“He will tomorrow, if he doesn’t today,” he said.
“You mean—we’d better have an ambulance handy when he hears who he’s been flying with?” King asked.
“Not just that,” Cross answered. His eyes glistened. He seemed to be thinking about something.
At the field Lyle was waiting—a pale-lipped, trembling Lyle in need of comfort and reassurance.
It was not until the next day that King Horn understood what Cross’ reticence had meant. King and Lyle were very busy talking to each other the rest of that Sunday, nor did King read the morning newspapers next day before seeking out Lyle again.
Consequently it was the thin little aviation editor who brought the Era’s story to King Horn’s attention. Swinging his stick with a casual air, Franklin Cross walked across Tennant’s field and bowed with a certain awkwardness before Lyle.
“My wedding present,” he mumbled and handed her a paper. “And my reparation for the other stories,” he added, looking at King. Then he walked away across the field, trying to swing his stick with a casual air.
There was in the Era a story—a front-page story. But it was not about the Ace of Deuces—the wild man of the air. It was how Winship, the great financier and keen judge of men had entrusted his life and his associates’ lives to an unknown pilot merely on his looks.
It told of a mechanic’s blunder and the pilot’s desperate and successful fight to save his passengers in the closed cabin from death by a crash landing or by drowning in the bay.