Damage, it was hinted in stories hastily killed for later editions, would almost certainly run high into millions. Hotel reservations for the usually equable autumn months were already being canceled. As if to prove it never snowed but it poured, the Oil Refinery chose that day to announce the failure of a sixth gusher and resultant passing of a dividend.
Three days later, when clouds again moved in on the coastline, Wiley Cordes took to the air with another load of dry ice pellets. And once again he did his dirty work undetected and with disastrous results for Burden Bay.
On his third trip, because of a low current of warm air of whose existence he was not informed, Wiley came in with a rain storm that washed away most of the snow. But his fourth, fifth and sixth one-plane raids more than made up for this lapse.
Wiley Cordes and Wheedonville by the Sea were riding high. Hotels were packed and concessions were booming. The public relations expert found his salary raised an added hundred dollars a week. There was laughter at a Chamber meeting over a Burden Bay picture release showing a couple of pretty girls in ski clothes backed by a slide made of the defunct oil gushers.
"I'll get the chorus of Mike Todd's new musical down here next weekend and put them on water skis in bathing suits," promised the laughing Wiley Cordes. Of course he knew it could not last forever. But he saw no reason for the run of good fortune to come to an early end. He had planned and executed his scheme too well.
So he was not pleased to discover another plane above the clouds on his next trip over Burden Bay. Still, it was something that had to happen. He merely cruised on innocently and was relieved when the other ship—a big four-motored flying boxcar—disappeared through the clouds. Then he swung back and did his stuff.
There was another plane above the clouds over Burden Bay.