The burden of the chute slowed the plane. Then it leaped almost vertically as Ralph attempted to free it from the human burden it was dragging through the sky. The whole thing required a second, not more than two, when part of the tail assembly gave way and the chute started its downward course again. It had been an endless span of years to Tim, who sobbed aloud as they drifted through the fog.

Lights pierced the mist below and Tim instinctively swung around to protect Perkins when they landed. But they didn’t land. The chute caught in a maze of telephone wires along one of the main highways on the outskirts of Atkinson and Tim and Perkins dangled just above the ground. Passing motorists released them and rushed them to a hospital where Perkins was given immediate attention and Tim was put to bed after a thorough massage to ease his strained muscles. But not until he had telephoned the office and dictated the first part of the story of their finding of the wreck of the air mail and their sensational trip above Atkinson with the injured pilot.

Tim, who had been almost forcibly put in bed by the hospital attendants, was protesting that he had work to do when Ralph burst into the room.

“Are you all right, Tim?” he demanded.

“Sure,” replied Tim. “How about yourself and the plane?”

“Both O. K.,” said Ralph. “I blew out a couple of tires in landing and broke the prop, but that’s all. How’s Perk?”

Tim turned to the head surgeon who had just entered the room.

“He’ll be back in the air in a few days,” said the surgeon. “He has a nasty crack on the head and it was a good thing you got him here when you did. Much more exposure and he would have had pneumonia.”

The surgeon had just stepped from the room when the managing editor of the News hurried in.

“Wonderful work, Tim,” said Carson. “Wonderful. We put out an extra on the story you phoned. Now let’s have the rest of it. This Sky Hawk angle makes it the most thrilling yarn of the year.”

For the better part of half an hour, Tim and Ralph related their experiences while a stenographer took down their story.

The next day the Sky Hawk’s daring robbery and their rescue of the air mail flyer were the talk of the town. Before noon, Tim was visited by Hunter, who was not only manager of the local field, but representative for the Transcontinental company.

Hunter looked worried and his words bore out his looks.

“This Sky Hawk is getting to be a nuisance,” he told Tim. “He’s picked us for $500,000 and although we had it covered by insurance, it doesn’t help matters any. Old Tom Blair, who heads our company, has wired me to use every means to apprehend the Sky Hawk. The police and state officials are doing all they can, but the very nature of his operations leaves them almost helpless.”

“Flying cops are something for the future,” smiled Tim.

“And that’s just what we need,” went on Hunter. “I want you to agree to help me all you can. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears close to the ground. You may be able to turn up something the police can’t uncover. And remember, Tim,” he grinned, “there’ll be something more than just the fun of a story if you get the Sky Hawk.”

“You know I’ll do everything I can,” replied Tim, as Hunter, weighed down with his worries, said goodbye.

But the Sky Hawk seemed to have dropped from sight. There was a dearth of news and the managing editor cast anxious eyes about for interesting material with which to fill the columns of his paper.

Ever since he had been given the assignment as the flying reporter, Tim had cherished the hope that some day he would be given permission to write a daily column on aviation. That day had been particularly quiet and devoid of stories with interest and to Tim it seemed the right time to approach his managing editor.

After the rush of the final edition had subsided and the presses were roaring their symphony of news, Tim accosted the managing editor.

“I’m sure I can give you a column of live news about aviation every day, Mr. Carson,” he said. “We’re not running very heavy on news right now and if you’ll give me the space, I’d like to show you what I can do.”

“When would you have the time to handle it, Tim?” asked the managing editor. “I couldn’t spare you for two or three hours every day for that.”

“I’m not asking for that,” replied Tim. “If you’ll give me a column, I’ll write the stories after hours and in the evening. I know most of the flyers at the field here and then with the chaps who are flying the air mail, there is an unlimited field for human interest stories. On top of that, I’m keeping right up on all the developments of aviation. All I need is the space, Mr. Carson!”

“When do you want to start it?” asked Carson.

“Any time you can give me the room.”

“Can you whip a column of material into shape by tomorrow morning?”

“Easily.”

“Then have about three pages of copy ready in the morning.” The action was characteristic of Carson. In fact, it was characteristic of newspaper work with its quick decisions and demands that to any class of men but reporters would have been insurmountable.

To Tim the demand for a column of copy in the morning was the best news in weeks and he turned away from the managing editor after expressing his appreciation for the opportunity.

