  When Al and Curt, riding easily, reached the region of the Rocky Lake Park, they hid their wheels in the well remembered field, preferring to advance on foot, to spy out conditions before arriving at the roadhouse to which they were going. “There’s something going on, over there,” said Curt, as they walked, facing traffic, along the familiar highway. “The new dance floor—The Hangar—is opening tonight.” “That will make it easy for us to get in.” “They may not allow juniors on the floor.” “But they won’t chase people away! It would be bad for the business!” chuckled Curt. “Every young man can have—must have—at least two in his family, and they might be dancing papa and mama.” “We can go on and see.” They did. The new dance floor, built in an old-looking, metal-covered addition at the side of the main hotel, was crowded. A “jazzy” orchestra, with many toots of its saxophones, howls from clarinets, trills and staccato yaps from its trumpet, put rhythm into the march of many feet. “Makes me wish I had a girl and had her here and knew how to dance,” laughed Curt. “What I wish more is—” Al did not get time to express his desire to have Bob along, to advise him in his rather impulsive acts. A man in a dress suit, as the drums rolled in warning to attract attention, advanced to the edge of the band platform and addressed the dancers applauding their last “number.” “Lay—deeze—an’—gemp—mum!” Al nudged Curt and whispered that the man was Jenks. “For this opening night the manage—munt has went to the special expense—youse mus’ excuse my poor way of speakin’. ‘I’m only a simple flyer, an’ my eddication don’t go no higher’——” Al exclaimed, and Curt scowled at the aspersion thus put on the intelligence of the most manly, most steady, best educated general class of men in industry—pilots!—but they listened, nevertheless. “The manage—munt has put on a extra fine show for tonight. In fact, folks,” his manner became more natural, “we’ve engaged a stunt flyer to come over here tonight, to fly around up in the dark blue, and to do stunts, with rockets and colored lights so you can see what he does. I understand the whole crate is to be lit up some way. So, if you’ll all step outside, while we put tables in here for refreshments, you will have the free entertainment as soon as we can get his signal and let him know to go ahead.” As Curt and Al were already outside, they craned their necks. While the laughing couples gathered, a small, red flare was visible. The men who seemed to be awaiting this signal, lighted flares. But to their amazement the ship did no stunts! It went away! “Funny!” muttered the excited, disgruntled manager, Jenks, close by Al and Curt. As the flares brightened it seemed as though there were two airplanes dimly reflecting the light. “But they aren’t doing any stunts!” complained a girl to her partner. “Wait!” he counseled. Waiting, however, did no good. The dancers, murmuring, and the manager, trying to apologize, saying it must not be the right crate, went back to dance, shoving the refreshment tables roughly aside. Al and Curt, waiting, watching, wondering, saw the men stick the stubs of their flares into the ground and walk off. “Look! He’s coming back!” Al pointed to a speck. They listened and heard the drone of an engine. “He’s back again!” shouted Al, and the people came out again, standing with backs to the glaring light, shaded eyes turned upward. “No—he’s flying low, though,” commented Curt. “Yes, he is.” “Look!” Curt caught Al’s arm. “He’s in trouble—isn’t he?—yes, he is! Listen! His engine has stopped—dead!” “Yes, he’s gliding!” “He can’t land here,” said Curt. “He’s too low to spiral and shoot this little clearing—anyhow, it isn’t a place to land—not for night landing!” “I wonder if the same things are happening that happened—when Mr. Tredway was—lost!” Al murmured. “That time, we heard the engine, and then the ship dived.” “This one isn’t diving—it’s gliding!” “I know, Curt—he’s getting over Rocky Lake. Come on!” “There he does go—down!” Off they pelted toward the road. An airplane had been cruising over the flares. Its motor had stopped. That was sure. And no one knew it better than Bob. For he was the pilot whose engine stop had left him with a “dead stick.” He must glide. He had enough gliding angle, he supposed, to take him back to that providential field—if he could throw over a flare and make some sort of a set-down!