The days passed quickly. Johnnie learned rapidly. Jimmy had few assignments of an exciting nature. His luck seemed to have deserted him. He carried pictures, transported reporters, covered a few unimportant stories. Time hung heavy on his hands. Meantime the autumn passed and winter came. It came with a rush and it came early. Almost over night the balmy days of Indian summer changed into days of fierce winds and icy chill. From all parts of the country came reports of intense cold. Almost in a twinkling navigation in the north was tied up. The lakes and streams were frostbound and frozen. Steamers were caught in the ice, far from land. Suffering was intense. Deaths were reported in many quarters, due to the cold. Isolated lighthouse keepers and the dwellers on remote islands were cut off from communication. In many of these isolated places food and medicine ran low. The weather itself, with the attendant difficulties of travel, the deaths, the hardships, all consequent upon the intense cold and the deep snow and ice, became a leading story.
Day after day, belated tales of freezing, hardship, death, heroic rescues, blizzards, storms, and other phases of the weather, or stories incident to the abnormal cold, came trickling belatedly into the office. The managing editor watched this news with growing interest. He had lived, in his younger days, on the very northern border of the country and even in Canada. He knew what these periods of cold and storm meant to the people living in isolated places. And so, when one day there came a belated despatch to the Press, saying that a feeble wireless message had been received by a boy wireless operator in Smithville, in northern New York, telling of the plight of people on a neighboring island, in Lake Ontario, the managing editor was filled with both interest and sympathy. The island was absolutely cut off from communication with the mainland by the terrible ice, food was running low, and a whole family was dying of pneumonia because of the lack of certain medicines.
“It’s really a story for the Montreal or Rochester papers to cover,” thought Mr. Johnson, “but up to this time they haven’t done it. If we could slip in there ahead of them, we’d not only do some real good, but we’d bring a lot of credit to the Morning Press. I believe I’ll see how it looks to Donnelly.”
He called Jimmy on the telephone and told him about the situation. “Do you think you could reach the place safely with your plane?” he asked.
“Let me look at my maps before I answer you,” said Jimmy.
Jimmy studied them a moment. “If I flew to Smithville, which is only six or seven miles south of Sackett’s Harbor,” he said, “and hopped off from there, I should not have to fly over more than a few miles of water. There are several islands in a straight line close to Smithville. In case of a forced landing, I could probably make one of those islands. I think I can do it all right, and I’ll be glad to go. It won’t take so very long to make it, either.”
“Then get your ship ready at once. I will have a physician make up a package of medicines and write down some directions to be followed in caring for patients with pneumonia. You take the stuff out to the island and find out how many are ill and how ill they are. Leave the drugs and the directions. Fly back to Smithville and communicate with me from there. Then we can determine what should be done further. Perhaps you will have to take a physician to the island. We’ll do all we can to help these poor people on the island.”
When all was ready, and Jimmy had his medicines aboard, he hopped off and headed straight for the Hudson, up which river he flew as far as Albany, where he swung to the left and followed the Mohawk River to Rome. Thence he followed the railway tracks direct to Smithville, where he landed in a great snow-covered field. He had had his plane equipped with skis, and the snow did not bother him at all.
Jimmy climbed out of his plane and walked into the village to ask some questions. He wanted to know about the possibility of making a safe landing at the island, whether or not he had selected the safest route, and what was known in Smithville concerning the condition of the people on the island. He found the lad who had heard the wireless message, and he got information on all these points. He was soon satisfied that the islanders needed help, and that he had chosen the very best way to get there. The villagers told him he had estimated the distance correctly and would have to cross only a few miles of the lake. But there was little open water, they said, and the chances were that in case of a forced landing he could get down safely on the ice, which was very thick, and also rough. Jimmy said he had a radio sending set and asked some of the radio fans to listen in for him during the next half hour. Then he prepared to hop off.
To his surprise, another plane soared into the sky from a point near the lake shore on the other side of the village, just as Jimmy was about ready to take off. He looked at the plane with dismay. Another newspaper was going to beat him, he thought, and beat him by the tiniest of margins. But when he suggested as much to the townsfolk who had gathered about his plane, they laughed. Also they winked their eyes.