I'm drunk I'm happy as can be——”
The nerve-racking series of discords trailed into silence gradually, denoting the progress of the captain toward the shower-baths. Thither George Arlington Hemingwood—“of the Hemingwoods of Bahston, y'know”—followed him, his wiry form swathed in a huge bath-towel.
“My eagle eye tells me that it's foggy out again this morning,” announced Hemingwood, taking a brief glance into the bathroom mirror to see if his carefully cherished black mustache had sprouted any further during the night.
“Uh-huh,” chattered the stocky, thick set captain, dancing under an ice-cold shower.
“Some of these days it's going to be clear enough so that we can handle an artillery shoot without being in danger of getting hit with a shell,” pursued the Duke, so called as a tribute to the mustache.
He stripped for action, plunged beneath the shower and out again as quickly as was humanly possible.
“Being hit with a friendly shell is about the only thing that hasn't happened to you in your career as a flier, isn't it?” grinned the captain as he sawed at himself with a rough towel.
Tall, blond Curran entered the shower-room in a dazzling bathrobe. He had reported to the Air Service Detachment the day before from May Field, California.
“Is the Duke one of these hard-luck birds?” he inquired as he got into action with a shaving-brush.
“Did you ever read O. Henry's yarn about Kearney and Phoebe?” countered the captain.
“What made you think he could read?” inquired Hemingwood.
“Well, the Duke is in the same class as Kearney for hard luck,” pursued the captain as he prepared to depart.
“By George, you're right about the fog,” remarked the C. O. later as he was in process of dressing,
“Thick as cream, but maybe it'll be high enough to let us shoot. This artillery bunch can't savvy the various reasons that prevent us from arising into the ozone and——”
“Raw, raw, raw, Ha-avahd,” interrupted Hemingwood rudely. “I haven't heard so much English spread since I went through Harvard——”
“One afternoon and came out with three overcoats,” the captain finished for him. Patton, an incurable early bird, strolled into the sitting-room.
“A little speed,” he exhorted, tilting his Stetson on the back of his curly black head.
“If the captain would stop trying to be witty perhaps I could control my hysterical mirth enough to dress,” returned Hemingwood, surveying the part in his sleek black hair appraisingly.
His good-humored face was very brown—most of the officers of the temporary detachment of fliers at Camp Henry had come up from the Mexican border patrol, he among them—and a pair of merry brown eyes looked forth at the world with a careless challenge in them.
“Who shoots today?”
“The Duke and Beaman. Curran will carry an artilleryman up to get a view of the works. I surely hope this first shoot of ours goes off well.”
“You're taking a chance, sending the Duke up, aren't you?”
“Just daring the gods to do their worst at the start,” admitted the captain, emerging from the sanctity of his bedroom fully clothed.
“The bedbug has no brains at all, but he gets there just the same,” caroled the Duke.
There was practically no mishap in flying that he had not experienced, but somehow or other he always got through. He had had more outlandish adventures as a flier than any three men had a right to have, and the bad luck that haunted him was a standing joke to every one who knew him. Hemingwood had no respect for ships or flying—he possessed a vast belief in the fact that he would wiggle through somehow. His creed was to open-'er-up and go ahead regardless.
“Hustle up and let's go. Curran! Nearly ready?” bawled Patton.
“Just a minute,” came Curran's voice from the upper regions of the barracks, which had been changed into bachelor officers' quarters.
“Did you ever hear about George's fund of information about motors?” inquired the captain as he perched on the edge of a desk to await the rest of the bachelor contingent.
“Don't believe I have. It's not very vast, is it?” grinned Patton.
“Vast enough,” Hemingwood cut in. “I know where the throttle and park are—what more does a peelote need to know?”
“We got a phone call from him one day at McMullen, saying that he had had a forced landing fifty miles south of San Antonio. He said the motor had cut dead—his massive brain had realized that almost in a flash, as it were——”
“Your sarcasm is as light and fleecy as——”
“Shut up, Duke. Anyway he said that probably it was ignition trouble on account of the motor having cut dead. So we sent a ship that two hundred miles with a repair kit, only to find that the crankshaft had broken in the motor, and George never knew it!”
“Here comes Curran. Let's forget this jealousy—this kidding of the best pilot that ever came from Beacon Hill,” said Hemingwood, sauntering down the hall with his characteristic, bent-kneed stride.
The car was waiting on the road in front of the quarters. To the right, on a line with the officers' domicile, stretched the barracks and mess-halls of the hundred enlisted men of the detachment. To the left was Head quarters, the garage, machine-shop and warehouse. In the rear line were the photographic and radio huts, as well as some miscellaneous shacks used for various purposes. The field was directly across the road, the four big hangars paralleling the road itself and forming the western boundary of the field.
A tall, gangling sergeant was walking up the road. He saluted grudgingly.
“Seeing Sergeant Woodruff reminds me—the general won't have his aerial pictures of the big review tomorrow unless this mist is lighter than it is this morning,” remarked the captain as he took the wheel and started the engine.
“Oh, the noble sarge would have the camera messed up anyhow,” said Hemingwood carelessly.
“The next time he falls down there's going to be trouble,” stated the captain, ominously serious.
Then conversation became impossible.
“I believe the C. O. has liquor stored,” said Patton as a bump lifted his big form two feet in the air.
“He doesn't want the eggs at the club to get any older before we eat 'em,” was Curran's diagnosis.
At twice the speed allowed by Post Regulations, Camp Henry, the car shot down the concrete road which split the big, sprawling artillery camp squarely in two. A Kentucky morning when the climate is really working smoothly is worthy the attention of a connoisseur of mornings, and despite the mist the beauty of the day was calculated to make any man start work on the right foot. To the men from sun-baked Texas it was like Paradise to see some regular trees and feel cool air in their faces.
At forty miles an hour they shot past long lines of army buildings, skidded around a corner in a manner that caused several artillerymen to wax pop-eyed, and drew up before the big Officers' Club in a burst of dusty glory.
They joined Mr. and Mrs. Beaman for breakfast. Jim Beaman, although rather young to be trusted with a family, had a most charming wife, and his two-year-old daughter Jerry—short for Geraldine—was easily the most popular resident of the club.
Hemingwood paused to tickle the delighted Jerry before he sat down, which invariable habit of his always aroused much glee in the bosom of the blond little sprite who was the officially adopted mascot of the detachment. The artillerymen and their wives who were breakfasting at near-by tables nodded at the airmen with friendly smiles. Mrs. Hawkley, who was on the false-teeth side of fifty, gave Hemingwood a particularly winning smile. Somehow or other she had found out that he was of the Hemingwoods of Bahston.
“Captain Kennard, I wish you'd call Jim down for me,” laughed Beaman's diminutive better half. “Look what I found on the club bulletin-board this morning.”
The captain ceased his efforts to dodge the squirting juice of his none too well cut grapefruit long enough to read aloud the crumpled paper Mrs. Beaman handed him.
Notice.
Please do not buy Jerry Beaman any more candy or pop. I get little enough sleep as it is. James Beaman.
“Attaboy, Jim. Don't let the artillery get too familiar with the women folks,” chuckled Hemingwood.
“My measures are direct and to the point,” returned Beaman with a grin. “Is it too foggy out to take pictures on the mosaic today, captain?”
“Yes. I'm hoping we won't have to disappoint the general tomorrow on those pictures of the review he's set his heart on. We can do the mosaic of the reservation any time, but bad weather will crab those review pictures to a fare-you-well.”
“Which will disappoint the general sadly, and cause his already low opinion of the Air Service to sink lower,” said Patton.
“I'm more scared of Sergeant Woodruff than I am of the weather,” stated Beaman, who in addition to being an observer acted as adjutant.
The captain's thoughts had Sergeant Woodruff as a subject for the remainder of the meal. The non-com. had arrived in charge of a photographic detachment, the taking of a mosaic of Camp Henry and its big artillery range being part of the duty for which the fliers had been sent. He had served as an officer during the war, and it had gone to his head. Being totally without education, and having made a none-too-brilliant record as an officer, he was not retained in the commissioned ranks.
His know-it-all attitude and firm belief that he was to be allowed to make his own hours speedily caused the vigorous captain to call his hand. The first attempt was not too successful, but the next call-down the lanky, conceited non-com. received contained all the picturesque verbiage and undeniable force which the stocky little C. O. possessed.