“Oh, Tim,” called Carson. “Better stop on your way down stairs and tell the engraving department to work up one and two column heads for you. Have them draw a picture of a plane and put your name under it: By Tim Murphy, the Flying Reporter of the Atkinson News.”

Getting together a column of interesting, readable material on such short notice would not be easy, especially since Tim wanted his first column to be alive with interest. After conferring with the head of the engraving department, Tim hurried out to the municipal field where he imparted his good luck into the ever-sympathetic ear of Hunter, the field manager.

“That’s fine, Tim,” congratulated Hunter. “I know you’ve wanted to write a daily column on aviation for a long time. Do you think Carson will make it a permanent feature of the paper?”

“That all depends on what kind of material I can dig up and how well I can write it. Means you fellows here at the field will have to cooperate with me.”

“You know we’ll do that Tim,” promised Hunter. “The boys all like you mighty well. The only thing is that they are a bit bashful in telling some of their own experiences. You may have to pry around a bit.”

“I expect you’re right there,” agreed Tim, “but after I get them started I’ll get plenty of material. Now I’ve got to line up a good feature to start the column off tomorrow. You know of anything unusual here at the field?”

Hunter scratched his head and looked meditatively at a cloud as if seeking inspiration.

“Afraid I’m not much help right now,” he said. “Say, wait a minute. We’ll go over to the radio shack and see if there are any late bulletins on planes coming in tonight.”

Tim agreed and they walked over to the little building at the foot of the radio towers where the department of commerce maintained a station, part of its transcontinental link of communication to advise airmen on weather conditions and report the movements of aircraft along the main skyways.

The operator on duty greeted them cordially and turned his file of messages over to them. Hunter thumbed through the flimsy sheets of tissue with experienced fingers. He stopped and read one of the communications with interest. Then he turned to Tim.

“Here’s something that came in within the last hour,” he said. “May be just what you need for a story.”

Tim read the tissue and glowed with excitement at what he read. What a lucky break for him. According to the report, Arthur Winslow, king of the air mail flyers, would land at the local field within two hours for an overnight stop.

“That’s just what I need,” exclaimed Tim. “Why Winslow is rated as the ace of all airmen. It will make a great yarn if he’ll talk.”

“There may be some trouble on that point,” said Hunter. “I know Winslow only slightly for he’s flying on the west end of the transcontinental now, and he’s mighty reticent when it comes to talking about himself. It says here that he is ferrying a new passenger and mail plane west.”

“Good thing I have a car here,” said Tim. “If I can’t get a chance at him any other way I can offer him a ride to the city and he can hardly refuse to talk then.”

“I think he’ll help you out if you explain what you want and how badly you need a good story for the first day your column is printed.”

They went into Hunter’s office where the manager of the field busied himself at his desk. Tim dug into the files to secure, in advance, all of the available material he could about Arthur Winslow, airman without peer.

The ace of the air mail pilots was not a sensational flyer in the sense that his name was on the front pages of the newspapers every day. In fact, he was just the opposite and as he often told his friends, he didn’t care anything about being the best air mail flyer. All he wanted was to be the oldest.

Winslow had trained Col. Charles A. Lindbergh when he was a fledgling and before the flying colonel had even dreamed of a flight to Paris, and he had performed many a heroic deed as he winged his way across the plains of the middle west of the snow-capped Rockies and the rugged Sierras.

Tim was still finding valuable material in the files when a mechanic stuck his head in the door.

“Here comes Winslow,” he announced and Tim and Hunter promptly deserted the office and took their places at one side of the big concrete apron which marked the end of the main runway on the field.

The plane rapidly took form as it roared out of the east. Winslow swung low over the field to sight the wind sock, then lined southwest and floated down to a three point landing. There was nothing startling in the way he handled his plane but his every move revealed the hand of a master birdman.

After Winslow had given his orders to the mechanics, he greeted Hunter.

“Winslow,” said the field manager as he introduced Tim, “here’s a young newspaper man I want you to know, Tim Murphy of the Atkinson News. I think Tim is unique in the newspaper world. He’s not only a mighty good reporter but a fine flyer.”

Both Tim and Winslow smiled at Hunter’s introduction and Tim felt a friendly tingle as he grasped Winslow’s hand.

“I’ve heard of you,” said Winslow.

“And I’ve heard a great deal about you,” replied Tim, “so I guess that makes us even.”

