Confident that he had all the equipment necessary for his hazardous undertaking, Tim swung into the cockpit of the Good News. The motor was purring impatiently, as though the plane sensed its mission and was anxious to be clear of the ties that kept it earth-bound.
There were hasty last-minute farewells and then Tim sent his plane dusting over the field and into the air. He was away on his biggest assignment—that of securing pictures of the leader of the Mexican revolt.
The trip to Nogales was uneventful and Tim took two days to cover the 1,000 miles, landing at the border city shortly before noon on the second day. He circled over the airport while one of the ships of the U. S. army border patrol took off and climbed to have a look at him.
When the pilot of the army craft saw the sign on Tim’s plane, he waved a friendly greeting and sped away into the east on his lonely patrol.
Tim soared down out of the cloudless sky and brought the Good News to a stop on the brown, sunbaked field at the edge of the city. He went through the usual formality of registering his plane and his credentials were accepted without question.
Before he left the field to run into the city for lunch, an incoming plane attracted his attention. It was one of the border patrolmen, flying fast and low. The machine made a dizzy sideslip and broke one wheel in landing but the pilot managed to check its wild course and brought it to a halt before it crashed into one of the hangars near the main office.
Tim was one of the first to reach the plane and helped pull a white-faced flyer from the cockpit. The army man had been shot through the right shoulder and his arm hung limp and useless. He had managed, somehow, to land with only one hand on the controls.
“What happened, Kennard,” demanded Captain John Talbot, commandant of the Nogales field.
“Ran into a chap trying to cross the border,” replied Lieutenant Ned Kennard, “and he decided to shoot it out with me. You’ll find what’s left of him about twenty-five miles west of here.”
Tim pieced the story together and secured enough material for a dandy yarn on the first airplane battle along the border. He hastened into town to the telegraph office where he filed a 1,000 word story to the News. When he returned to the field after lunch he found a message from Carson, congratulating him on the story. Tim’s yarn had been much more complete than the story carried on the press association wires and had reached Carson’s desk two hours before it came through the regular channels. It had enabled the News to score a clean beat on their rival afternoon papers in Atkinson on the big story of the day.