“I reckon,” mused the old ranger as he sat cross-legged on his pony and sucked at his pipe, “that’s the last o’ the kid I’ll see and Parowan, too. Back to salt pork an’ alkali water fur me.”
Sink was mistaken; both as to Roy and news of the old Mormon elder. But, for six weeks, the young aeronaut and his friend did not meet again.
In that time, Roy made the name of the Parowan and the Company’s Aeroplane Express famous all over southern Utah.
Within a week Roy had located, although with the greatest difficulty in the cases of the Lowell and Stenhouse parties, all the prospecting sections. That done, carrying out Mr. Cook’s idea, each “boss” was furnished a yard square of bright red cloth. Subsequently, when a “boss” had any advices for the home office or desired to communicate with the express, he kept the red flag flying. The result of this was that when the Parowan in what soon settled into a weekly cruise, made the long, swift flight over mountain and desert, it landed at a camp only in response to the signal. This was when it did not happen to have orders from the manager.
Late in August, Mr. Cook found it necessary to go to Denver. Roy carried him ninety-four miles to Dolores, starting at ten o’clock in the morning, and putting his proud passenger upon the one o’clock train. Five days later, he met him again, started from Dolores at one forty-five in the afternoon and at three thirty-three landed upon the Company corral.
But the only person in Bluff who gave promise of being able to take Roy’s place when he left was the younger clerk Vic. Christian. With a natural mechanical turn, the postmaster’s son soon learned the theory of the airship. But he had not the inborn daring of the natural aviator. However, he did not lack in courage, and after a desperate struggle, he began making flights with Roy.
“He’ll do,” said Roy at last to Mr. Cook. “And, in the end he’ll be better than a daredevil who isn’t afraid.”
Mr. Cook was skeptical. He used every argument to persuade Roy to put off his return. But school time was approaching. And Roy was in the third year of high-school. He had promised his father and mother that even a hundred dollars a week would not make him forget the education ahead of him.
The one event that shadowed the brightness of Roy’s experience as the director of the Aeroplane Express was the tragic fate of poor Burnham Stenhouse, the young engineer. Reaching Camp No. 4 one afternoon about four o’clock, Roy saw the signal and made a landing. He found Stenhouse delirious and in charge of one of the men. Roy attempted, with the aid of his few simple drugs, to give the engineer some relief.
Toward evening, the young man’s temperature fell somewhat, but Roy decided to remain by the sick man all night. About bedtime, the boy noticed a sudden change in his patient. The man’s temperature fell perceptibly and his delirium subsided into such passive weakness that the camp took new alarm. Within a quarter of an hour, Stenhouse’s circulation and pulse were so poor that Roy realized the sick man was beyond possibility of assistance from those about him.