“Tim’s up against a tough proposition,” said Hunter as they strolled toward the office. “He wants to run a daily column of aviation in his paper and only today convinced his managing editor that it ought to be given a trial. As a result, Tim has to have a column of material ready early tomorrow morning. On top of that, he’s going to do this aviation column on his own time. He wants it to go over big and become a permanent part of the paper and so do I. Down here at the field we think it would be a fine thing and when we saw you were coming in for an over-night stop, we figured you might be able to give Tim some material that would be mighty readable.”

“I don’t think I’ve done anything very remarkable or anything that would make good newspaper reading,” laughed Winslow, “but if you’re willing to have dinner with me up town, Murphy, we’ll see what we can dig up.”

Tim was pleased at the invitation and accepted it at once. He was having even better luck than he had dared dream, and he felt that given enough time with Winslow, the famous pilot would loosen up and tell him some of the experiences he had had in his eighteen years of flying.

Hunter excused himself, saying that he had work at the field which required his attention, and Tim and Winslow got into the car Tim had brought to the field, and started for town.

They talked of the recent developments in aviation and of the great increase in the number of air mail lines, but it was not until they were at dinner that Winslow really started to unburden himself in answer to Tim’s questions.

“When did I start to fly?” mused the veteran of the skyways. “Why that’s so long ago I’ve almost forgotten the date. You young fellows think of flying as a development since the war, but I started flying back in 1912 in the days before we had ailerons on the wing tips and used to warp the wings of our planes to control them.”

“You’ve flown more than anyone else, haven’t you?” queried Tim.

“I believe I have,” was Winslow’s quiet reply. “My record book shows more than 12,000 hours in the air for a little better than 1,400,000 miles. That would be a long time and a long ways if it were a continuous flight,” he smiled.

Tim liked Winslow when he smiled. There was nothing of the boaster in this man who was the king of the air. His brown hair looked a little faded from exposure in thousands of hours of sun and wind and storm, and there were decided wrinkles on his face, but his eyes were a clear brown that invited confidence in their owner.

When Tim mentioned the air mail, he struck an especially responsive chord in Winslow’s mind, whose life, for the last ten years, had been a part of the mail. He had flown the first mail plane from New York to Washington and later had been one of the pioneer flyers on the transcontinental.

“Those early days were when we got our thrills,” reminisced Winslow. “We were flying in cast-off army planes that the post office department had picked up. Our limit was under five hundred pounds of mail and we never had to worry about being overloaded at that. After the old army DeHaviland’s were put on the junk heap we got Douglas cruisers and there was a little more regularity to the way we maintained our schedules. When the post office department turned the air mail over to private contractors, we were given the best planes money could buy.”

“The air mail’s grown immensely popular in the last two years hasn’t it?” asked Tim.

“Immensely is hardly the word,” said Winslow. “Universally is better, and it’s all since Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and focused popular interest on aviation. Why this new plane I’m ferrying west is capable of carrying six passengers and 1,500 pounds of mail and maintaining an average speed of 130 miles an hour. In two years it will be obsolete and we’ll have bigger and faster planes in its place.”

“Didn’t you take a mail plane several years ago and brave a Lake Michigan storm in mid-winter to take food to fishermen marooned on an island?”

“I was lucky,” was Winslow’s simple reply. “By the way, I’ve read recently how you did a similar stunt only you dropped supplies to a village cut off by a flood.”

“That was luck, too,” smiled Tim. “Now I’d like to know if you’ve ever had any accidents.”

“One,” admitted Winslow after some deliberation. “It was pretty serious and I don’t know whether I ought to give it to you or not. But I guess it won’t do any harm,” he added and smiled.

“Someone,” he said, “parked a plane in the middle of the field at Blanton one night and when my landing lights didn’t work I ran into it head-on. Result, two damaged planes and one bad temper.”

“You mean that’s the only accident you’ve had in more than a million miles of flying?” asked the incredulous Tim.

“That’s all and that’s enough,” said Winslow. “Flying is safe if you take the proper precautions. The chaps who get cracked-up are stunting, have inferior equipment, or are just plain dumb.”

“What,” asked Tim, “would be the most thrilling flight to you?”

“A hop over the top of the world,” replied Winslow. “I’ve always wanted to make an Arctic flight and even though Wilkins and Eilson made the trip from Point Barrow to Spitzbergen, I’m not entirely convinced that there isn’t land somewhere up there. It would be worth a try, anyway,” and his dark eyes glowed with enthusiasm.

Tim felt a peculiar warmth and thrill of inspiration and Winslow’s words fell on far more fertile soil than he ever dreamed.

“There’s just one more question?” said Tim. “Didn’t you help train Lindbergh to fly?”

