Allowing one hand to rest gently on his control stick, he half rose in the cockpit to peer blindly into the void of darkness, of moonless night, that lay all about him.
For a full moment he remained standing thus, motionless, while his eyes swept in a circle, up, down and sideways, many times.
“No lights,” he murmured. “I take my oath to that. Dangerous business I’d say. Suppose they’d miss the sound of my motor, the gleam of my lights!” He shuddered at thought of a head-on collision, of broken wings, flaming planes and sudden death.
“Breaking the law, that’s what they are! Wish I had their number. I’d report them.”
Had he but known it, the occupants of this plane were infractors of the law in more ways than one. Not knowing, he settled back in his seat, gripped his stick firmly and gave his mind over to the important business of bringing the Air Mail from New York.
The drumming of the mysterious plane did not leave his ears undisturbed, nor did troubling thoughts pass from his mind.
“Up to something,” he told himself. He thought of one precious bit of cargo that lay so near him he might touch it with his feet.
“Forty thousand dollars,” he whispered. “Don’t seem that it could be worth that. But that’s what he said. And he’s always told the truth.”
“Snap on the radio,” he murmured after a moment. “May get some clue from that.” His plane was equipped with a receiving set by which weather reports and special orders reached him.
He was destined to receive a clue regarding the mystery plane, and that very soon. And such a clue! It would set his blood racing and his hands trembling.