“Going to land! What rotten, rotten luck!”
“Absolutely!”
It was true that the “Gray Streak” was circling for a landing, equally true that Curlie had sworn to do all within his power to bring that outlaw’s career to an end. And yet, he did not swerve one inch from his course. How could he? He had orders. This time they must be obeyed to the letter. A man’s life depended upon it.
And then came the moving picture drama which was after all not drama at all, but life—life so pulsating and real that Curlie was to start from his sleep with a cry of surprise and pain on many a night thereafter.
The “Gray Streak” had been sighted at a position some five miles before them. It was landing almost directly beneath the airway they followed. Indeed, it was coming to rest on the surface of the river.
The red spot Curlie had seen, or thought he had, was off at right angles to their course. A large cloud had blotted out that spot until Curlie was all but directly over the “Gray Streak,” which by this time had come to rest on the river, when there emerged from that cloud a large red spot which could no longer be mistaken for other than Drew Lane’s red racer of the air.
“What luck!” Curlie fairly shouted. “What luck for good old Drew Lane! He will—”
He broke off to stare. He was close enough now to make out a human figure clinging to the upper surface of the red plane.
“Drew!” His breath came quick. “It can’t be the pilot. It must be Drew. But why—why would—”
Again he gasped. The figure that at this distance seemed so tiny, slipped from the plane to shoot downward.