“That will fix it,” said Smith. “I don’t care how the mechanic gets there, so long as he is there to service the planes.”
“Well, Simmons,” said Bill as they left the office, “it looks as if you had bought yourself a job.”
“One thing is certain,” replied Simmons. “I will know a lot more about airplanes when this Summer is over than I do now.”
“And I will know a lot more about your forests,” replied Bill.
CHAPTER XIII—THE AERIAL FIRE PATROL
Bill Bruce had no conception of the size of the State of Oregon until he started out on his patrol the next morning with Forester Kotok. His patrol route covered the Siuslaw and Umpqua National Forests. Starting southwest from Eugene, it led to Marshfield on the Pacific Ocean and then turned to the southeast to Medford. On the return trip the turning point was almost due west of Medford and then direct to Eugene. Both the outgoing and return flights covered a distance of about two hundred miles. Normally it could be expected that a two hours’ flight would be sufficient for the two hundred miles.
When a pilot is flying a forest patrol, he cannot always fly the direct route. He diverges from his course to accurately locate and secure the limits of each fire which he sees. Then, again, the smoke pall may obscure the tops of the mountains and require for safety’s sake that the plane be flown through valleys or around peaks to reach the destination. Thus on most patrols, while the flight could be made in two hours if the sky was clear and there were no fires located, during the fire season the plane might be out as long as three or even three and a half hours.
The general elevation of the terrain over which Bill was to fly was about four thousand feet, but here and there mountain peaks stood above the five thousand foot mark. The area was almost entirely devoid of habitations and completely covered with a dense growth of timber except where logging companies had operated or fire had left its terrible scars.
Before leaving the ground, both Bill and Kotok provided themselves with maps of the southwest corner of the state. These maps were mounted on boards so that they could be easily handled in the plane. Kotok desired to accurately plot the limits of every fire seen during the flight so that a record could be made of the fires then burning. Accordingly, Bill looked forward to a flight of three hours, if not more, before they reached Medford.
They had no sooner left the ground and headed over the large expanse of unbroken timber before Bill realized that he was going to find it rather difficult to accurately locate himself on the map. There was a strange similarity between the different sections of that area. The mountains were all covered with timber, roads were few, there were no railroads at all after leaving the immediate vicinity of the airdrome and the details of the ground all looked the same. He realized that he would have to orient himself by the rivers and streams or become hopelessly lost.