The sergeant came to work on time thereafter, but there came to be an increasing number of reasons why the photographic detachment could not do its work. The big cameras were out of order—the electric batteries which ran them mysteriously lost their juice—the carefully flown strips always showed huge gaps in them. And the worst of the matter was that not an officer in the outfit possessed knowledge of photography enough actually to prove that the sergeant was to blame, although sundry suspicions were entertained.
However, there was plenty of time to take the mosaic—the detachment still had two months of duty to perform with the artillery regiments. The matter of the air-pictures of the review the next day was important—important to a greater degree than would seem possible.
It was to be a mammoth affair, with the opening games of the polo tournament and various other matters connected with it. The commanding general of the department—a candidate for the Presidency—was to be there. And the white-haired brigadier-general who commanded Camp Henry had set his heart on having a complete set of aerial views of the tremendous review.
The captain's mind roved back to the interview he had had with Colonel Feldmore, department Air Service officer, down in San Antonio just before the detachment's departure.
“Kennard, this thing is important as ——,” the tall, spare chief had told him. “The rest of the army thinks the Air Service is made up of a lot of wild kids who are good for nothing at all except to grandstand. They give 'em credit for guts, and admire 'em for that reason, but they don't think the fliers are worth a tinker's —— for any actual work, or that the airplanes can accomplish anything practical.
“This picked detachment is being sent at the artillery's request to handle artillery shoots during the firing season. It's up to you to prove to that bunch what we can do, and have been doing along the border and in other places. Every man you've got has been selected for a reason—your pilots are veterans and you've got two of the best observers in the army in Beaman and Gravesend.
“Make their eyeballs click up there, and go more than half-way. Grandstand to make an impression if necessary, but knock 'em dead. When they hit a target they can't see on the second salvo they'll open their peepers wide. Go to it, son, and tell those wild youngsters of yours what's ahead of 'em.”
And the colonel's words were true. The big artillery camp was friendly, but the occasional good-humored jests regarding the temperamental fliers and the amount of work which the Air Service did not have to do had been straws showing which way the wind blew. Camp Henry, knowing nothing of flying, was not in a position to appreciate the fact that fogs and fields and quality of oil and gasoline were all vital matters; that flying a shoot ten miles out on the range meant the staking of two lives against the motor, for in the mountains of Kentucky landing prospects are exactly as safe as over New York City.
If the detachment fell down on the pictures for the general it would mean considerable damage to the prestige of the airmen. The captain had no doubts as to the outcome of the artillery spotting—the first try at that was to come this morning—although he hated to see Hemingwood and Beaman go up in that fog. He was worried, however, about those insignificant yet psychologically important pictures on the morrow. Sergeant Woodruff, to his mind, was about as trustworty as an umbrella in a whirlwind.
As he guided the car, now overloaded by the addition of Gravesend and Beaman, the married observers, he decided to interview Woodruff immediately. There must be no possible slip-up in the arrangements for the pictures.
He stopped the car in front of Headquarters, the drone of warming Liberty motors behind the hangars signifying that the mechanics on this line had everything in readiness for the shoot. Hemingwood and Beaman went directly to the line.
“Tell Sergeant Woodruff I want to see him immediately,” the C. O. told the orderly.
He stood by the window of the office and watched Hemingwood's De Haviland take off in that small, dangerous field. The pilot held his ship close to the ground, picking up extra speed as it soared for the line of stables that rimmed the southern edge of the hilly cow-pasture dignified by the title of Goddard Field. In a steep chandelle the big ship turned and climbed.
The sun struck fire from the wireless antenna and fish which Beaman was unwinding. The ship circled the airdrome two or three times, while Beaman tested his radio. When the wireless sergeant put out the panels which meant “I understand” in front of the radio hut, the ship headed eastward toward the artillery range where a regiment of artillery was awaiting them. At a thousand feet the ship showed only dimly through the mist.
DID you wish to see me, sir?”
The captain turned to face the extremely tall, stooping, photographic man. He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigaret.
“I just wanted to ask you regarding your preparations for the review pictures tomorrow. There must be no slip-up. Are your cameras and batteries ready?”
Woodruff's eyes were on the floor.
“I think they will be,” he said at length.
“You think they will be!” exploded the captain. “—— it, aren't they all right now?”
“Well, sir, I'm not sure yet,” mumbled the non-com.
The captain's clenched fist struck the desk with force enough to overturn the standing desk-lamp. It was a physical outlet for the wrath which Woodruff always aroused in him. His words, however, were ominously slow and quiet.
“When did I tell you to be absolutely certain that you were in readiness for this mission tomorrow?”
“Why—er——”
“Two days ago. What the —— have you been doing since then? The weather has made it impossible to do any air work—how has your valuable time been occupied?”
The sergeant licked his lips with his tongue. Apparently he had rather lost his nerve. There was an underlying spirit in Captain Kennard's attitude which was new, and it gave the non-com. pause. He now wished he had not done what he had.
“I'm waiting to hear your explanation, Woodruff,” came the captain's level voice.
“I—I've been pretty busy trying to piece together the mosaic—”
“Didn't I order you to let that go, and instead to check up all your equipment and supplies?”
“I don't think so.”
“You're a liar by the clock!” snapped the captain viciously. “You're coming with me right now and satisfy me that everything is in readiness.”
The non-com's eyes lifted to the set face of his commanding officer, and what he saw there was not comforting. Nevertheless the plunge had to be made, and it would do no good to postpone it.
Woodruff was a weak character—his method of signifying his dislike was to become a human wrench in the machinery. There was not force and initiative enough in all his lazy, conceited life to cause him to use any but safe, underhanded means.
“There is no sulfuric acid for the camera battery, captain,” he almost whispered.
The stocky little C. O. laid down his Stetson slowly.
“Didn't Hemingwood tell me that there was two quarts of acid in the photo hut?” he inquired slowly.
“There was, but last night it—leaked out.”
“Oh, it did. So more has to be gotten from Dayton before we can take pictures, eh?”
The quietness of the words gave Woodruff hope. He had thought it would be such an excellent scheme to prevent the taking of those important pictures on the morrow—he knew how important the captain considered them. He had not intended to mention the acid until later, but the fog would prevent going after a new supply.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, his downcast eyes on the hat which he was twirling nervously.
“Woodruff, there are several things which are apparent to me. In the first place, you're afraid of flying. That has been noticeable. In the second place, you hit Goddard Field with the idea that you were a combination of Pershing and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and when your ideas of staying in bed until nine o'clock and working as little as possible were shattered you have been deliberately holding us up in every way in your power. You have been a gold-brick and a useless loafer. Orderly!”
The orderly jumped at the captain's raised voice, and came into the office.
“Go to the photographic hut and get Brown,” ordered Kennard.
“Here's what you're going to do, Woodruff,” went on the captain, his gray eyes cold and his mouth set. “But I guess I'll wait until Brown gets here, to tell you.”
Woodruff was at a loss. Matters did not look to be in a very comforting state as far as he was concerned. Apparently he had gone just a bit too far. He stood quietly, his stoop-shouldered form hunched forward farther than usual and his eyes on the floor. Occasional far-away booms from the big guns which Beaman and Hemingwood were controlling out there on the range ten miles away reached the ears of the two men in the office, and once in a while a window rattled as a whole battery fired a salvo.
In a moment Brown entered. He was a fresh-faced, youthful chap who was, next to Woodruff, the highest ranking man in the photo detachment.
“Brown, you could take charge of the photographic work if necessary, couldn't you?” demanded Kennard without preamble.
“Yes, sir,” was the prompt response.
“What happened to the sulfuric acid that was in stock for the batteries?”
The corporal glanced briefly at Woodruff.
“I don't know, sir. It's all gone.”
“Were there any signs of leakage?”
“Yes, sir. We keep it in a little outside cupboard, you know, so that in case of a leak it would drop on the ground. The bottle was cracked and it had all dropped to the ground through the open-work shelf we kept it on.”
“I see. And you have no idea how the jar could have cracked?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I have. I am not satisfied with Woodruff's work anyhow. Starting right now, you are in charge of all photo work. Woodruff, you're a fatigue sergeant. Your days of ease are over.
