“It may be a life lost. But there are times when one must take chances,” he told himself stoutly. He was thinking of the medicine in that sack back there somewhere in the dark.
“Are those villains doing all this for gain, or what?” He thought now of those mysterious ones who were hounding him. “They can’t know how terrible it all is. I—”
There came a sudden bump; another; another; many bumps in quick succession. He was landing. Setting his brakes hard, he unsnapped his harness and prepared to leap.
With a suddenness that was startling, the plane came to a stop. It appeared to strain forward; then it recoiled.
“Hit a fence,” he breathed. “Good thing it wasn’t sooner.”
He was over the side and away. Plunging forward, he paused to grope for the fence. Having found it, he went skulking along it from post to post.
His reasons for this were two. If a light shot in his direction the fence would offer some chance of concealment. He could become a stone in the fence row. Then, too, the fence gave him direction. He had been flying due west. This fence ran north and south. It would be crossed by another. When he found this he would turn east. About a mile and a half back was the precious mail sack.
“I’ll find it,” he assured himself. “It’s not too late yet. Only sixty miles more to go. Some one will take me to a station or an airdrome. Please God, the medicine will reach its destination.
“And the violin,” he added. “Fifteen hundred crippled children!”
He paused to listen. Some one was shouting. They had found his plane, discovered that he was gone.