While the parachutes floated down through the night, Tim realized that things were not turning out the way he had expected. He hoped the posse which was supposed to be in readiness at Auburn had seen the battle in the sky and was ready to do its part now.

Tim spilled some of the air from his parachute to speed his descent. He must reach the ground ahead of the bandits. If the posse wasn’t on the job, he might be able to handle the situation alone. Below him a heavy patch of timber loomed in the night. He jerked hard on the chute cords and, kicking desperately with his legs, swung away from the trees and dropped into a small clearing. Over to his right he could see the other two parachutes settling to earth.

The flying reporter unsnapped his parachute harness, made sure that his gun was ready, and then sprinted toward the place where he had last seen the parachutes.

There was a rushing, moaning sound that stopped Tim in his tracks. For the moment he had forgotten the two planes. Locked together, they had swung in great circles in the sky and the flyers, who had leaped in the chutes, had beaten them to the ground. Now, in a last tragic circle, the planes were hovering over the trees. For a moment they hung in the sky. Then, with a final flirt of their tails, stuck their noses down and the next moment struck the ground with terrific impact. There was a flash of fire and the roar of bursting fuel tanks. In a moment both planes were masses of flame.

Tim groaned at the thought of his beloved Lark coming to such an end and he hurried on with renewed determination. A hundred yards on the other side of the burning planes he came to an open field. Two irregular masses of white were laying near the center while on the far side Tim could distinguish the forms of two men, running toward a nearby road.

He heard the sputter of a powerful engine, headlights flashed on and before he was a third of the way across the field a car, with the two aerial bandits in it, was speeding down the valley away from the village of Auburn.

When the posse arrived five minutes later they found Tim waiting for them at the side of the road. Briefly he explained what had happened and then went to Auburn where he telephoned his story to the News office.

It was the next afternoon when Tim reached Atkinson and he half way expected a bawling out from Carson for the loss of his new plane. Instead, he found the managing editor jubilant.

“Best story we’ve had in months, Tim,” congratulated Carson. “And the Transcontinental is going to replace our plane so you can go cloud-hopping again.”

“I’m glad you liked the story,” replied Tim, “And it’s great of the Transcontinental people to buy a new plane, but I felt I sort of fell down on the story. I should have caught those fellows.”

“Nonsense,” exploded the managing editor. “It wasn’t your fault the posse wasn’t on the job. You did everything you could.”

“Yes, I know,” said Tim, “but it makes a fellow’s blood boil to think of flyers who will stoop as low as that pair. Besides, they’re apt to try the stunt again. Not with the death ray but with something else. The airways aren’t patrolled like the highways and some mighty valuable cargoes are carried by plane these days.”

“Kind of riles up your Irish pride at the thought of them getting away, doesn’t it?” asked Carson.

“Guess it does,” admitted Tim, “but you don’t want to be too sure they’ve gotten away. Next time it will be a different story.”

“I hope there isn’t a next time,” said the managing editor, and he picked up the handful of copy he had been reading when Tim came in.

News is news but for a day and then it fades from the front pages to become only a matter for memory, and so it was with Tim’s adventure with the sky bandits.

For a few hours he received the praise of his fellow reporters. Then his deed was forgotten in the hurry and bustle that is part of a great daily newspaper. Tim would not have wished it otherwise. He had no desire to be a hero, even in the News office, and considered the entire incident as nothing more than a part of his duty, for reporting takes its followers into many a situation which calls for quick thinking and steady nerves.

In less than two weeks the new plane which the Transcontinental Air Mail company had agreed to buy to replace the one wrecked by Tim in the Cedar River valley arrived and was uncrated at the municipal field. The mechanics were busy several days assembling the plane and another day was required for the ground tests.

Then Tim was ready to soar into the clouds again. The test flight was successful and the flying reporter was highly elated with the new Lark. He was ready to follow new trails through the sky in his quest for the news of the day.

