All the while he climbed. Up he went steadily. From eight thousand feet he climbed to nine, then ten. Still the fog was unbroken. But his engine worked marvelously in the heavy air and he kept his ship nosing higher and higher. Suddenly, at eleven thousand feet, he shot up above the fog. The night was clear as crystal. Above him twinkled innumerable stars. With a deep sigh of relief Jimmy climbed a little higher, then straightened out and rode on level keel. Below him spread endless masses of cloud, more wonderful than an ocean, dimly lighted by the stars above. So long as he could ride above the fog his trip was now an easy one. He had only to follow his compass and the radio beacon. The difficulty would come when he had to drop down through the fog and make a landing.
While Jimmy was thus fighting both to insure his safety and to gain his goal, agencies of which he was not aware were also at work to try to make his progress safe. Hardly had Jimmy left the ground at the Cleveland Airport before Beverly Graham hurried into the radio room.
“Sparks,” he said to the radio man, “I wish you would send a message on your printer saying that Jimmy Donnelly, flying for the New York Morning Press, just left here, heading for Long Island. The message will reach caretakers at beacons all along the route. Tell all caretakers to report his progress to me as he goes over their beacons. Nobody else is flying east at this time that we know of and it’s very doubtful if anybody else will go over the route to-night.”
The wireless man turned to his printer and began to pound out the message on the keyboard. But the machine on which he was writing, though it somewhat resembled a typewriter, was not a typewriter at all, but an electric printing or teletype machine, which reproduced the message on similar machines at Bellefonte and Hadley Field and other stations as fast as it was written. In no time, therefore, these two Air Mail stations and the caretakers at various landing fields, knew that Jimmy was flying east in the fog. Thus as Jimmy passed over Mercer and Clarion and other points on the airway in western Pennsylvania his progress was promptly reported to his friend, the chief forecaster.
But long before Jimmy reached the “graveyard of airplanes” he himself was aware that Beverly Graham was making a special effort in his behalf. When he was only a short distance out of Cleveland he heard the hourly weather broadcast from the Cleveland radio man. Jimmy listened intently, though there was little they could tell him about the weather that he did not already know. The usual, stereotyped broadcast contained no reference to the wind. That was the one thing Jimmy wanted to know about. A moment later he heard the Cleveland radio man saying: “Mr. Donnelly, in the New York Morning Press plane, will please note that the wind has shifted slightly from west to southwest and has increased to twenty-five miles an hour. He will also please listen carefully for a message when he passes over Bellefonte.”
“Good old Beverly,” said Jimmy. “He never forgets a friend. He didn’t want me to fly tonight, but now that I am up in the air he’s doing all he can for me. I wonder what he has instructed Bellefonte to do. I’ll thank him at once.”
When Jimmy’s plane was built it had been equipped with a radio receiving set. But about two weeks before he was ordered to Cleveland, Jimmy had succeeded in having a sending set installed in the plane, thus bringing his ship right up to date. Not even all the mail planes had sending sets as yet, though some of them did.
Jimmy picked up his instrument, put the mouthpiece to his lips, and sent this message into the air: “Jimmy Donnelly, of the Morning Press, speaking. Cleveland weather forecast received. Also special notice as to force and direction of the wind. Will get into touch with Bellefonte as I go over. Thanks very much for help. I shall need all I can get.”
He replaced the mouthpiece and settled back in his seat. A quick glance at his instrument board assured him that all was working well. He looked at his clock and tried to figure out his position. Suddenly he became aware that the buzzing in his ears had altered. No longer did he hear the regular “dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,” which told him he was directly on the air line. Instead Jimmy heard the signal “dot dah, dot dah, dot dah, dot dah, dot dah.” He knew he was to the left of the course.
“That’s the work of the wind,” thought Jimmy. “Shifting to the southwest, it has blown me to the northeast of the line. I’ll move over to the right a little.”