“Maybe they had a break and landed when the first flakes started down,” suggested Ralph.
“You’re too optimistic,” replied the field manager. “This storm wasn’t on the weather charts. It just dropped down from nowhere. I don’t believe those ships could have stayed up two minutes after they nosed into the storm and neither one of the pilots had time to use their radio-phones.”
“Good thing they had parachutes,” said Ralph.
“I’m afraid chutes wouldn’t do them much good,” said Tim. “They wouldn’t have time to use them and wouldn’t know where they were going if they did. We’ll find Lewis and Mitchell with the planes.”
Conversation stopped. There was no use to say anything more. They knew the air mail pilots had stuck by their ships. When the storm cleared they would find the ships and the pilots and they only hoped that in some miraculous fashion the ships had not crashed too hard.
At four o’clock the storm lessened and the wind abated. At five o’clock there was only a trace of snow in the air and at six o’clock the mechanics had struggled through the drifts from town and were warming up two reserve mail planes. The Good News, its fuselage damp from the coat of paint, was in no condition to take the air and Hunter had placed two of the Transcontinental’s planes at the disposal of the flying reporters.
Tim and Ralph loaded thermos bottles of hot chocolate into the cockpits of their planes, put in first aid kits, ropes and hand axes and generally prepared for any emergency that might confront them.
Abundant supplies of extra blankets were tossed into the mail compartment ahead of the pilot’s cockpit and the hood was strapped down.
The motors of the great green and silver biplanes droned steadily as Tim and Ralph seated themselves at the controls.
“Locate them first,” Hunter shouted to the reporters. “If you can’t land and bring them out yourselves, come back and get help. Good luck and—hurry!”