“Guess it is,” Bob agreed. He watched the plane getting closer, and presently there was no mistaking the huge machine that came droning toward them. Their altitude was five thousand feet, and the other pilot would pass almost over them. It was mighty chummy to meet a pal of the air, so Bob zoomed up, and soon Her Highness was racing beside the bigger machine. The pilots waved greetings, waggled their wings, then, as the boys had to turn eastward, they waved a good-night, turned abruptly and shot across the other’s course. The man in the cock-pit nodded, and in a minute they were a mile apart, but Jim was watching the diminishing lights with interest. Suddenly he caught his brother’s arm and twisted him around.
“Something’s gone wrong,” he bellowed; He didn’t need to, for Bob could see. At that moment there was a blaze, a leaping tongue of flame and the plane started to totter crazily toward the ground.
“Thundering Mars—he’s on fire!”
IX
THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH
“Bellowing Bulls,” Bob yelled at the top of his lungs as he realized that something catastrophic was taking place in the air and that the good-natured young pilot was in danger of his life.
“Blistering blazes,” Jim exclaimed. Neither boy could hear the other’s ejaculation, but they were tense and rigid as they sat for a paralyzed instant staring through the darkness toward that flaming plane which was beginning to drop like some kind of lost star out of the blackness of the sky.
Mechanically young Caldwell kicked the rudder, his fingers adjusted the controls, and Her Highness came around with a screech of the wind through the struts and a shrill whine of the wires. He opened her up wide, zoomed, then leveling off, raced toward that flaming, careening plane. With lightning rapidity the boy calculated to a nicety the speed of the doomed mail-plane, and into both their brains flashed the ghastly question as to the sort of spot on to which she was making her plunge. Was it smooth open country, or was it thick forests where the fire would spread and become a violent furnace before it could be subdued, or was it into some little sleeping village, whose residents would be seriously jeopardized?
As she made her way downward the plane cast a bright glow about herself, like a funeral bier, but the light only accentuated the night beyond the rim. At racing speed Her Highness cut through the heavens like a thin streak of brightness, and in a minute she was above her falling fellow. The altimeter read three thousand feet, so Bob climbed higher, circled when he was sure he would have the grade he wanted, then, tipping the nose almost vertical, he raced downward, the engine roaring. It was breath-taking, but both boys were keenly alert. In a moment they were beside the burning plane and following it, at a safe distance, toward the ground.
They could see the mail pilot struggling with the controls, then he noticed them, grinned, and with a wave of his hand, he stopped the battle, loosened his safety strap, and stepped over the rim of the cock-pit. He seemed as cool as if he were doing a stunt at a fair-ground. A moment later he waved again, then jumped into space, making as wide a leap as possible. The two machines plunged on and the man’s body seemed to roll, then drop swiftly, then the parachute blossomed out wide and white as it spread open to save him.
“Whew,” Bob whistled softly. He could not watch the escaping pilot a moment longer, but he switched on all the light he had in an effort to pick out a landing place. One thing they were positive of, they were not over a village, for there wasn’t even a fueling signal visible. On they went, and at last Jim caught his step-brother’s shoulder.