One morning a copy boy stopped at his desk.

“Say Tim, Mr. Carson wants to see you.”

Tim’s slender fingers stopped their tattoo on the keys of his typewriter. Anchoring his notes securely under a piece of lead he used for a paper weight, he left his desk and walked down the aisle in the center of the big news room. At one end, on a slightly elevated platform, were the desks of the managing editor and the city editor, so located that the executives in charge of the paper could see at a glance just what reporters were in the room. Directly in front of the platform was a large, horseshoe shaped desk where half a dozen copyreaders were busy editing stories which were to go into the editions that day. At the center of the horseshoe sat the head copyreader, a gray-haired veteran by the name of Dan Watkins, who could spin many a yarn of the early days.

The copyreaders, engrossed with their work, did not look up as Tim passed by.

“Sit down, Tim,” said the managing editor, and he waved the flying reporter to a chair beside his desk. For a minute Carson was busy with the makeup editor, completing the final layout for the first page of the mail edition for that day. The layout finished, he turned to Tim.

“I’m well satisfied,” he commenced, “with the way you’re handling our plane. There’s just one thing, though, Tim. Sometime you may not be able to take the controls and then we’ll be up against it.”

“But you could get any one of half a dozen reliable pilots at the municipal field to fly for you in an emergency,” suggested Tim.

“I know it,” replied Carson, “but I want more than pilots. I want flying reporters. When I first gave you the assignment of handling our new plane, I felt sure that many of the big stories of the future will be in the air. Now I’m more convinced than ever. What I want is another flying reporter; someone that can take your place if need be. I want you to pick your man from the staff and devote the next few weeks to teaching him how to fly. I’ve made arrangements with the manager of the municipal field to give you whatever assistance you need.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Carson,” said Tim enthusiastically. “Does this mean you want me to take three or four weeks and give all my time to teaching someone on the staff to fly?”

“Right, Tim,” said the managing editor. “Have you any suggestions? Pick your man carefully,” he added, “for we have a heavy investment in that plane.”

“I believe Ralph Parsons could be trained to fly,” suggested Tim.

“But isn’t Ralph a little too slow for this game in the air?”

“Ralph may be a little slow in learning,” admitted Tim, “but he’s steady and that counts a lot in flying. On top of that, Ralph is a brilliant and clever writer. I’m sure he would fit into your scheme of things nicely.”

“All right, Tim,” agreed Carson, “if you think Ralph can handle the job we’ll give him a try. When he comes into the office tell him I want to see him.”

Half an hour later Ralph breezed in from his round of the hotels. Without betraying anything unusual in his voice, Tim accosted his chum.

“Ralph, Mr. Carson wants to see you right away. It’s important.”

Ralph frowned. “Wonder what’s up now,” he said, as he started for the managing editor’s desk.

Tim smiled for he knew how his chum would feel when he returned from the interview with Carson.

Five minutes later Ralph fairly ran down the room to Tim’s desk. He was bubbling with excitement.

“Why didn’t you tell me what he wanted,” he exploded. “Gosh, Tim, I’m so tickled I hardly know what to do.”

“I’m mighty glad, too,” said Tim. “It’s a great opportunity and I know you’ll make good. We’re to take three or four weeks and go in for an intensive course.”

When they reached the municipal field the next morning, Tim took Ralph to the office where he introduced him to Carl Hunter, the genial manager of the field.

“So you’re going to be the new flying reporter,” smiled Hunter as he greeted Ralph. “That’s great. Tim phoned me yesterday and I’ve got a ship all ready and waiting on the line for you chaps.”

Ralph was a little disappointed when he saw the craft in which he was to take his first lesson. It was an antiquated machine whose exact number of years were unknown. Suffice to say that it was classed as a “Jenny,” a type of biplane used by the army in training it’s flyers in the days of the World War.

