“Sure, Ralph, a dozen if you want them,” and with that Tim seized his hat and dashed through the door of the big news room, down the stairs and into the street where he found one of the flivvers used by the reporters.
Fifteen minutes later Tim tucked his elongated legs into the cockpit of the trimmest little plane he had ever laid eyes on. He ran the motor up and down the scale, then gave it the gun, darted over the surface of the field, flipped the tail up—and the flying reporter was in the air.
It was a glorious feeling to be in the air—to be free of the smoke and smell of the city and for an hour Tim circled over Atkinson. High, then low, he dived, banked, zoomed and looped—did everything to test the flying qualities of the little plane. At the end of the test flight he was more than pleased. It was perfectly rigged.
Tim, an orphan who had joined the News after school days, had worked up from cub reporter to the police run and then up to special assignment writer. He had been sent to an aviation school three months before and while there had written a series of Sunday features on learning how to fly. Tim hadn’t dreamed of being given a flying assignment but he had mastered the intricacies of an airplane with the same wholesome enthusiasm which characterized everything he did. That was one of the reasons why he was a star reporter in spite of his comparative youth, for Tim had just turned twenty-one.
The Lark was still swooping over the field when one of the cars used by News reporters dashed through the main gate of the big airport. Tim cut the motor, made a three point landing, and climbed out of the cockpit.
Ralph Parsons hopped out of the car and ran toward the plane. He shoved an extra into Tim’s hands.
“TRANSCONTINENTAL AIR MAIL ROBBED; $200,000 TAKEN.” The headlines, in heavy, black type, fairly screamed the story at Tim. In brief clear sentences he read how the eastbound mail plane, which had left Atkinson at midnight, had been found a hundred miles east near Auburn, a village in the valley of the Cedar River. The plane was a mass of tangled wreckage, its pilot dead, the registered mail sacks looted.
“Carson says for you to hump yourself and get over there before dark,” said Ralph. “He wants a lot of copy for the early editions tomorrow. The roads over that way are practically impassable and we can’t get enough of the details over the telephone. The air mail people are sending out a ship but we don’t know when they’ll be back. It’s bad country to fly over, Tim, so be careful.”
Ralph’s well meant warning was lost on Tim. Calling a mechanic, the lanky young flyer swung his ship around, opened up the powerful motor, and sped down the field and into the air. The flying reporter was off on his first assignment.
The air was smooth and cool. The late winter sun glinted through the lazy clouds in the west and flashed off the crimson wings of the little plane. Tim headed straight east. Far behind him the Great Smokies reared their heads in a dim outline while a hundred miles ahead of his whirling propeller the Cedar River carved its way.