But for the moment all was as it had been. Nothing came in over the air. His plane behaved beautifully. True, at times she bumped a bit as he speeded her up, but that was to be expected.
Half forgetting the other plane, he settled back in his seat to think of the hours that had just passed.
It had been George Wiseman, the mail clerk at the New York office, who had shown Curlie three unusual packages which went with hundreds of others to make up his fifteen hundred pounds of cargo.
Had Curlie been the usual type of air pilot he would have known nothing of those packages. He was far from the usual type. Instead of loafing about the hangar swapping stories with other pilots, he was uptown in New York, learning things.
His work and his mail interested him most. He was eager to know all about it from beginning to end.
George Wiseman had grown old in the mail service. He was tall, gray and stooped. His gray eyes were keen. He knew much and was willing to help the eager young pilot.
“You boys of the Air Mail know little enough about the service you perform,” he had said to Curlie as he busied himself with the tasks of making up the mail. “You see the mail in sacks. It’s packed away in the fusilage, and you go thundering away. At the other end it is dragged out, piled into a truck, and is away again.
“We at this end—” He reached for one of the registered mail pouches. “We know a little more, sometimes a great deal more. People confide in us. They tell us of their desires, their hopes, their fears.
“Take these three packages.” He jerked a thumb at a small, a medium sized and a rather large package. “To me they represent three things: a great necessity, an emergency and a mystery. To you—”
“Tell me about them!” Curlie had exclaimed quickly. “It will make the trip more interesting.”