Captain Smith at once saw that he was risking the lives of both Bill and himself by holding on to Bill’s flying suit. Accordingly he released his grip and confined his activities to the plane and began thinking of a possible way out of the dangerous situation they were in.

There was still a big chance of the parachute’s opening and dragging Bill from the plane. If that happened, Bill might or might not be carried through the tail surfaces. Then, again, the parachute might not open. Remote as that possibility was, they could not afford to take any chances. Every effort must be made to get the streaming chute away from the tail group. Smith immediately started to figure how it could be done.

Bill in the meantime saw that by staying where he was, he not only was risking his own life but was jeopardizing Smith’s as well. Bill realized that something must be done at once whereby he could fall free of the plane without being carried backward by the trailing chute.

Bill climbed over the side of the fusilage, being very careful while doing so not to increase the probability of the chute opening by giving it any unnecessary motion. He reached the top step safely and then stepped down to the lower one. From that position he could see that the streaming shroud lines were inside of the elevator horn and that it would take some little maneuvering to get them clear.

From Bill’s point of view there was but one way to do it. Somehow or other he must work his way back to the tail group and throw those shroud lines clear. He looked around to see how it might be done. To climb back on top of the fusilage was out of the question, as that would make it practically impossible to throw the chute clear. The only other method was for him to work his way back along the control cables which ran alongside the fusilage.

Bill immediately bent down and grasped the control cable with his right hand, while he held on to the fusilage with his left. When he was sure that he had a secure grip, he released his left hand and grasped the cable with it. At the same instant his foot slipped from the lower step and he found himself hanging from the control wire. The force of his fall had caused the cable to cut his hands severely, but he held on just the same.

In the meantime, while watching Bill, Smith was thinking out a method whereby he could so throw the plane through the air that the shroud lines would be cleared of the elevator horn. He thought that it might be done by slipping the plane through the air. During such a motion the plane would not have the same resistance to the air as the chute and might possibly move away from the chute. When that time came, Bill could drop with some degree of safety.

Thus it was that both Smith and Bill started working with the same end in view. Bill worked his way backward toward the tail group, stopping every once in a while to try and throw the shroud lines clear with one hand while he retained his grip on the cable with the other. Smith put the plane into a steep side slip and watched the parachute to see what effect the sideward motion of the plane was having.

Several times Smith slipped the plane with no apparent results. Meanwhile Bill Bruce was working his way farther and farther to the rear of the fusilage. Finally Bill reached a point within a few feet of the leading edge of the stabilizer. Here he again tried to throw the shroud lines clear with one free hand. Smith at the same time put the plane into an almost vertical slip. The shroud lines moved across the surfaces, jumped the horn and strung out clear of the plane.

As soon as he saw that the shroud lines were clear, Bill dropped off into space. The crowd on the ground saw all of these maneuvers, but could not imagine the reason for their taking place. They saw the streaming chute and knew that it should not be that close to the plane. They also saw that Bill was still in the cockpit when he should have been clear of the ship. None knew the perilous situation which confronted the two airmen. Everyone, however, realized that something had gone wrong and that the two men were fighting for their lives.

When Bill dropped from the plane, as far he could see, none of the rules and instructions which Sergeant Ruhs had given him before going into the air could possibly be put into effect. In the first place, one parachute was already open and it was not necessary to count three. Then, again, it would do no good to pull the ring of that chute now, no matter how hard he pulled it. Ruhs had said that the chutes always open. Would this one open or should he pull on the ring to open the other chute?

Bill had a hard time to think logically while falling through space with the string-like parachute streaming down after him. He was afraid that, as his body tumbled around while falling, the first parachute would wrap itself around the second one and keep it from opening. That being the case, the sooner he pulled the rip cord on the second chute, the better off he would be.

It was fortunate that Smith had climbed to about twenty-five hundred feet before giving Bill the signal to jump. Otherwise things might not have turned out so well for Bill. They had lost about five hundred feet while trying to get the chute clear of the tail group, and then Bill had fallen another thousand feet before he tried to open the second chute.

That drop of a thousand feet had taken scarcely any time at all, and Bill did not realize that he had fallen so far. He began to search for the other ring with one hand. At the time he was falling head downwards. He instinctively raised his hand toward his head to reach the ring, but it took what seemed to him to be hours before he found it. He gave the ring a pull, and kept on pulling until the wire was clear.

