The impaling sapling was cut away below the plane wing. Then the upper length of wood was worked gently out of the jagged hole it had torn in the fabric. With quick, deft fingers Hal Dane whittled repair sticks out of pieces of pine. Wire from his tool chest slid in tight coils over wood, under wood, binding breaks together. Except for his overalls, Hal had very little clothing left. What hadn’t gone for tourniquet was now masquerading as wing fabric. Tire glue had to do duty as “dope” to lacquer smooth the patched wing.
Rex Raynor, flyer, was too pain-dazed for his mind to give even passing thought to the strangeness of his finding, out here in the pine woods, a long-legged youth whose nimble fingers seemed expert at splicing framework and patching wing fabric. The trouble he was in tensed his nerves to breaking point. His one idea was, “The packet must go on—the packet must reach the safety of railroad officials at Morris Crossing.”
In between directions for repair work and frantic urgings for haste, Raynor muttered broken details of the disaster that had befallen him.
Blue prints—aerial engine designs for the Nevo-Avilly contest—finished too late to submit even by air mail—rushing to get packet aboard mail car at crossing. Nobody supposed to know of his engine designs. As Raynor crossed level by forest ranger’s hut, a red rocket, distress signal, had shot into the sky, signaling him to a landing. Knowing that the ranger, a former flying pal, had been disabled by illness, Raynor had answered the silent call by gliding to earth to render aid in some emergency. Instead of the ranger, a masked bandit had leaped upon the aviator, demanding the packet, even before switch could be cut or motor throttled. In the ensuing fight Raynor had got winged in the arm by a close range bullet, but had managed to shake off his assailant, and had risen to the safety of the airways in his plane.
Knowing that one such daredevil attack would likely mean further pursuit, Raynor fought off bodily pain and strove to keep his mind fixed to one purpose—getting the packet aboard the U. S. mail train.
The flyer completed examination by electric torch of landing-gear, engine, wings, Hal’s last improvised piece of patchwork that was hardening miraculously under its spread of tire glue.
“You have done well—it is good!” exulted Raynor, as with the boy’s help he trundled the plane backwards to get room for the take-off. “We have twenty minutes—we will make it.” He motioned Hal to climb into the front cockpit.
For a breath Hal Dane stood rigid. At last it had come—his chance to ride in a real plane! But he stood motionless. This man Raynor—fever burned like delirium in his eyes, he fairly staggered from weakness. A risky pilot to ride with! And yet the courage in that iron set of jaw, the determination that drove a pain-weakened body to serve the will! Raynor had come this far—Raynor would carry on to the end. And Hal Dane would be in at that ending.
A thrill shot through the boy as he made his lightning-quick decision and climbed breathlessly aboard.
Raynor cranked the motor with his one good hand, kicked aside a wood chunk that had blocked the wheels, and scrambled heavily into the rear cockpit. With a roar the plane moved across the clearing, gathered speed, lifted within two hundred yards of the tree line. They were up and off, a thousand feet above earth!