“That sulfuric acid has got to be procured from Dayton today. With this fog it's a —— of a trip. If Hemingwood doesn't object to going after it he will go, because he's the only man in the outfit that has flown the course before. If he doesn't want to go—and I won't blame him if he doesn't—I'll go myself. And you, Woodruff, will be the passenger on the trip, whoever goes.”
Woodruff said nothing. He was afraid of flying—not badly enough to make him want to give up the juicy extra pay which it meant, but still uncomfortable a few thousand feet above the earth. The thought of that flight through the fog to Dayton, two hundred miles, made his yellow heart beat like a trip-hammer, but the captain's next sentence prevented him from registering his dislike for the trip.
“If you renig on the trip—which by Army Regulations you can—you will be courtmartialed for carelessness and neglect of duty, and those sergeant's stripes will come off your sleeve. I ought to do it anyhow. In view of the fact that it is your carelessness—to put it charitably—which has made this trouble and danger necessary, and in view also of the fact that you are on flying duty, it is your place to go along and procure just the stuff needed. Therefore I have no compunction in presenting the alternative to you. Which will you choose?”
Woodruff was silent and cringing.
“Answer me!” snapped the captain.
“I—I'll go,” said Woodruff sullenly.
The captain glanced at his wristwatch.
“Hemingwood will be down in a few minutes. You will be ready to accompany whoever goes in half an hour. Orderly!”
“Yes, sir,” and Private White hurried in.
“Order Sergeant Decker to have my ship warmed and ready to go on a trip to Dayton in half an hour. Also to have plenty of gas and oil immediately available for Lieutenant Hemingwood's ship when he comes down. Either ship may go.”
The orderly sped out to the line with his orders.
“That's all, Woodruff. You've come —— close to cutting your throat this trip, and by the next time I have trouble with you it will be no flying pay and a private's life for yours. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Woodruff.
He saluted and walked out, his long legs moving slowly.
“Brown, you understand the importance of there being no slip-up tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. If we get that sulfuric everything'll be O. K., sir,” returned the corporal confidently.
“It had better be,” was the grim reply.
MEANWHILE Hemingwood and Beaman were hard at work. As soon as a thousand feet showed on the altimeter it was apparent that fifteen hundred feet would be the maximum altitude at which they could work, which was rather low.
They headed out across the hilly, thickly wooded range, picking up the white signal panel of the artillery in a small open spot in the woods. Four batteries of four guns each were easily discernible, placed at different points within a radius of a few hundred yards of the panel.
Beaman picked a target—in the first case an abandoned barn. He sent his wireless messages swiftly, giving the artillery the approximate range of the target, which they could not see. Hemingwood circled it to give them a chance to get an approximate sighting for deflection—then the long dashes which meant “Fire” flashed from the De Haviland's radio. The pilot strove to keep his ship in such a position that the target was easily observed, which is far harder than it might seem to the uninitiated. To make matters more difficult, the ground was dim below the smoky screen of fog.
Beaman was standing in the rear cockpit, his eyes on the guns. In a few seconds four red flashes shot from their mouths, and the young observer's eyes shifted toward the target. Four white puffs signified the location of the shots.
Before the smoke had drifted away he had mentally estimated the center of the four shells, and then the range and deflection corrections. In the complicated code which the army uses he sent down the information that all four shots were observed, that the range was two hundred yards short and the deflection 500 yards to the left. It was wireless operating raised to the nth degree of skill—the roar of the motor made it impossible to use the ear as an aid in sending, which makes much difference; he was sending code and not words which made sense; and the failure to send correctly an individual letter or numeral would mean the loss of time and valuable ammunition.
Adjustment after adjustment was made, target after target demolished. Sometimes it took eight rounds, sometimes only two. Beaman was like some gnome of the upper regions in his ceaseless activity. He had only one hook of his belt attached to the ship, leaving him more freedom of movement. Sometimes he was lying flat on the fuselage, the better to see the shots.
One hand was always on his sending-lever, no matter whether he was leaning far over the side, riding on the fuselage or standing on the stool in the back to get good observation. His eyes never left the wooded, rugged ground fifteen hundred feet below, and all his mentality was concentrated on the instantaneous estimates of distance necessary, and the necessity of absolutely accurate radio sending. To all practical purposes he was commanding a regiment of artillery.
Finally all four batteries had fired, and with a sigh of weariness he sank back on the stool. His legs ached from ceaseless bracing against the air-stream.
As Duke throttled down and sent the De Haviland diving for the wooded and scarred wilderness below, Jim hastily wrote a note, giving the targets which had been fired at that day and details as to the extent of the demolition. He enclosed this note in a weighted message-bag.
Like a monstrous bird of prey the ship shot downward toward the artillery field headquarters. It was skimming the tops of the trees with the air-speed meter registering an even hundred and fifty miles an hour as they flashed across the panel. Hemingwood lifted his ship upward in a climbing turn that was almost an upward sideslip, due to their speed. As he did so Beaman dropped the bag, which fell only a few yards from the interested artillery-men.
Hemingwood straightened out and sent his plane toward the field. There was only one possible way to land—northward—for the hillside called Goddard Field was on a steep slope, and an up-hill landing was the only possible method, regardless of the wind. He circled back over Camp Henry, side-slipped over the last row of stables and trees, and straightened out a few feet above the ground. They landed smoothly, and the slope of the hill killed their speed quickly, Hemingwood cutting one switch and retarding the spark to reduce the motor pull to a minimum.
“Captain Kennard wants to see you, sir,” the orderly yelled in Hemingwood's ear before he had run out the gas.
After cutting the switches Hemingwood lost no time in reporting.
“How did the shoot go?” inquired the captain.
“Good—five rounds was about the average, I guess, but we knocked the targets galley west.”
“I'm glad of that,” stated the relieved C. O. “Hemingwood, what do you say to a trip to Dayton and back today?”
“What's the occasion?” inquired the surprized Hemingwood.
The captain told him concisely.
“You're the only man who has made the trip,” he concluded, “and it won't be any cinch unless this fog lifts. However, I'll leave it up to you as to whether you go or not.”
“Oh, I'd just as soon go,” was the careless reply. “So the sergeant is going along, is he?”
The captain grinned.
“And he isn't looking forward to it a bit, either,” he replied. “For Heaven's sake be careful though, Duke. I don't like the idea of carrying sulfuric acid on a ship. Better go a long ways out of your way to make sure of good fields in case of a forced landings—a crack-up with that acid——”
“Might be uncomfortable,” agreed Hemingwood, lighting a cigaret. “When do we start?”
“As soon as your ship is ready. They're filling it now.”
Woodruff's gangling form could be seen slowly proceeding toward the line. He carried helmet and goggles.
“Is the fog lightening?”
“Maybe the fog is, but the clouds seem to be getting lower all the while,” said Beaman. “I'm glad I'm not going.”
The captain paced the office for a moment. The sunshine which had been filtering through the mist was gone—apparently it was low clouds more than fog now that darkened the earth.
“Don't worry, cap'n,” said Duke blithely. “We've got to get those pictures, the clouds are plenty high enough, and there's no reason to get wall-eyed over the trip.”
From the Duke's point of view the mission was a matter of course. He was absolutely unruffled by any abnormal conditions in flying.
“Well, go ahead, George,” said the captain at length. “But don't take any foolish chances. Those pictures aren't worth a crack-up.”
Hemingwood strolled to the line, where his motor was already being tested. Scudding clouds seemed to be just escaping the tops of the low mountains a few miles away. They looked to be several hundred feet lower than they had been fifteen minutes before. There was a fairly strong wind likewise.
The pilot looked at Woodruff's sour face with a grin on his own brown countenance.
“After you get through with this jaunt you'll never let sulfuric leak again, sergeant,” he stated.
Woodruff did not reply. He had already regretted that incident to the bottom of his heart; in trying to bother Captain Kennard he had slung a boomerang.
“Climb in,” ordered Duke when Sergeant Decker finally nodded that everything was O. K.
“I—I don't think we ought to go in this weather,” said Woodruff hesitantly.
His face showed a little white beneath the tan.
“Don't you? We've got to get those pictures, and this time you're not running the works,” stated the pilot.
He carefully tested each switch, and studied his instrument-board more carefully than was his wont. An air-line to Dayton would carry him for a hundred miles over the wild mountain country. It never entered his head to follow the Ohio River to Cincinnati, which would be the safest route, although longer.
