“You—” repeated Ned and he stopped.
“I thought may be you’d think I was countin’ on goin’ back with you.”
“You get ready to yank those supplies on board,” Ned managed to say at last, “and shut up.”
That was the end of the episode so far as Buck was concerned. But when Ned came to talk it over with Alan, the recollection of how Buck had saved his life was enough to make Ned’s words short and choky.
When the heavy Ocean Flyer at last sank to the ground and came to a stop—the first in eighteen and one half hours’ constant flight—it was plain that for a few moments at least its crew need fear no molestation. Spectators had not yet begun to collect. One machine stood on the hard, white highway. From it, as the Flyer came to a stop, a figure sprang out and rushed across the green. The man who greeted them, Mr. Phillips, the business representative of the Herald, seemed to be under greater strain than any of the young aviators who now dropped from the silent Flyer.
There was an instant confusion of presentations in which Ned managed to discover that Mr. Arthur Ballard, a man of about forty-five years with a closely cropped beard and heavy spectacles, and a Mr. Fred Clarke, a younger man of something over thirty, were the reporters who were to be taken to New York. Each had his typewriter and Mr. Ballard carried a case of clothing and a heavy coat.
The younger man’s equipment ran largely to a big pipe and some very heavy English tobacco. These were in marked contrast to the silk hat and elaborate afternoon clothes which he yet wore. Clarke had just come from the coronation exercises in Westminster Abbey with no time to change his clothes. And, in the ten minutes’ wait, he had been busy on his typewriter with the beginning of his big story.
“Haven’t you a coat?” was Ned’s first inquiry.
“I haven’t even an extra handkerchief,” responded the younger reporter. “My stuff is at the office. They picked me up and brought me here directly.”
“It’s all right,” responded Ned, laughing, “We’ve plenty.”