“That sounds good to me,” thought Jimmy. “I ought to get over to Ringtown and back to Long Island without having to face any bad weather. I’m certainly glad of it, for I’ll have enough trouble as it is.”
He flew on, his head phones still plugged in. Sounding endlessly he could hear the steady stroke of the Air Mail radio beacon sending a string of dashes—“dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,” which tells the pilot when he is exactly on the line. Jimmy had small need of any such help this morning, for the air was so clear that he could see for miles in every direction. But he thought of the invaluable help this radio beacon must be to the mail pilots in the fog. The device had been perfected since Jimmy was a mail pilot. He had never carried mail under its guidance. But he was as well equipped to profit by it as any mail pilot was. More than once he had been helped in bad weather by this very same signal, as he flew along the mail route.
In a sense he was helped now. A little breeze had been coming up, that blew across the line of flight. Jimmy was being blown to one side, without realizing it. Of course he would presently have noticed that fact anyway, and brought his ship back to the line, but the signal in his ears gave him prompt warning. No longer did he hear the steady beat: “dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” Instead, the head phones were saying: “dot dah, dot dah, dot dah, dot dah, dot dah.” The radio signal had changed to dot dash, dot dash. That told Jimmy that he was to the left of the line. He knew that if he had chanced to be on the right side of the line instead, the signals would have changed to dash dot, dash dot, and his head phones would have said: “dah dot, dah dot, dah dot, dah dot.” He nosed his ship a little into the wind, and presently he was right over the line once more, and the head phones again were singing: “dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.”
“Gee,” thought Jimmy, “if only they had had the radio beacon from the start, how very many tragedies the Air Mail would have been saved. It’s fine for the men who are carrying the mail now. They always know when they are on the line, even if it is so foggy they can’t see a thing. If it just weren’t for these old Pennsylvania mountains, flying the eastern leg of the Air Mail would be pie. But I guess this leg will always be a graveyard. Hello, here’s Ringtown. I’ve got to be thinking about getting down.”
CHAPTER III
Jimmy Meets an Old Friend—Johnnie Lee, of the Wireless Patrol
For many miles—ever since he crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania, in fact, Jimmy had been flying over a region so rough and rugged that it strikes terror to the heart of the aviator. For here Nature has plowed up the land in rugged furrows that rise thousands of feet. In places the earth is jumbled in confused masses. Rocks, trees, precipices, bogs, and deep ravines characterize the whole countryside. Rare, indeed, is the level spot that is large enough, or smooth enough, or firm enough to permit a safe landing. And well Jimmy knew what awaited him or any other aviator who was luckless enough to be forced down in this terrible region. And yet this country was tame beside that of the “graveyard of airplanes” in the western half of the state. It was here, when he was fairly in the heart of these terrible mountains, that Warren Long had found his plane afire. As Jimmy looked down now at the torn and jagged face of the country, he fairly shivered when he thought of the terrible situation in which his friend had been placed such a short time previously. For it was obviously impossible to land a plane safely in these ragged hills, especially in the dark; and to Jimmy it seemed almost as dangerous to trust to a parachute. For there was no way by which the falling flier could tell when he was about to land with a crash on a rock, or a jagged stump, or in the splintering arms of a pine-tree—no way, it came to Jimmy as an afterthought, unless he carried a flash-light powerful enough to pierce the blackness of the night. And Jimmy felt again that same feeling of gratitude to Uncle Sam that he had felt many a time previously for the little emergency landing fields along the lighted airway that the Government has spied out and marked off with encircling lights at night, where aviators in distress can land in safety.
It was one of these emergency fields—that at Ringtown—which Warren Long had been striving to reach on the preceding night. And it was this same field that Jimmy was now heading for.
Jimmy had been flying rather high. Gently pulling back the throttle, he went into a steep spiral. At about eight hundred feet he straightened up while he glanced at the wind-sock. “Bang” went the gun again, and Jimmy flew around the edge of the field into the wind. The field was none too large. Tall trees on the lee side of it called for plenty of energetic side-slipping and fish-tailing. Jimmy straightened her out, held her off to lose flying speed, and as soon as he felt the wheels touch hauled back on the stick and stepped on his brakes. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief and thanked his lucky stars for those brakes, for the ship came to rest within twenty-five feet of a stone fence. In another moment he was taxiing safely across the field toward the beacon light tower, where a knot of men and boys had gathered, waiting for Jimmy’s ship to come to rest.
Jimmy throttled down his engine to let it idle for a few minutes so the valves could cool before he “cut his switch.” He stepped to the ground. The little company of spectators surged toward him.