He taxied to the top of the hill, close to the trees which bounded the northern edge of the field. He fed the throttle to the engine, and held his big ship a few feet from the ground, nosed down to follow the slope. Fifty feet from the stables on the southern edge he zoomed and turned. His ship disappeared from sight northward less than four hundred feet from the ground.
Duke cocked a speculative eye at the dark clouds less than a hundred feet above him. There was a twenty-mile wind on his tail, and being close to the ground the sensation of speed was tremendous.
Louisville, sprawling largely on both sides of the big bend in the Ohio, was partly in his path. He cut over the southern corner of the city, grinning down at the open-mouthed people who clogged the streets. He was flying so low—of necessity—that his Liberty was probably making an ungodly noise from the standpoint of the people below.
Louisville was left behind in five minutes, and he began to hit rough country. Ten miles northward he could catch occasional glimpses of the Ohio. It would be wiser and safer to follow the Ohio, but it would lose time.
A few drops of rain spattered on the wind-shield, but only for a moment. The clouds seemed to be forcing him downward, however. He was flying now with his head over the side of lie cockpit for better visibility. He passed a hill, the crest of which seemed only a few feet beneath him.
“This is getting to be close,” reflected Hemingwood without emotion.
He considered turning northward toward the Ohio, but decided against it. He could not get to Dayton before 12:30 as it was, and by the time he procured the necessary supplies and got home it would be late enough without losing any more time. There was a dance that night at the Officers' Club.
Suddenly the mist ahead darkened. He pulled back on the stick sharply—it was the side of a hill. Up and up went the ship barely scraping the tops of the great trees that clothed the slope. The speedmeter needle wabbled downward to seventy, then sixty-five miles an hour, and the big ship hung quivering in the air.
Hemingwood cursed calmly, and nosed over just the instant before the ship would have fallen off into a spin. He cleared the top of a tall row of trees, and set himself for a crash. Then——
“—— if that wasn't the top!” he congratulated himself.
His ship was gradually picking up speed, flying level, and there seemed to be no further slope upward. The mist was thickening, however, or rather the clouds. He was only fifty feet from the tree-tops, and was as high as the fog would allow him to go without getting out of sight of the ground.
A wide valley opened before him. Just as he saw it the ship hurtled into a huge black cloud that held rain, for in a second struts, wings and motor were covered with moisture. His goggles fogged, and he wiped them hastily as he nosed over. The roar of the engine strengthened and the wires began singing a higher-pitched tune.
“—— lucky that valley was there,” he opined to himself as he came in sight of earth again.
The floor of the cut between the hills was a couple of hundred feet below, he estimated. He took time for a look backward. Woodruff's face was drawn and set, and his knuckles showed white as he gripped the cowling with both hands. Hemingwood grinned below his wet mustache. The photographic man did not return it.
There were a few clearings—small and rough—on the bottom below them. An occasional plowed spot appeared on the slopes on either side. The valley lay exactly on their course, as the compass proved. The motor fired like clockwork. Every instrument read correctly, and with a carefree heart Hemingwood glanced down at a few motionless people in front of a small cabin. As he was watching them a spurt of fire from the rifle in the hands of one of the men sent the pilot into the heartiest laugh he had had for many a day.
“Moonshiners, by ——!” he shouted aloud, although he might as well have whispered it. He could not hear his own words above the noise of the motor.
“These mountaineers sure love the government—not!” he reflected.
He leaned forward and stroked the motor cowling.
“Nice little motor, nice little motor,” he said, his face a wide grin.
He leaned his head out the side of the cockpit to take a look ahead. It was lucky he did. At a speed that was sickening the De Haviland was rushing toward a hill, which closed the end of the valley tight as a drum. To make matters worse, the slopes on either side were converging. Even as he thought, the wooded walls drew so close together that an ordinary banking turn was impossible.
There was but one thing to do. He jerked back the stick and put on full rudder. Up went the D. H., and then over, nearly on its back. For a moment it hovered there, and then shot downward, the nose curving slowly upward. His right wing was almost scraping the trees on that side, and the floor of the valley rose to meet the uncontrollable downward rush.
With the stick clamped back as far as it would go Hemingwood waited impassively. Either the ship would come out of the dive in time, or it wouldn't. It finally did. Ten feet above the treetops it was straightened out, and sped like a bullet back over the trail it had come.
“I must tell Thomason about this,” soliloquized the calm Hemingwood as he approached the spot where the mountaineers were still standing.
Thomason, a balloonist, had actually been shot down somewhere in the mountains not so far from this very place, and had barely got out alive.
There were two shots at him as he flashed by, and he waved a derisive arm at them.
He was entering the thick mist now, for there was but one recourse left. That was to get altitude enough in the fog to clear the mountains that hemmed the valley in on all sides, and make for the river. It was a desperate situation, and the nerve-strain on any pilot but the Duke would have been a breaking one. He was as cool as a May morning.
In a moment he was out of sight of the ground. He watched his speedmeter like a hawk. That was the only way to estimate whether he was close to a stall, or else diving. It crawled from 85 miles an hour to a hundred, and he pulled up sharply. At intervals he strained his eyes ahead, striving to pierce the smoky, opaque screen that made him as blind as a bat.
Eight hundred feet—he must be high enough to clear any mountains. The world about him was one of mist—not a strip of ground or a glimpse of the sky could he get. At a hundred miles an hour, after leveling out as closely as he could estimate, the big ship roared through the fog.
His eyes glued to the speedmeter, every faculty intent on keeping the ship on an even keel, he banked slightly until his compass read due north. He knew the Ohio was within a few miles of him, but how was he to know when he reached it? He could not see the ground, and the hills extended close to the banks of the river.
He flew for six minutes, and then decided to risk coming closer to the ground. He nosed down, and in a shallow dive felt his way toward the ground at ninety miles an hour. At five hundred feet a vaguely dark strip below him, seen too dimly to pick up details, showed him that he was not over the river.
He came down a little farther, and saw the ground fall away in a steep slope. At the foot of the slope a fairly large plowed field was discernible, and then a streak of silver came in sight. With an exultant roar the De Haviland dropped toward the river.
He turned to follow the river, less than a hundred feet high. If the motor should cut out it would mean landing in the water, but Hemingwood felt blissfully safe. He could see for a considerable distance ahead now. He dropped down until he was less than ten feet from the surface of the water, and shot past Aurora, Indiana, at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. He zoomed by a vessel, the decks of which were black with waving, wondering men who watched him flash by.
A thin filter of sunlight struck the surface of the river as the Big Miami River, which he would follow into Dayton, came in sight five miles ahead. George heaved a sigh of relief. There were bridges over the Big Miami at Hamilton and Middletown, and ten feet off the water would not be possible flying altitude. He lifted his ship in a steep climb, and succeeded in getting seven hundred feet before the river grew vague in its outlines below him.
The flat Ohio country was very comforting after the miles of flying over mountains and water. The fog was breaking slowly, and finally he came in sight of Dayton, with McCook Field showing flat and green in the corner of the city.
He looked back at Woodruff. The non-com's face looked as if its owner had been dragged through a knot-hole. It was strained and white, and every muscle was tensed.
“A couple of the boys bumped off in the Transcontinental by running into mountains in a storm,” reflected Hemingwood as he dived for Wilbur Wright Field, where an aerial supply depot was located, seven miles east of town. “And I guess Woodruff thought considerable about 'em the last two hours. Man, doesn't he look sick!”
Hemingwood was chuckling as his ship scudded across the field.
AT THREE o'clock that afternoon they left the Big Miami behind and once again cut across the mountains of Kentucky, flying a bee-line for Camp Henry. Out on the wings, tied to the strut fittings, were four pint bottles of sulfuric acid, packed in sawdust. The ship was two thousand feet high, just below the clouds, which were thick enough to keep the earth below in deep shadow. The motor was running well, although it vibrated a little too much. The rugged, forest-covered hills and valleys below offered no opportunity for a forced landing, but Hemingwood nevertheless did not detour.
Ten minutes later he wished heartily that he had been less venturesome. The motor began to spit and miss. A quick glance at his gauges showed that all of them were reading correctly. He tried desperately to jazz the motor into life again by quick work with the throttle, but it was useless. Four or five cylinders were working, and the ship glided rapidly toward the wild country below. Fifteen miles northward the Ohio was visible—much too far to reach.