“Yes, some. We were on the same division of the air mail and saw quite a lot of each other before he flew to Paris.”

“What kind of a fellow was he then?”

“Not much more than a kid, quiet and serious minded. If he had any thought of flying to Paris when I knew him, he certainly kept it a secret. He’s a wonderful flyer; uses his head and knows every trick in the game.”

They had completed their dinner and Winslow, who was obviously tired from a long day in the air, asked Tim if he had all the material he needed for his first column.

“Reams of it, thanks to you,” said the flying reporter.

“I’m glad if I have been of any help,” replied the veteran of the air mail. “I think the column will be a fine thing. I hope you make a success of it, and I’m sure you will. I’m going to turn in now and get a few hours of sleep.”

Tim had been too fascinated with their conversation to take notes during the dinner but it would have been a waste of effort for he could remember clearly every scrap of the information Winslow had given him. He hurried to his room, gathered up half a dozen books Dan Watkins had loaned him to study, and then headed for the copyreader’s rooming house.

He found Dan, in dressing gown and carpet slippers, enjoying a novel.

“What’s up, Tim,” asked Dan.

“Need some advice and also brought your books home,” replied Tim. “Carson is going to let me try a daily aviation column to see how it goes. I’ve got more material than I can possibly use for the first time. Just interviewed Arthur Winslow, dean of the air mail flyers, and have some stuff that will make wonderful copy.”

“How much space will you have?”

“Just an even column and I’ve enough dope for three or four,” said Tim enthusiastically.

“That’s going to be a job, then,” said Dan, “for you must keep within the limits of your space. But that means your story will be even the better—not an extra word or phrase. Here, use my typewriter and get busy.”

Tim welcomed the suggestion and for an hour he worked diligently, cutting and rewriting as the copyreader suggested. When he had completed his task he had a column story about Winslow—a column that was fairly alive with the romance of the air mail and of the flyer who was the master of all birdmen.

“Carson will like this, you see if he doesn’t,” was Dan’s comment as he finished reading Tim’s work. “Keep this up and it won’t be long until you’ll be the aviation editor of the News.”

“Do you really think so, Dan?”

“I’m sure of it. Only the other day Carson was talking about you and I told him how you were going to night school four evenings every week and that I was suggesting books for you to read. He was well pleased. There aren’t many of the boys on the paper who are working like you to get ahead.”

Tim reached the office early the next morning and placed his copy on Carson’s desk before the managing editor arrived. The directing editorial genius of the News said nothing about Tim’s first story but after two or three days he stopped beside the flying reporter’s desk one morning.

“The aviation stories you’re turning out are good stuff, Tim,” he commented. “If you have a little more than a column some days don’t hesitate to run over your usual amount of space.”

From the fact that Carson was willing to give him more space, Tim knew that his work was finding favor. But he hoped for the day when the managing editor would make it a permanent feature.

Tim worked every extra minute getting material for his column. He interviewed all the famous pilots who landed at the field, wrote sketches of the flyers on the regular air mail runs, and described flights over the city and the surrounding towns. The latter stunt made a great hit with the circulation manager, who personally made a trip to the editorial office to commend Tim. Every town visited and written up from the air meant the sale of more copies of the News.

With his regular work and his studies, Tim found the task of gathering and writing the material for the column a real drain on his physical energies.

“Better take things a little easier,” cautioned Dan, but Tim was too much interested in his work and studies to give up anything and he was too conscientious to slight either.

When Tim’s health started to suffer under the burden, Dan took the matter in his own hands and went to the managing editor.

“Tim’s working too hard,” he told Carson. “The boy is too ambitious for his own good and unless you do something he’ll work himself to death. He’s doing his usual work in the office, writing his daily column and going to night school four times a week. That’s more than he can stand, especially this hot weather.”

“I’m glad you called it to my attention,” said the managing editor. “I’ve been very much pleased over Tim’s column and it’s made a hit with the business office. We decided to make a little change last night and this is a good time to tell Tim about it. Come along.”

They walked down the editorial room together until they reached Tim’s desk where the flying reporter, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, was working.

“Hold up a minute, Tim,” said the managing editor. “I have some news for you. We’re going to discontinue your column.”

“But Mr. Carson,” protested Tim. Then he stopped abruptly, his tired eyes welling with tears.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tim, I shouldn’t have said it in that way,” Carson hurried on. “What I meant to tell you is that the column is gone for good—from now on it will be a regular department of the paper and you’re to have charge of it.”