The pilot chute came out with a snap and then Bill felt his speed slacken with a distinct jerk. He looked up and saw that the second chute was open. The first was still in the form of a streamer. With the opening of the chute, Bill started a pendulum motion, his body swung in a large arc below the chute. The length of the arc gradually decreased until he was hanging suspended directly under the center of the silk umbrella-shaped chute. He looked up at it with astonishment, for he had no idea that it could possibly be so large.

While he was still looking upward the first chute opened, and each one forced the other out at an angle. Bill was hanging down between the two. Bill looked down at the ground. It seemed as if he was hardly falling at all, the drop was so slow. He found it rather a pleasant sensation—after the chutes had opened.

Bill had been too busy fighting for his life when he was about to leave the plane to think of anything else but clearing the chute from the elevator horn. He could not make up his mind whether or not he would have been a little afraid to jump under normal conditions. One thing certain, the thought of fear of jumping had not entered his mind after he had inadvertently opened the first chute.

The wind was drifting him across the aviation field. Evidently all the maneuvering in the air had taken but a very short time, although it seemed that hours had passed.

Bill watched the ground come closer and closer. He was aware of the fact that Smith was circling around in his plane, but Bill never looked at the airplane. Smith drew away as Bill came down close to the airdrome. Bill bent his knees slightly as he neared the ground and then he hit. It was not a violent jar, but the wind carried the chutes along while Bill was on the ground.

Two twenty-four foot parachutes afford a large surface for the wind to catch, and had the wind been much stronger, Bill would undoubtedly have been dragged along the ground. Ruhs arrived alongside almost as soon as Bill hit. He grabbed the top shroud lines and pulled them down. The chutes immediately became deflated and dropped to the ground.

Bill got up on his feet and the crowd cheered when they saw that he was not hurt. It had been a terrible ordeal, but both Bill and Smith had come off unscathed. Bill’s hands were cut from climbing along the cable, but that was not worth considering when there were so many worse things which might have happened.

Ruhs untangled Bill from the shoulder braces and said, “You can ride back in the ambulance if you want to.”

“Not for mine,” replied Bill. “It looked for a while as if I would be in no fit condition even for an ambulance, but I am all whole. I will walk.”

“How did your chute come to open up before you were clear of the plane?” asked Captain Smith when Bill reached the line.

“I was afraid that I would not be able to find the ring after I dropped into space,” replied Bill. “Accordingly I held on to the ring while I tried to climb out. I lost my balance against the wind pressure when I stood up, and, in trying to regain it, must have pulled open the chute.”

“Next time you had better wait until after you count before grabbing the ring,” said Smith. “I doubt if we will always be as lucky as we were today. I don’t understand now why that first chute did not open and drag you out of the cockpit.”

“Neither do I,” said Bill.

“Weren’t you scared to death up there when your chute fouled the plane?” Bob Finch asked Bill as they were returning to town that evening.

“Bob, I didn’t have time to be scared. There were too many things to do if I wanted to make a fight for my life. In a time like that it would have been fatal to be scared.”

The next day, when the operations office opened, there were several radios and telephone messages waiting. Those messages came from the various forests. The rain had put out all the large fires that had been burning before. The lightning had started quite a few new ones, but there were others which had started in districts where no lightning storms had been reported.

“I cannot account for all of these fires in the area to the southeast,” said Simmons as he placed pins in the map to show the approximate locations of the new fires reported. “However, these which are reported over in this area have me buffaloed. There is no rhyme or reason for their existence. There were no thunder storms anywhere near them. It rained hard enough for all the old fires to have been extinguished, and yet here is a string of new fires starting. Look at them, all in a row. What started them?”

“Perhaps there was a small local thunder storm over there,” suggested Kiel.

“How could that have been possible without the lookouts and the forest wardens knowing it?” replied Simmons. “That doesn’t sound reasonable to me.”

“Are you trying to infer that there is someone out in the woods deliberately setting fires?” asked Bill.

“That is exactly what I am driving at,” replied Simmons. “I thought so before the rains started, and I am more convinced than ever now. The fires are breaking out at too regular intervals and times to be resulting from carelessness. Furthermore, Bill Bruce, you and I are going out in a plane this morning and catch that firebug.”