The Jenny’s wings drooped a little dejectedly and her fuselage was liberally patched and doped but the motor, which was turning over slowly, sounded sweet.

“Everything O.K.?” asked Hunter as Tim completed his examination of the plane.

“Looks like it,” said the flying reporter, as he turned to his chum to explain the intricacies of a seat pack parachute. With the heavy package banging around his knees, Ralph climbed into the rear cockpit. The instruments there looked sensible enough to him. A gas gauge to indicate the amount of fuel, an altimeter to show the height, an oil gauge to show that the motor was getting the proper amount of lubrication and a tachometer which indicated the number of revolutions of the motor per minute.

Tim was getting Ralph acclimated to the cockpit and he intentionally kept the motor idling while he explained the functions of the controls; how the rudder at the back of the fuselage controlled the right and left direction of the plane while the ailerons on the wings were used to direct it’s up and down movements. The explanation seemed simple enough to Ralph and when he placed his feet on the rudder bar it recalled days not so long gone when he had guided a speeding sled down long hills. This might not be so bad, after all, but he admitted a few qualms when Tim climbed into the forward cockpit, strapped himself in, revved up the motor, waggled the wings, and sent the plane throbbing into the air.

Ralph needed some time to get used to the sensation of roaring along through the clouds at eighty miles an hour and for the first fifteen or twenty minutes Tim made no effort to give his chum any further instructions. Instead, they conversed freely through the headphones and Tim took pains to keep Ralph’s attention diverted from the plane and its maneuvering. When he felt that his chum had become more air-minded he started the actual instruction.

Ralph was slow to learn the rudiments of handling the plane, but he was steady and after another half hour in the air, Tim took his hands off the controls and signalled for Ralph to take the stick. Everything went well for several minutes until they struck an air pocket and the ship dropped fifty feet. Ralph, surprised at the sinking sensation, overcontrolled and threw the Jenny into a side-slip.

Tim righted the plane and continued the instruction for another ten minutes. Then he started down, calling Ralph’s attention to every shift in the position of the controls and explaining his reason.

When they skimmed to a stop in front of the office at the field they were stiff and numb from cold for the late winter winds had bitten through their heavy clothing.

Hunter was on hand to greet them.

“How goes it?” he asked.

“Fine, Carl, fine,” said Tim. “Ralph will make a cracking good flyer when he gets over being scared. We’ll be out again this afternoon.”

Three weeks slipped away and to Ralph and Tim the time was like three days. Then Ralph was ready for his solo flight. He had satisfied both Tim and Hunter that he could handle a plane and that morning, late in March, he was to soar aloft alone.

Ralph, silent and serious of face, took his place in the Jenny. He heard Tim yell a few reassuring words at him. Then he was off.

Ralph got the Jenny off the ground like a veteran and started climbing for altitude. At 2,000 feet he levelled off and swung the Jenny over the field in great circles, his motor barking in the crisp morning air. For fifteen minutes Tim and Hunter strained their necks as they watched Ralph put the Jenny through her paces.

“He’s all right,” said Hunter, “you’ve done a nice piece of work, Tim, in teaching him how to fly. I was afraid he wouldn’t be fast enough in an emergency.” When the manager of the Atkinson field said a flyer was all right, he was that and more, for Hunter was known as a cautious man.

Tim and Hunter turned to glance at another ship that was being warmed up on the line. A shout from a mechanic brought their attention back to Ralph, and their faces went white at the sight of what was happening in the sky. Far above them the Jenny was twisting and falling. For a moment they were speechless.

“His right wing’s crumpled,” yelled Hunter. “He’s going to crash.”

Tim’s throat tightened. He couldn’t even speak when he realized what Ralph was up against. It was enough to turn a veteran pilot gray headed, much less a beginner making his first solo.

If Ralph could keep the Jenny out of a tail spin he had a chance, just a chance. Down, down, down, fluttered the crippled plane, so slowly and yet so swiftly. Nearer and nearer the field Ralph swung his battered ship, nursing it every foot of the way. At 500 feet it fell away in a steep glide—so steep that the two near the hangar held their breath.

