All the air hunger that Hal had been crushing out of his soul for months surged up, took possession of him overwhelmingly. Leaving his truck standing in the sandy street, he slid down, was over the fence, stood near this air thing roped down against any chance windstorm. For all its lack of paint, the old bus had good points. It was shaped for speed, its wings gave a sense of balance, proportion too.
Hal walked round and round it, hands thrust down into his pockets. He made no attempt to touch it. He knew from his own experience how one hated having outsiders mauling and prodding at one’s contrivances. But just standing close, merely looking gave him more pleasure than he had known for most of the past summer. He was so absorbed in contemplation of wires and struts and curve-twist of propeller that he was hardly aware of a knot of men coming down the field towards him. They came in a close-packed group, talking loudly, gesticulating—evidently in heated argument over something. Words shot up like explosives. Snatches of sentences beat into Hal’s consciousness.
“But man, you got to—in the contract, flying—stunting—parachuting—everything—” A fat man waved his arms in windmill accompaniment to his argument.
“I know—I know all that,” a slender dark fellow with black eyes and a boldly aquiline nose above a square chin interrupted quietly. “I’m willing to fly, I’m willing to stunt. But I gotter have help. I can’t sail a bus and parachute drop from it all at the same time—not without crashing my bus, and I ain’t going to do that for any fifty dollars a day. Ain’t my fault. How’d I know old Boff was going to get sick and quit on me for keeps?” The speaker rammed a hand into his pocket. “Say, wait, I’ll do the right thing. You can cancel the whole thing. I’ll hand you back the dough you paid for yesterday’s work—that’ll even up—”
“No, keep the money,” a heavy-set fellow said. “It’s not the money that’s worrying us. It’s the advertisement business. The city’s paying for the stunts—Trade-in-Interborough Campaign and all that, you know—got posters plastered over the county, newspapers been tooting it up—if we don’t give ’em the thrills we been promising, our country customers pouring in here have got a right to be sore at us. Say, don’t you know anybody round about you can pick up to stunt?”
“No-o,” the dark fellow shook his head and walked restlessly around the plane, laying a hand affectionately on it here and there. “Boff and I’ve been out west mostly, don’t know any outfits down this way. Sa-a-ay, you get me a man! In a pinch like this, I’ll do well by him, give him half the dough.”
Half the dough, half of fifty dollars—that would be twenty-five dollars! A madness, evoked perhaps by his sudden contact once more with airmen and airplanes, stirred Hal Dane clear out of himself. Hardly conscious that it was he, Hal Dane, who was doing this fantastic thing, he walked straight into the group.
“I’ll take him up on that,” he said firmly. “I’ll stunt with him!”
“Umph—eh! You’ve got the nerve, you sound sporting,” the flyer whirled and looked him straight up and down. “But no, you’re just a youngster. What would folks say if I let you go up and something happened to us—no, no!”
“I’m six feet of man, and make my own living—and I can’t help being young,” said Hal whimsically. Then his grin faded and his face set. Now that this fantastic chance was slipping away, he wanted it desperately. “Give me the chance,” he pleaded. “There’s not a dizzy bone in me, and I’ve got some idea of balance—”