Hemingwood jockeyed the ship until the speedmeter was registering only seventy miles an hour, and then studied the earth calmly. There was only one cleared spot—a small plowed field on the side of a hill. A wreath of smoke from the cabin on its rim was the only sign of civilization anywhere within gliding distance. From the air it looked as though the slope fell off sharply from the lower edge of the field, into what was apparently a deep cut between two hills.
“I can hit that field, and run into the trees at the end of it, head-on,” he reflected without emotion. “That ought to keep either of us from getting any sulfuric acid, but we'd sure better be ready to haul out of the wreck before she gets afire.”
He cut the throttle and switches, and yelled to Woodruff to be ready to get out quickly. The sergeant's face was ashen. He nodded weakly, his pale eyes blazing in the terror-stricken face.
The pilot pushed up his goggles and cut the switches, circling slowly. Suddenly he craned his neck out the side, as they dropped to within a thousand feet of the ground. That slope from the lower edge of the field was steep and long, and the field itself lay on an extreme up-grade.
If he could get his wheels on the ground right at the lower edge of the field, it might be possible that the grade and the soft land would hold the ship back enough to prevent the crackup. If he should undershoot a trifle, the ship would go head-on into the mountainside.
“In which case, I wonder who'll take our bodies home?” he wondered as he sideslipped down.
He was directly over the crest of the hill opposite his field. He slipped down until only fifty feet were between the ship and the trees on top of the hill. Then he leveled out, and started his glide down the mountainside. The field was directly opposite. He clicked on the switches. The lazily turning propeller cranked the motor automatically, and the four cylinders caught.
He was about a hundred feet higher than the field on the opposite hillside, and the chasm was perhaps five hundred feet wide, at that point. With the throttle turned wide open the missing, sputtering motor helped make the glide shallow. Hemingwood's goggles were over his eyes again now, and every faculty was intent on his effort to make the field.
The ship floated across the valley with nerve-shaking slowness. He held it on the verge of a spin all the time, for apparently he had come too far down the side of the hill, and had not conserved altitude enough.
He was barely twenty-five feet above the level of the field's lower edge, and still two hundred feet from it, his ship wabbling dangerously. The drop into the valley from the edge of the cultivated ground was almost perpendicular. He took the only possible chance there was left for him.
He nosed down somewhat, and the speedmeter quickly jumped to ninety miles an hour. Fifty feet from the cliff he was level, but ten feet below his field and headed straight for the blank wall of earth. He zoomed. For a second the ship responded, but hung sickeningly before it quite cleared the treetops which fringed the level of the field. The trees themselves grew on the steep hill-side, but their tops were above the level of the field.
In that instant George Arlington Hemingwood found time for a lightning-like farewell to earth. Then the ship dropped. The forward mush was just enough to drag the tailskid through the treetops, and the ship flopped into the soft, steeply inclined field. It did not roll fifty feet, although the furrows were very shallow. Then the fuselage started to twist as the relieved pilot cut his throttle, and the slope caused the ship's weight to fall on the tailskid.
Hemingwood caught it in time, before something broke. With full gun it was just possible to taxi the ship up the hill. The field was almost a hundred and fifty yards long, he estimated as they crawled toward the woods and the cabin.
For the first time he noticed that a man and a woman stood in front of the shack.
In the man's hand was a gun.
“Doesn't look so good,” was the pilot's estimate as he taxied slowly toward the upper end of the field.
Affecting not to notice the two mountaineers, he taxied to within a few feet of the woods, and left his throttle wide open, for the four cylinders were all needed to keep the ship from rolling backward.
“We'll have to get something to put under the wheels before we cut the motor,” he shouted to Woodruff.
Woodruff nodded weakly. For a moment he was literally incapable of climbing out. Then a slow, unpleasant smile appeared on his thin lips. He was safe—and Captain Kennard would be several notches lower in the estimate of Camp Henry on the morrow, for there was no chance of getting out of this place, even with a good motor. He had not seen the shot at them that morning, nor did he take the gun which was in the hands of the near-by Kentuckian very seriously.
The Duke remained at the throttle while Woodruff slowly climbed out to secure something with which to brace the wheels. The two mountaineers came toward the ship, the rifle ready in the man's hand. Woodruff was carrying two sizable rocks toward the ship when Hemingwood saw him drop them and throw up his hands. The noise of the motor prevented his hearing any words, but the attitude of the man—who seemed very young, he noticed—left no doubt of his intentions.
Hemingwood climbed out, leaving the throttle wide open so that the sputtering motor would hold the ship. He walked toward the little group carelessly.
“Stop where ye air!” snapped the young Kentuckian, and the rifle swung menacingly.
“I've stopped already,” rejoined Hemingwood, suiting the action to the word.
“Whut air ye doin' here?”
“Wondering how we're going to get out, brother,” was the airy reply. “Say, we're neither one of us armed; let us put our hands down, will you?”
“Search 'em, Liz,” commanded the young fellow, whose thin, tanned faced was hard.
He was dressed in a colorless shirt and overalls, a tattered felt hat on his head.
The girl advanced fearlessly, the man coming part way with her. His gray eyes shifted constantly from Woodruff to the short Hemingwood. The girl could not be over eighteen, Duke estimated, and was most remarkably good-looking.
Her brown hair was long and disorderly, and beneath the shapeless, washed-out calico dress, bare brown legs and feet testified that shoes and stockings were probably rare articles of apparel for her. She searched the airmen with quick thoroughness, her big brown eyes estimating and appraising them keenly as she thrust lean brown hands into their pockets.
“Hits all right, Mark,” she said finally, stepping back toward her brother.
Her eyes wandered fascinatedly toward the big ship.
“Ye kin take down yer hands, then,” stated the young fellow. “But I'm watchin' ye. Ye're army men, hain't ye?”
“Right—Air Service,” rejoined the Duke. “Can I smoke a cigaret?”
The man nodded, watching suspiciously as Hemingwood produced a package of smokes and a box of matches. He offered his captor one, which was refused.
“What air ye doin' around hyar?”
“Our motor went bad and we had to come down to fix it,” explained Hemingwood. “We didn't want to come down, you can bet on that.”
“Mebbe ye did and mebbe ye didn't,” was the suspicious reply. “We don't like gover'mint men around hyar.”
“So I surmise,” retorted Hemingwood, drawing peacefully on his cigaret.
“Well, what are you going to do with us?”
“We'll let Uncle Lafe fix that. He'll be home afore sundown. Liz, git some rope and tie 'em up.”
“Just a minute,” protested Hemingwood, glancing quickly at the motionless Woodruff. “Won't you let us turn the ship around and block the wheels so we can turn off that motor?”
The Kentuckian hesitated. The Duke noticed that whereas the girl seemed unable to take her eyes off the ship, the man almost ignored it as if it were a familiar sight to him.
“You see the ground is so steep that the ship will roll either backward or forward unless the wheels are braced. Just let us fix it up, and then tie us and be —— to you.”
“Go ahead,” consented their captor at length. “But hit'll go hard with ye if ye try t' git away.”
Hemingwood was thinking swiftly as he signaled Woodruff to come and help him with the ship. There was a bare possibility that they could get away—there was only one man with a gun against them. It seemed useless to figure on the ship, but he had no mind to be a captive in the mountains any longer than he could help. He knew the railroad was only a few miles away, running along the banks of the river.
Together he and Woodruff lifted the tail of the ship, careful not to lift it so high that the whirling propeller would hit the ground.
“We may have a chance to get away from here, Sergeant,” said the pilot rapidly. “Get into action the minute you see me start.”
The sergeant did not reply.
They braced the wheels of the ship, which was now pointed down the hill, and then Hemingwood cut throttle and spark. The silence seemed intense as their ears were relieved of the constant noise of the motor.
“By George, Woodruff, look what was the matter!”
George pointed disgustedly to the right distributer head, which had worked loose from its clamp.
“Probably a lot of water had worked in to them both, too,” added Woodruff, who did not mind showing his knowledge now that there was no chance to make Goddard Field by nightfall—or any other time in the near future.
“Short circuit,” agreed Hemingwood. “Fix it up, will you, while we have a chance?”
