“Then I’ll have the engravers and the composing room stand by for a five o’clock picture extra,” said the managing editor. “This will be a red-letter day in the history of the News—two picture extras in the same day and believe me, boys, that’s what the readers want. Pictures, action, and more pictures. Now get going.”
Ralph lifted his big camera into the front cockpit and settled himself for the trip. He wrapped a heavy robe around his legs for he knew Tim was going to tear loose on the trip to Auburn and even though it was moderately warm on the ground the air at two thousand feet would be chilly.
Tim checked his instruments, waved for the mechanics to get in the clear, and opened his throttle.
The Good News lifted her tail off the muddy field, splattered the water out of half a dozen puddles, and then shot up into her own domain.
The new radial motor, tested in flame and smoke little more than an hour before, leaped to its task and they sped away into the east. Behind them the fire still raged at the oil tanks, but firemen appeared to have checked its spread.
Tim pushed the throttle steadily forward until the air speed indicator registered 175 miles an hour. At 2,000 feet the ground was a dull, gray checkerboard beneath them. In places there were splotches of dirty snow, a last vestige of winter. Creeks, silver ribbons winding through the countryside, were running bankfull of water. Several times they sighted streams in which the outgoing ice had jammed around some bridge or sharp curve. Behind these jams the stream had spread out until it formed a small lake. None of them were of major importance but at one bridge half a dozen men were busy trying to dynamite the mass of ice which was threatening the safety of the structure.
As they neared the valley of the mighty Cedar the country became rougher and there were fewer fields for an emergency landing. A plane in trouble in the valley would have small chance of making a safe descent.
They were fifteen miles from Auburn when they caught their first glimpse of the river, a great lake stretching for miles up its valley.
Then they saw the jumbled mass of ice above the village. The towering blocks had jammed at a sharp bend in the river and hundreds of tons of ice, born by the spring freshets, had built a great dam which was impounding the waters of the river.
The bed of the stream below the ice jam carried little more than a trickle of water when compared to the usual volume.