—— It was dangerous—but it must be done. For, in spite of its danger, knowing well what might happen, Bob had shut off his own engine—deliberately! He had to—to save his life! “Look!” gasped Curt, running. “See that glare? The ‘plane——” “On fire!” panted Al. Appearances are deceiving. To Al and Curt, on the ground, with darkness, distance and trees to screen the truth from them, it seemed as though the glare they saw beyond the grove must spell a blazing airplane. Instead, the light came from a landing flare, dropped by Bob. As he headed over The Windsock roadhouse, and decided to give up, to return to the aircraft field, he had all of his mind and attention on his craft. Because of that he was able to notice a mystifying, if tiny bluish light, intermittent and flickering, close to the pipe that conveyed fuel from the tank to the mixing carburetor. “That’s an electric spark!” he decided. He was right. Somehow, either through one of those malicious acts which had already been done to other ships, or from a rubbing wire, some electrical conducting wire had worn off its insulation and was bare, and each time it rubbed or touched metal it made a spark. If there is one thing more dangerous than another in the air it is the menace of an open spark close to gasoline feed lines and carburetor mixing chambers. Knowing it well, unable to determine the cause, but sure that the spark was electrical and dangerous, Bob took the only safe course. As Curt and Al had observed, his engine stopped. He cut off the ignition. The sparking light ceased. “Now,” thought Bob, “I daren’t use my motor. That means I must glide. At this height, if I remember what Lang said, the angle that will give me safe flying speed will about take me to that little field we first saw the brown ‘plane hidden in. Can I make it?” He depressed the nose, watching, by his sense of touch, how the stick and rudder bar acted. As he moved through the air he elevated the nose a trifle, to get as flat a gliding angle as he dared; but his whole mind was concentrated on that feeling, that sense of heaviness in the reacting of the controls. When they began to respond sluggishly he knew enough to sense that he was losing flying speed, approaching the danger point called stalling, in which the ship gets out of control, drops or slips or does some other uncontrollable maneuver. Always, in time, he lowered the nose, picked up the needful speed, and thus, by coming as close to the “graveyard” glide, or flat angle, as he dared, and yet conserving enough reserve speed to keep the lift of the wings more sustaining than the downward pull of gravity, he held his craft in the air. Always the nose, pointed into the wind, went lower. Always, as he tried to penetrate the darkness of the night and of the brown earth below, his eyes, over the cockpit cowling, searched for the flattish, light spot he wanted. Along its inner side was the strip of turf he needed. Fear-thoughts flashed through his mind: “Can I glide that far? Will I overshoot or undershoot? Will I misjudge the height as I come down, if I do make it? Will I set the ship down too suddenly, so it will bounce off and then—with too little margin of height to get speed again—crack up? Will I stall too high and smash down? Will I be going too fast, and run too far? Can I glide in to the turf or will I set down in stubble and nose over?” Resolutely, by all the will power he had, Bob crushed out those nerve-deadening, muscle-binding terrors. There was the field. Where, now, did they keep the light producing flares? Oh, yes! There, in that little boxlike compartment. He flung a detonating flare that would light in the air or on striking earth. Its light was what horrified Curt and Al. To Bob, its glare was a great relief! The white gleam showed, far ahead, faintly lit, the field. His course would take him toward it, but he altered the direction of his flight slightly to get over the turf, then corrected the bank, leveled his wings, depressed the nose still more, picked up speed and, with all his force, sent a landing flare into the air, as far ahead and to the side as he could fling it. Then he “shot” the field, got his nose directly onto a line with the large trees at the end of the field, pulled up the nose more, to kill all the forward momentum he dared, and then—— Bob gasped. He was too far to one side. He would land in the stubble. Also, he was a little too high. Wildly he flung the flare he had been getting ready. Then, from some hidden source of remembered instructions he got the instinctive knowledge of what to do. He dropped the left wingtip by pushing the stick sidewise, and felt the ship tilt. It went into a sideslip. That both lost speed forward and got him further over to the left. Opposite rudder, hard! Up left wingtip, down right! Nose down a little! Speed enough to go on! With his heart in his mouth, looking swiftly down, Bob saw the earth seem to come up at him. Up elevators! Stall. He’d have to take it! He was close to earth, over turf. He must not keep that nose down and glide into the trees or taxi beyond the end of the turf. The ship stalled, landed with quite a jar—but the trucks held up! And Bob, from his heart, breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving. He had done his best, had held his head, and—he was safe! |
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