Dave stared hard off his right wing and down at the valley indicated by Freddy Farmer’s pointed finger. It was several seconds, though, before he spotted the crumpled wings of a wrecked plane, and the broken tail that was sticking straight up in the air. But for Freddy Farmer he could have flown over the spot a hundred times, and not sighted anything but the trees. But now that Farmer’s eagle eyes had picked it out for him, the crashed plane was as clear as day to him. He took a quick glance back at Freddy, nodded vigorously, and impulsively hauled the throttle all the way back.
“Check!” he cried. “And from the wing color and markings, that looks like an Army Air Corps ship to me. My guess is that it’s a Curtiss P-Forty. I’m going down for a better look—and a landing, if we can make it.”
“Of course it may be an old crash,” Freddy said as he kept his gaze fixed on the wreck. “And the pilot has been rescued. But good grief, in this wild country a chap could be lost for weeks.”
“You’re telling me?” Dave echoed. “That’s why I’m going to make plenty sure before I try and sit down. We’ve got an important date in San Francisco tonight, you know.”
Freddy Farmer nodded absently, and then both boys shut up and concentrated all of their attention on the crashed plane. Dave took the Vultee downward, held it steady against the ever changing wind currents in among the mountain, and eventually was no more than a couple of hundred feet over the wreck. It was then that Freddy Farmer’s sharp eyes went to bat again.
“It isn’t an old crash, Dave!” he cried. “And there is the pilot chap, on the ground close to that buckled left wing. See him? He’s alive, but hurt. He can’t get up. He’s waving to us. Dave, think you can make it?”
Dawson didn’t reply. He had already seen the injured pilot waving for help, and he was now stabbing the ground with his eyes for a suitable place in which to sit down. He finally picked a spot no more than a quarter of a mile away. It was small, and mighty narrow, but he was sure that he could make it. If he didn’t? He didn’t bother to answer that question. Right now there was an injured man down there on the ground who seemed to need help badly. And that was the important thing.
“This is it, Freddy!” he called out grimly. “That narrow strip dead ahead. I’m going to shoot for it. Be ready to stick out your hands and push the tree trunks away!”
“Never mind the funny remarks!” Farmer barked right back at him. “Just get us down in one piece. That’s all you have to worry about.”
“A mere detail!” Dave growled, but didn’t bother to turn his head. “Just a mere detail. Consider it as good as done!”