Bill had decided that it would be well to head farther into the north, when he felt the vibration of a sudden jar. His head snapped round as the cabin door crashed open and two men sprang into the cockpit. Both held revolvers and behind them crowded the other passengers.
Instinctively he pushed his wheel forward, then pulled it sharply toward him. The plane nosed over and with increased momentum from the dip it shot upward at a precipitous angle. The result so far as her passengers were concerned was much as though they had been standing on the broad back of a steady circus horse who suddenly metamorphosed into an outlawed bronco—and bucked! Losing their balance as the amphibian nosed over, the gangsters were hurled backwards by the second maneuver and landed in a sprawling heap by the door, and along the cabin aisle.
A bullet crashed into the instrument board. It had missed Bill’s head by the fraction of an inch. And although he knew that the duration of his life would probably be a matter of seconds, he stuck to his post. Forward went his wheel again, the plane leveled off and with a glance at the calm-eyed Indian beside him, he held up his right hand.
[CHAPTER XII—’TWIXT WIND AND WATER]
Osceola stood up and gave Bill a questioning glance which said plainer than words—“Further directions, please?”
Bill motioned toward the lower wing section on Osceola’s side of the plane, mouthed the word “jump,” and patted the pull ring on his own parachute harness.
Osceola scrambled out of the cockpit onto the wing. For a moment he clung to an interplane strut and beckoned Sam to follow. Sam hurried after him, although from the expression on the negro’s face, it was evident that he was terrified. Bill saw him crawl across the wing to the rear edge where Osceola stood. Then as the old man got to his feet, still clinging frantically to the strut, the Seminole, facing forward, gave a tug on his pull ring. The seat pack parachute bellied out behind him and he disappeared from sight.
At the same instant, Bill felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and the blue-black muzzle of an automatic was pushed into his face. Instinctively he leaned forward to dodge the gun. The wheel went with him, and bucking like a frightened cow pony, the big plane shot into a nose dive.
This maneuver sent Bill’s antagonist sprawling onto the wooden yoke to which both wheels were attached, forcing it forward as far as it would go. The gangster’s head smashed into the instrument board and he lay inert. Himself thrown forward by the amphibian’s dive, Bill caught at the seat to save his own head. The man’s unconscious body prevented any manipulation of elevators or ailerons. The plane was beyond his control, and racing earthward with wide open throttle at a hair-raising rate of speed. He must save himself if he could: within a second or so the big aircraft would be but a twisted mass of burning wood and metal flaming in the swamp below. Luckily, the pilot’s cockpit had no roof. Bill dragged himself on to the back of his seat, which, now due to the plane’s almost vertical position, had become a small, horizontal platform. With a hand on the pull ring of his parachute pack, he dived head first over the cockpit’s cowl into the open ether.
The approved types of parachutes are the manually operated free type. A “free” type parachute is one that is complete in one unit, strapped to the person of an aviator by a suitable harness, and one that has no attachments whatever to the aircraft. A “manually operated” parachute is one that will unpack automatically when the wearer gives a slight pull on the ring located in a readily accessible place on the harness. The aviator can open his parachute just when clear of the disabled airplane or he can make a long free drop away from burning wreckage or a pursuing enemy plane before he pulls the ring.