A desperate expedient was forming in his mind—if the motor could be fixed. He perfected it as he stood beside the cowling while Woodruff worked. The watchful mountaineer held his gun ready for immediate action. He was standing, with the girl, about ten feet away from the ship. She was drinking in, what to her, was evidently a marvelous sight, for the big De Haviland looked positively huge—much bigger than the tiny cabin near by.
Hemingwood surveyed her with equal interest—in fact both of the Kentuckians were interesting. Straight as young pines—tanned, clear-eyed, breathing of the out-of-doors—and with an undercurrent of purposeful determination that was unescapable.
Hemingwood noticed that what looked like the fading signs of welts were discernible on the girl's legs—it looked as if they might have been striped with red bands not so long before.
Suddenly he decided to make his play. Woodruff was standing on a nose-drift wire, the other foot on the motor-cowling, and could jump down to his assistance quickly. Unwittingly his captor helped his plan.
“Thet's a De Haviland, haint it?” he remarked unexpectedly.
“Why, yes. How did you know?” replied the surprized flier.
“I wuz drafted down to Camp Henry in the war and there wuz some airyplanes thar,” said the Kentuckian.
“Oh, I see. I thought you didn't seem greatly interested in a ship,” said Hemingwood, walking carelessly forward.
He appeared to trip on a clod of earth, and fell prone on the ground. As he sat up, the muzzle of the rifle was perhaps three feet away from him.
He grinned cheerfully at the Kentuckian, and started to brush himself off.
“Did you ever get a ride?” he inquired.
The ex-soldier relaxed a trifle from the quick tenseness resulting from the unexpected fall of the pilot.
“No, and I haint hankerin' fer any,” he said.
Hemingwood's arms were flailing away at his dust-covered shirt and breeches, in gradually increasing arcs.
“Well, if we get out of here and you're ever down——”
One of those arms shot forward like a flash of light, and knocked the gun muzzle aside. The Duke grasped his captor's legs with the other hand, and the mountaineer fell on top of him.
“All right Woodruff,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, and then saved his breath.
The gun had fallen from the other man's hand; and in a struggling heap that raised clouds of choking dust the two struggled. Hemingwood fought like a wildcat for a few seconds, wondering why the sergeant did not come to his assistance. Suddenly a kicking, clawing burden was added to the heap. For a moment the choking, blinded, panting flier was relieved, and then his hand caught hold of long, silky hair.
It was the girl, and she was of no mean assistance to her brother. In a few seconds Hemingwood was flat on his back. The girl, her wild beauty intensified by her flashing eyes, was perched on his recumbent form, and two arms that seemed to have the strength of a man's held him down while Mark secured the gun. Woodruff had not moved.
For an instant Hemingwood's face grew bleak and hard, as with tightened lips he glanced at the sergeant.
“You ——, yellow coward!” he said slowly, and then his eyes met the girl's.
“I hope I didn't mess you up any, sister,” he grinned, his brown eyes alight with admiration.
“Git up, Liz,” commanded the man.
She clambered off, and Hemingwood arose to a sitting position.
“I'll bet the young lady here that I can lick you and that spineless, chicken-livered nincompoop up there,” he said cheerfully.
The young mountaineer's set face relaxed a trifle.
“I guess mebbe ye could,” he admitted. “Liz, go up to the house and git that rope.”
Woodruff, licking his dry lips, climbed down from the motor. He had wiped off the distributors and fixed the one which had fallen partially off. He did not dare look at Hemingwood.
The girl was off toward the cabin, her lithe young body covering the ground swiftly in long, graceful strides. Her hair whipped behind her in a stream of glinting beauty.
“Listen here, Mark—I heard the girl call you that—if you'll dispense with tying us up I'll give you my word of honor that there'll be no more funny business. That hookworm there couldn't' bother a lamb, and I won't try to.”
Mark shook his head, his eyes cold.
“Oh come on, be a sport,” urged Hemingwood, still sitting on the ground. “I told you we came down here by accident, and—near killed ourselves doing it, too. I don't care whether you make moonshine enough to fill the river there—my business is flying, not spotting stills.”
Again the Kentuckian shook his head.
“See those things tied to the struts?. That's sulfuric acid that we were bringing from Dayton. We needed it badly to take some pictures down at Camp Henry tomorrow. I guess they'll have to do without 'em now. I was hoping to either get the ship out of here some way or else hit the pike for the railroad and carry it in that way.
“Why man alive, I'd give a lot for a drink of moonshine right now. Anyway, I'm not asking you to let us go, even although I can't see why on earth you should hold us. All I'm asking is not to make me lay around tied until this uncle of yours get here.”
Hemingwood was smiling, his eyes meeting his captor's gaze steadily. The Kentuckian appeared to be considering the matter as the girl came out of the cabin with some clothes-line in her hands. Woodruff was silent, his eyes on the ground and his thin, melancholy face expressionless.
Hemingwood, encouraged by the mountaineer's silence, tried a new tack.
“If you were in the army you know that the army has nothing to do with revenue officers—that our business is totally different. And you likewise know that an officer doesn't give his word of honor lightly. What say?”
“Word of honor?” inquired Mark unexpectedly, his keen eyes resting unwaveringly on Hemingwood's face.
“Word of honor,” returned the flier. “That is, until your uncle comes.”
“Don't worry—ye kain't git away from him,” was the reply. “Liz we hain't goin' t' tie 'em. They swore not to git away till Uncle Lafe gits hyar.”
The girl threw down the rope and dropped to the ground, her eyes seeking the ship again.
“That's the stuff,” said the Duke heartily. “Woodruff, if you try anything—which you haven't got the guts to do, of course—but if you should go crazy and try something, I'll help the folks here to get you. Sabe?”
Woodruff nodded. He was well enough satisfied. He thought with a pleasant sense of work well done that those important pictures would not be obtained on the morrow—and that a valuable ship was down where it would take a lot of work to get it back to the field again. He eased his lank form to the ground, tipped his hat over his eyes, appeared to go to sleep.
“Don't think I'm going to try to persuade you to let me go, Mark, but may I ask just why you insist on holding us?”
“You're gover'mint!” said the girl unexpectedly.
“And that means our names are mud, eh?”
Mark's face lightened a trifle at the phrase which he remembered from his brief army career.
“Strangers—gover'mint strangers—mean trouble around hyar,” he stated.
“You think we were flying around to spot stills, eh?”
Mark considered the matter, his lean, clean-cut face serious.
“I hain't certain you wasn't,” he said finally. “What I think hain't nothin' to do with hit, though. Uncle Lafe'd skin us alive if I let ye go. Uncle Lafe's bad.”
“He is, is he? What do you figure he'll do with us?”
“He'll kill ye,” said the girl calmly, her eyes shifting quickly from Hemingwood's back to the ship.
“Mebbe not,” interposed Mark. “But ye'll hev t' tell him a lot afore he'll decide not to. He's sure pizen to revenooers.”
“Is this young lady your sister?” inquired Hemingwood, who showed no effects of the girl's somewhat startling announcement.
“Yes—we live with Uncle Lafe,” returned Mark.
“Always have?”
Mark shook his head.
“Pappy died when I wuz in th' army. We hain't no other place.”
“From what you say, Uncle Lafe must be rather—er——”
“He's a terror,” vouchsafed the girl without emotion.
The flier's eyes strayed to the dimly discernible red streaks on her legs. Mark's gaze followed his, and the young fellow's face grew bitter. He answered Hemingwood's unasked question.
“He giv' Liz an awful hidin', day before yeste'day,” he said.
Hemingwood whistled wonderingly.
“Why don't you leave him and go away somewhere?” he inquired.
“Can't leave Liz—we hain't no other place,” he said.
Hemingwood gradually changed the subject. As the sun sank farther westward he drew out the Kentuckian on his army life. There was a faint wistfulness apparent in the mountaineer's eyes and voice as he gradually told more and more about those eventful months at Camp Henry.
“Did you ever think you might like to go back in the army?” inquired Hemingwood, on whom the young fellow's attitude had not been lost.
“Kain't leave Liz,” repeated Mark. “Uncle Lafe'd hev killed her, purty near, only last week if it hadn't of been fer me.”
“He wuz drunk,” explained Liz, leaning back restfully on her elbows, and wriggling her bare toes in the coarse earth.