The plane gained speed, the sideslip was steeper. In another second it would strike the ground, roll over, and crush its pilot. Tim turned away; he couldn’t stand it.

Only Hunter saw Ralph stake his life in a desperate chance and saw him win. Just before the plane crashed he threw his controls over, bringing his left wing up and levelling off. The lower right wing held for the needed fraction of a second, just the time required to pull out of the sideslip, and Ralph set his crippled plane down hard.

Instead of a bad crash, it was only a noseover and by the time Tim and Hunter reached the Jenny, Ralph was scrambling out of the cockpit.

“Hurt, Ralph?” cried Tim.

“Not hurt, just scared,” he grinned. “Guess I kind of smashed up the old bus, Carl,” he went on, his words tense and close clipped. “I’m mighty sorry.”

“That’s all right, Ralph,” said Hunter. “She was about at the end of her string and I guess I shouldn’t have let you take her up for your solo. I’m glad it wasn’t any worse.”

“How did you feel coming down?” queried Tim, as they started back to the office after a careful survey of the wrecked Jenny.

“Pretty nervous,” admitted Ralph, “but it’s great stuff. I’d have been all right if I hadn’t hit a bump when I went into a sharp bank and the old ship just couldn’t stand the gaff. It was some trip down, though. I thought I had a ticket straight through for China.”

“That landing with the broken wing was a great piece of flying,” cut in Hunter in his quiet voice. Ralph was thrilled, for words of praise from the manager of the field meant much.

“Better come out this afternoon,” said Hunter when they reached the office, “and we’ll have another try at it.”

Tim caught the significance of the words and he wondered if Ralph sensed their meaning. After a crash the first thing for a flyer to do is to get into the air again. If he lets the effects of the crackup work on his nerves he may never be able to handle a plane again. Tim realized that his chum had been through a severe flying ordeal but he was elated that Ralph had come through in such fine shape. The next thing was to get him back into the air as soon as possible and in the meantime to keep his mind occupied with thoughts other than those of the crackup.

They were speeding into town in one of the cars owned by the News when Ralph let out a yell and Tim swerved just in time to avoid a hog which was having a hard time making up its mind in which way to go.

“One thing,” laughed Ralph when the pork menace was safely behind, “we don’t have to dodge such things up there.”

Tim purposely took Ralph to the busiest cafeteria in town where the rush to get food kept them busy for half an hour. The heavy tide of noonday traffic caught them in its swirl when they started back to the field and by the time they reached the airport, they had said scarcely a dozen words about the incident of the morning.

Hunter, wise in the ways of the air and the men who ride through its trackless lanes, had another plane warmed up on the line when they put in their appearance.

It was the work of only a few minutes for Ralph to don his heavy flying clothes. Tim thought his chum looked a little white around his lips. He wondered what thoughts were racing through Ralph’s mind. If his chum only knew it, the big test was before him.

Tim wanted Ralph to make good, wanted him to pass the next ordeal for he knew how much he had counted on becoming a companion of the flying reporter. They had worked up from cub reporter, taken all the hard knocks of the newspaper game with a smile. Now their big opportunity was at hand if Ralph could come through the gruelling test of the afternoon. Tim knew he must go on flying even if Ralph failed, but the zest of it would be gone.

Ralph took his place in the cockpit of the ship Hunter designated. It was similar to the old Jenny in design but a much sturdier type. Tim watched Ralph closely as he checked over the instruments. If Ralph was upset or unnerved at the thought of taking the air so soon after his first crackup, he gave no sign other than a certain firmness to the lines around his mouth.

With a roar, Ralph went scudding down the field, bouncing from side to side. Tim felt chills of apprehension running up and down his back as Ralph jounced along. There was little in his handling of the plane to resemble the fine takeoff of the morning. But just before Ralph crashed into the fence at the other side of the airport, he pulled the stick back hard.

