Vicki took the Cessna up again, thinking hard about the best way to locate such a house. She had been aloft fifteen minutes when she decided it would be a wise precaution to replenish her gas supply. The air chart showed a small airport off to the northeast. Vicki hoped she could buy gas there. She turned, reduced speed, and watched for an airport.
Just off the highway, she spotted a meadow with airstrips mowed in the grass. Three or four planes and cars were parked outside a barn, which must be the hangar.
She circled low over the meadow twice, to let the people below know she wanted to land. Two men in coveralls came out of the hangar. They motioned to her how to come down, pointing to the windsock atop the barn. Vicki waggled the plane wings in reply, flew into their air pattern, and coasted in for a landing. By this time, three other men wearing coveralls had come out to watch her. They gave Vicki friendly smiles as she stepped out of the plane.
“Hello, anything we can do for you?” one asked her. They were all young men, deeply tanned, with sun squint lines around their eyes, and immediately interested in Vicki’s Cessna 150.
“Thanks, I’d like to buy some gas here,” Vicki said. “And maybe you’ll advise me how to find a place I’m looking for.”
“Glad to do both,” said one young man. “I’m Wes Clark.”
He introduced the four others—the two McKee brothers, a redhead called Red Jones, and the tall man who had spoken first, Jack Whiting. Vicki told them her name, and said her home was in Fairview, Illinois.
They all said hello, and invited Vicki to see their airplane. She was interested in their heavy plane and special equipment, and asked what they were doing.
“We’re prospecting from the sky,” Wes Foster said. “We search for ore buried in the ground. Mostly for mineral pockets. Want to see how we aerial miners work?”
“I certainly want to know what that long torpedolike thing tied to the back of your plane is,” Vicki admitted.