“Listen!” said Hemingwood eagerly. “You can't fool me. You'd like to get away from here. Bring your sister down to Camp Henry, enlist, and I'll give you my word you'll both be taken care of. You——”
“Don't start actin' up!” warned the mountaineer, his face all suspicious watchfulness.
“I'm not—don't worry. But let me tell you—” and Hemingwood went on eagerly in his effort to take advantage of what he believed to be the buried desire of the Kentuckian to get out into the world again.
George Arlington Hemingwood could talk, when he had to, and he brought all his persuasive powers to bear. He glimpsed beneath the bald statements of the two waifs, the sordidness and fear of their existence with the old reprobate who was their uncle, and he dwelt on the extra pay Mack would draw in the Air Service, the opportunities which he, Hemingwood, would see that the girl had to go to school, if she wanted to, or to work in Louisville.
It was no easy job, for all the inbred loyalty of the mountaineer to his clan was against him.
“I've got plenty of money, and I'll see that you have all you need to get down there,” Hemingwood said when it seemed as though his glowing words had made an impression on Mark.
He was not talking entirely selfishly, either—the Duke did not know what fear really meant. Those welts on the girl's body had brought home to him the conditions under which she was living, and it was really as much for her sake as his own that he endeavored to persuade Mark to see things his way.
“Think of your sister, man. I think there may be a chance that I can get this ship out of here. If I can't we'll get out of here on foot—together. If she'd rather, your sister can live on the post with you, someway or other. We can fix it. Why should you knuckle down to your uncle and let him whip you and make you work like a dog for food and clothes?”
The young fellow's eyes stole toward his sister. She had said nothing, but her heavily lashed eyes were glowing softly at the prospect the flier held out. Hemingwood was certain that he was on the right track, if he could overcome the mountaineer's fierce, unthinking loyalty to tradition.
“What do you say?” asked Hemingwood eagerly, his eyes on the girl.
“I'd like t git away from Uncle Lafe, but——”
“And you're going to get away!” said Hemingwood exultantly.
“Come on, Mark. I'll give you money right now—you and the girl start out for the nearest town where you can get the train, and Woodruff and I'll see if we can get out of here by ship. If we can't, we'll follow you. Leave me your gun so we can 'tend to Uncle Lafe if he gets here before we leave—meanwhile you and your sister will be out of the way.
“You've been waiting for a chance to get away, and now you've got it. And I'm giving you my word again that you're going to have a friend in me, and that you need have no fear that anything will go wrong after we get down there. If you're the kind of a man I think you are it will be no time at all before you're a sergeant, on flying status if you want to be, and in that case you'll ue making plenty of money to live comfortably. You owe it to yourself, old man, and to your sister even more.”
“I'd like t' do hit, Mark,” announced the girl.
The inner struggle that was going on in Mark's heart was plainly discernible in his set face. Hemingwood and the girl waited silently. Whether by accident or not her fingers strayed over the faint, discolored streaks that banded her legs.
Still Mark did not say anything. The sun was about to disappear below the crest of the hillside across the small valley, and there was no sound to break the Summer quiet except the faint hum of busy insects. The tall trees rimming the clearing were motionless—not a breath of air stirred their tops.
“Does your uncle beat you often?” asked Hemingwood of the girl.
“Sometimes he hides me when I kain't git out o' the way—mostly when he's drunk,” she replied softly. “Look hyar.”
She raised the faded calico skirt to her knees. A livid scar that seemed to the flier to be weeks old stood out against the brown flesh.
“Thet wuz a piece of wire,” she said calmly.
Even Woodruff, who had been lying apparently asleep, pursed his lips as he saw that scar. The Duke sprang to his feet, his brown eyes and lean face expressing determination in every look and line.
“Mark, you're coming to Camp Henry!”
“I guess you're right,” said the Kentuckian slowly.
“Fine! Woodruff'll tell you how to help him start the motor—I don't know yet whether I'll make a try at getting out of here or not. We've got to——”
“STAND whar ye air!”
The girl gasped, and Mark's face grew bleak as all four of them turned to confront the tall, lanky old man who held a gun on them from fifty feet away. Only Woodruff smiled with relief. That crazy Hemingwood might have tried to get out of the field.
With long, somewhat unsteady strides the bearded old man came toward them. His nose was high and aquiline, his beard iron gray. At first glance he was impressive, and then one noticed the small, bloodshot eyes and the utterly hard, cruel mouth. His beard was stained with tobacco, and from beneath the dilapidated hat stringy, unkempt locks escaped in repulsive disorder.
Hemingwood stood motionless; brother and sister arose to their feet. The girl held her skirt, as though unconsciously, in one hand. That livid welt around her knee could be plainly seen.
For a moment the old man surveyed them with cruel satisfaction. His bloodshot eyes rested on the gun which was on the ground, a few feet from Mark. They remained only briefly on the ship, and then shifted to meet Hemingwood's gaze. There was a baleful glare in them that boded ill for the airman.
“Gover'mint, eh?” he sneered. “I've seed these hyar airyplanes around, and been hankerin' to ketch one of 'em.”
“We had to land. It was an accident, sir. We were coming from Dayton to Louisville. Personally, I just want to get away from here——”
“Likely ye air anxious to git away now,” retorted the old man with drunken satisfaction. “But ye kain't.”
He seemed to be in a state of complete exultation—mentally licking his lips over the prospect before him. He shifted his eyes to his nephew.
“And whut hev you been up to? Why is thet gun lyin' over thar when ye ought t' hev these revenooers tied tighter'n a drum?”
Mark was silent. The utter fear expressed in both his own and his sister's faces was a revelation to Hemingwood. Even Woodruff, who had been smiling to himself at the turn events had taken, was sobered by the baleful determination apparent in the old man, whose menacing rifle was constantly ready for action.
“Answer me, ye skunk!” roared the mountaineer in sudden fury.
The girl quailed as though from a blow, but her brother gave no indication that he had heard.
For a moment it seemed that the old man was about to leap on his nephew, and then he thought better of it.
“I'll tend t' you and Liz later,” he said significantly.
Hemingwood sickened with a physical nausea as the bloodshot eyes roved over the girl's rounded form. In a flash of comprehension he saw what he believed to be the horrible truth. What he had heard, from men who knew, about the terrible degradation that sometimes could be found back in the hills, came to him with the force of a blow. He believed that in Mark and his uncle he had before him living illustrations of all that was best, and all that was lowest, in the mountain people.
“Put down yer dress, ye ——!” roared Lafe in uncontrollable fury, and there followed a stream of filthy epithets hurled at the cowering girl.
Something snapped in Hemingwood's brain. He leaped forward, straight at the mountaineer and his gun. Like a flash the old man raised it to his shoulder. He did not see his nephew hurl himself forward. Mark had been standing to one side of his uncle, and an instant before the crack of the shot, which would have surely been the end of Hemingwood, the young Kentuckian's hand knocked the rifle downward and sideward.
There was a groan from Woodruff. Mark, with the gun which he had twisted from his uncle's hands, turned quickly. The non-com. had dropped to the ground the instant Hemingwood had launched himself at the mountaineer, and the wild shot had reached him as he lay prone to escape any chance of being hit. When Hemingwood reached his side he was dead—shot cleanly through the heart.
There was no time to think of him, for a moment. For just an instant the old man hesitated, and then with a bestial snarl leaped at his nephew, who was standing as though carved from stone, the gun in his hands. Hemingwood came to his assistance just in time. The old man had almost succeeded in wresting the rifle from the surprized Mark's grasp.
He fought with a crazed strength that gave the two other men plenty to handle for a moment, but finally, with the help of the girl, they had him tied securely with rope she had brought down to use on the airmen. The old man lay quietly; a terrible glare in his eyes.
“Woodruff is dead,” Hemingwood announced quietly as he dusted himself off.
“If he hadn't been a coward he wouldn't be!” flashed the girl.
“I know that. Thank you, Mark, for keeping me alive.”
“Whut air we goin' t' do now?” demanded the girl, her bosom rising and falling quickly.
“Give me just a minute and I'll tell you.”
The flier's smoldering eyes rested on Woodruff's body for a moment, and then on the murderer. He walked slowly down the field, followed by the wondering looks of the others. Few men would have even considered for a moment what Hemingwood had in mind, but his customary careless fearlessness was now intensified by the overwhelming revulsion and hate that swept him as he thought of the man who had killed Woodruff. He thought of the old mountaineer as something vicious and unclean—a human vulture.