The little ship shot skyward in a breathtaking climb; almost straight up it seemed to the anxious watchers on the field. For a second it hung at the peak of its climb. Would it fall off into a spin or would the sturdy motor pull on through? For an eternity the plane was hanging almost vertically against the sky—then the nose came down, the tail went up, and Ralph started circling the field.

Again Ralph put his plane through its paces and as far as Tim and Hunter could see, his handling of the craft showed no sign of uncertainty. At the end of half an hour he had completed every maneuver and even more than is required of a pilot on his solo flight but instead of coming down, Ralph continued to circle the field.

For ten or fifteen minutes Tim thought little of his chum’s actions but before the hour was up he was genuinely worried. What could be keeping Ralph up? he asked himself.

Hunter dodged out of the office to scan the sky.

“What’s Ralph doing up there so long?” he asked Tim in surprise.

“I don’t know, Carl,” replied the flying reporter, lines of worry creasing his brow. “I’m going to warm up the Lark and hop up and see if anything is wrong.”

In less than ten minutes, Tim, in the Lark, was pulling up beside Ralph’s plane. Tim was astonished at the sight which greeted his eyes. Apparently the training plane was a ghost ship, flying without human hands at its controls. Ralph was nowhere to be seen! But the movements of the ailerons and the rudder indicated that someone was in the cockpit and Tim wondered what kind of a joke Ralph was trying to play on him.

The two planes circled lazily over the airport and when several minutes elapsed and Ralph still remained hidden in the cockpit, Tim felt new alarm. He let the Lark drop behind the training plane, then gave it the gun and climbed above Ralph’s ship so he could look down into the cockpit.

He could see Ralph, doubled up on the floor at one side of the cockpit, controlling the plane as best he could with his hands. Ralph evidently heard the deeper roar of the motor of Tim’s plane for he looked up and managed to wave one hand. His face was twisted with pain.

The flying reporter waved back at his chum, then threw the Lark into a sideslip and plunged madly for the ground.

Hunter heard the thunder of the Lark as Tim sent it earthward in a power dive and was waiting for the flying reporter when he checked his plane on the concrete apron in front of the office.

“Something’s happened to Ralph,” yelled Tim. “He’s slumped down in one corner of the cockpit. Evidently he can’t use his legs for he’s handling the controls with his hands. We’ve got to get him down some way or he’ll crash sure.”

Hunter glanced at his watch. “He’s been up nearly an hour and a half and I didn’t put much gas in that ship,” he muttered half to himself and half to Tim.

Tim slipped into the forward cockpit and yelled for Hunter to take the controls. A mechanic helped them whip the Lark around and get it headed down the field.

Hunter opened the throttle wide. The Lark had its tail off the ground in a hundred feet and in less than five hundred feet was pointing its nose into the sky.

While they fought for altitude, Tim slipped the harness of his parachute from his shoulders. He couldn’t afford to be hampered by anything as cumbersome as a parachute if his plan to save Ralph from crashing was to succeed.

Tim and Hunter quickly overtook Ralph’s plane and that young man, despite the seriousness of his predicament, managed to grin at them as they jockeyed for a position directly over him.

While Hunter was coordinating the speed of the Lark with that of the training plane, Tim slipped out of his seat and down onto the wing. From the lower wing it was the work of a minute to wrap his legs around the landing gear and slide down onto the axle below the plane. If Hunter could bring the Lark down close enough to Ralph’s ship, Tim planned to drop onto the upper wing of the training plane.

The Lark was hovering over Ralph’s ship when the motor of the lower plane coughed once or twice and died. Not more than fifteen feet separated Tim from Ralph but it might just as well have been a mile. The training plane, its motor dead, was rapidly falling away from the Lark in spite of Hunter’s best efforts!