Maben was too high to allow a good aim at the tiny blotch of water below. Good aim and quick sinking of the dummy into the whirling waters was the main part of the huge, thrilling joke they were attempting to pull off. Down from eighteen hundred feet to a thousand, to eight hundred—five hundred. The roar of the motor diminished. Max Maben hovered over the pool center in slow reversements and wing slips.
“Quick, shoot him overboard!”
Over the plane edge, down and down went the dummy, waving its arms and legs wildly. Hal felt a ridiculous sympathy for it, it looked so human. Still flattened out and peering warily over the wing, Hal saw it take water in one splendid plunge into oblivion. He saw people running up and down the bank, pointing,—he was sure they were shouting, only no voices came up to him.
But instead of circling down, straightening out for one of his beautiful easy landings in even the small field that the river valley allowed, Maben began to circle upward, always in the same tight spirals.
Going up now was poor business. Maben ought to be easing down to take advantage of the excited interest his little advertising stunt had aroused.
Hal wriggled forward, stuck a head over to see why Maben didn’t go down.
Still circling, the pilot made motions, pointing to the throttle. In a jiffy Hal whirled his long legs around and slid into the cockpit. As he bent close, Maben shouted in his ear:
“Gotter keep going! Throttle’s stuck! Can’t shut the motor off!”
CHAPTER VIII
RIVER OF THE WIND
Maben kept circling. Beside him, Hal worked desperately, trying every known and unknown device for loosing a stuck throttle. But stuck she stayed.