Carl fished out the wire, weighted one end of it with a monkey-wrench, and tied the note to it. Then Jimmy headed directly into the stiff breeze which was coming up, and when they neared the building again throttled his engine down until the ship seemed hardly to have any forward motion. Carl, meantime, had paid out the wire. Several men on the roof grabbed for the message, but all missed it. Jimmy made a circle and once more flew over the roof. This time some one caught the note.
Jimmy circled the town and flew back over the News building. Now he saw white marks on the roof. Some one had been making great letters with a piece of chalk. They were a message for him. This is what they said. “Have entire story. Press room flooded. Have made mats. Can you take to Berlin and arrange to have edition printed and sent here? A truck can reach west side of town by the hill road.”
When Jimmy read that he couldn’t suppress a whoop. “Carl,” he cried. “Just think! He’s got the story set up and the mats made for casting the stereotype plates. If we can get those mats, we can get proofs of the whole story. It’ll be the beat of the year.”
He scribbled another note. “Will land and try to reach you. Have everything ready. Will fly to Berlin with the mats and make arrangements for edition for you.” The next time he flew over the News building, this message was skilfully dropped by Carl and caught by the group on the roof.
“They got it,” shouted Carl.
Jimmy smiled and nodded. Then he pulled back on his stick, lifted his plane to a higher elevation, and went soaring straight toward the nearest hillside, looking for a possible landing-place.
On a hillside farm he found a place that looked favorable. Twice he flew over the place studying it. The ground seemed rough. He was fearful of it. But he saw no better place and decided to chance it. He came down in a long glide, barely missing some trees. Then he straightened out for a landing. His plane was just skimming the ground, and Jimmy was waiting for it to lose flying speed when he noticed a low stone wall at the other end of the field. Jimmy knew he was overshooting too much to dare attempt to kill his surplus speed by fish-tailing. He burst the gun wide open and eased back on the stick. In a second the ship was once more over the tree tops, and Jimmy circled back again into the wind for another try at the field. He did a nose high slip and then proceeded in disgust to pancake her in. It was a dangerous move, even for the most skilled pilot, for always there is danger of falling off on one wing, due to a lack of flying speed. The ship was settling vertically. Just before she hit, Jimmy burst the gun half open to give her a little more forward speed, so she would not settle so hard on her undercarriage. Then she struck, but not hard enough to break anything. Rapidly she came to rest. With a sigh of relief he throttled down his engine and climbed from the plane. He let his motor idle for a few minutes, then cut the switch.
“We’ll go over to those folks yonder and talk to them,” he said, starting toward a group of people who were doing something at a distance.
They hurried to the workers. A number of people who lived on the hills were busy making rafts at the water’s edge to rescue the marooned; for there were many folks in the flooded area whose position was still precarious. Jimmy talked to the workers. They told him the story of the breaking of the dam. This was a huge reservoir in the hills, only a short distance above the city. Continuous rains to the north had swollen every brook and rivulet until the impounded water had reached a threatening height. There was anxiety about the dam, but no actual fear of its breaking. Then suddenly, without warning, the dam had slid from its foundations, releasing the entire body of water at once. That was what made the catastrophe so awful.
A wall of water thirty feet high had swept down the valley. Naturally it followed the trough of the Androscoggin. That stream, already bank full, could not hold another drop. The result was appalling. Straight through the town the huge wall of water had gone, thundering and destroying, smashing and devastating, sweeping away houses as though they had been chips. Whole blocks of buildings, on either bank of the stream, had been picked up and swept down-stream. Jimmy’s guess was correct.