He walked back up the field, after looking for a while down into the valley, coldly estimating his chances.
“Help me bind Woodruff and your uncle together, will you Mark?” he said quietly.
Something about him prevented either Mark or his sister from asking questions. Without a word they bound the dead man and his murderer together with the remains of the clothes-line.
“Now help me lift them into the back cockpit.”
It was a severe task, but they finally accomplished it. The old man's eyes glared horribly with fear and hatred as Hemingwood adjusted Woodruff's helmet and goggles on the head of his murderer. The sergeant's head lolled back with the limpness of death. Hemingwood calmly lengthened the belt in the back seat, and snapped it around the tightly bound bodies. He folded the observer's stool in the cockpit, so that the old man was standing, the dead body bound to him tightly.
“Now what I'm going to do is this,” the flier told Mark and his sister after he had finished his arrangements. “I believe I can get off here, if the motor is running. We'll soon find out about that. I'll give you plenty of money—you can come down to Camp Henry by train, and all I said goes. I'll turn over your uncle to the authorities down there, and you two can be witnesses along with me. All right?”
“I reckon hit is,” nodded Mark comprehendingly.
“Now help me carry a couple of those small tree-trunks down to the edge of the field.”
The two men had soon placed three of the trimmed trees which Hemingwood had noticed on the edge of the woods along the lower edge of the field, about ten feet from the end of the cleared land. The timbers were small—not more than five or six inches in diameter.
“Now we'll try the motor. If she doesn't hit on all twelve, I'll go with you and we'll take Uncle Lafe along.”
Hemingwood crawled into the front cockpit, turned on the gas petcocks, pumped up the air, and set throttle and spark. Then he gave the motor some stiff shots with the primer.
“Grab hold of that propeller and swing it around a few times, will you?” he called to Mark, and the sturdy Kentuckian obeyed promptly.
“All right—now get away from it.”
The pilot snapped on both switches, and climbed out. He glanced at the rocks under the wheels to make sure they were all right, and then gave his aid brief instructions about swinging a propeller. The old man in the rear cockpit did not open his lips, but in his small eyes was the fear of the unknown. The girl watched with lively, if uncomprehending, interest as Mark set himself, Hemingwood's hand gripping his wrist firmly.
With Hemingwood doing the counting, they swung at the count “three.” The motor sputtered as the pilot jerked his helper out of the way, but did not catch. On the third try it did, however, and ran smoothly at idling.
Hemingwood took a chance on letting it run for a moment without his hand at the throttle.
“Here's sixty dollars—that will get you there all right. Come right up to Goddard Field and ask for me, and from that time on don't worry. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. And we're appreciatin' hit, Liz and me. Hit's——”
“Appreciate nothing. It's little enough return for what you did for me, and you're going to enjoy it, too. Why say, sister, when you get all dolled up down there half the men in camp——”
The girl's eyes dropped shyly at his laughing insinuation.
Hemingwood became serious again as he surveyed the darkening sky. It would be totally dark in ten minutes, and there was as desperate a trip ahead of him as he had ever had in his eventful flying career.
“Good-by for a few hours—I must be going.”
Mark and his sister stood aside as Hemingwood carefully inspected the stones which were acting as wheel-blocks. He climbed into the ship without moving them. Dusk was creeping over the quiet, deserted valley as he inched the throttle farther and farther open. Twelve hundred revolutions was as high as he dared run it on the warm-up, for fear of jumping the blocks. To his great satisfaction the motor ran perfectly on both switches. The trouble had evidently been the loosened distributor head, plus the effect of water getting in touch with the segments which carried current to the spark plugs.
The Duke adjusted his helmet and goggles and looked around at his ghoulish burden. A last look at the intruments showed nothing amiss.
Bit by bit he shoved throttle and spark ahead, until at sixteen hundred revolutions the great ship strained against the rocks beneath the wheels. Out on the struts the sulfuric acid containers vibrated with the strain, but the safety-wire which held them was strong.
Suddenly the pilot jerked back on the stick. The ship leaped the blocks, and thus a few feet ordinarily used to get up speed were gained. Nosed down until the propeller was almost scraping the ground it roared down the hillside, the exhaust shooting long streaks of flame in the thickening darkness.
The soft ground held it back, and only sixty miles an hour showed on the speedmeter as the wheels hit the low barricade of tree-trunks at the lower edge of the field. The ship bounced in the air, escaping the protruding tops of the trees, and then Hemingwood shoved the stick forward all the way. The great ship dove for the bottom of the valley.
Hemingwood, his head outside the cockpit, knew that all depended on perhaps two feet. Would the ship, almost stalled in the bounce, pick up flying speed in that straight dive downward, before it crashed on the floor of the valley? For seconds that seemed like years the De Haviland dropped into the shadowy void.
Slowly he eased back on the stick, and then he knew he had won his gamble. A few feet above the earth the ship came level, the motor running with even rhythm on the continuance of which meant safety. Before he reached the end of the valley he was a thousand feet high, and had turned back to the river.
Stars were blinking in a clear sky and lights winked out from isolated houses as he followed the wide band of silver below him, southward toward Camp Henry. Motor failure would be fatal, even now, for the earth was in shadow so complete that accurate landing would be impossible, and there was no chance to pick a field. The motor, however, drummed along evenly, and no music on earth could have been so sweet to the pilot's ears.
Louisville was aglow with light as he passed over it, the long exhaust flame giving the impression that the ship was afire to any one unfamiliar with flying. Hemingwood grinned as he imagined the consternation in that great city below as the flaming, roaring machine sped along high in the night sky.
Ten minutes more brought the lights of Camp Henry in sight, and Hemingwood circled for ten minutes until the men at Goddard Field had a chance to prepare for his landing. Soon the field was a dark square rimmed by a frame of fire. They had filled holes in the ground with gasoline and set it afire.
For the third time that day Hemingwood became a man whose every energy of mind and body was concentrated on his work. Bit by bit he came down, his unwinking eyes watching the speedmeter and the field alternately. Occasionally he jazzed the throttle, and huge spurts of flame shot from the exhaust pipes.
A quarter-mile back over Camp Henry he was three hundred feet high. The motor came full on until he had almost reached the field. Then he cut it, and floated downward, every faculty intent on missing those trees and stables on the edge of the field. They stood out in dark relief against the flaming gasoline.
He leveled out too high—he could not judge the smudge of ground accurately. For a sickening moment he was afraid, as he dropped, that all his work had been for nought and that in a moment sulfuric acid would be spraying a cracked-up ship. With stick back he dropped that eight feet and kept the ship level. It bounced twice, and then the grade of the hill stopped his roll.
Half of Camp Henry seemed packed on the line as he taxied up with as strange a burden as a ship ever carried.
AT ONE o'clock that night the fliers staggered home from the dance.
Hemingwood's cargo had created a distinct sensation in camp, and a hastily gathered board of medical officers had conducted an inquest. Another board would sit on the case on the morrow, when Mark and his sister arrived. The civil authorities in Louisville had been notified, and the morrow bid fair to be very busy for the Duke. Uncle Lafe was awaiting the arrival of the Louisville police in the Camp Henry guardhouse.
The general had asked the Duke smilingly, as to whether he had had a good trip. The slightly intoxicated George Hemingwood had replied:
“Any time we get there and back it's a good trip, general,” and then took himself off abruptly to dance with a comely young woman who, in comparison with the wiry flier seemed built on the architectural lines of the Statue of Liberty.
“No use telling, these high-rankers all the details,” he confided to Captain Kennard as they undressed.
“We'll tell him tomorrow, and get some credit for the Air Service,” returned the C. O. “He'll be pretty anxious to know all the lurid details.”
“I wish you'd reward me by letting me sleep later in the morning—verbal credit buys no shoes, and likewise actions speak louder than words.”
He buttoned his pajamas, sighing resignedly.
“It's no use wishing,” he said as he came toward the captain, walking with exaggerated care to keep from reeling. White lightning, which had flowed somewhat freely at the dance, has a kick in every drop.
“Here's your alarm clock, cap'n,” he yawned, presenting a slipper. “You might throw a boot if you didn't have it.”
A moment later he was asleep. Tomorrow was another day.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1971, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 53 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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