“How far is Elm Hill from here?”
It was Broughton who asked that question.
“Twenty miles. What’s the matter—have trouble?”
It was the hard-faced man again, and he glanced from face to face quickly as he asked the question. Two of the other men had walked to the end of a wing, inspecting the ship. The eyes of the others were constantly flitting from the ship to its passengers, and they listened closely.
“Yes. This ⸺ engine here went flooey on us. We’re lucky to get down alive,” replied Hinkley.
Both flyers were trying to pick Hayden out of the dozen men who surrounded them, but somehow none of them seemed exactly to fit their mental pictures of the noted criminal. Several of the crowd were conversing in low voices.
“Where were you going?” inquired one of the well-dressed men on the edge of the circle. He was small, wore glasses, and his thin face had a fox-like look about it that gave him a subtly untrustworthy appearance.
“Inasmuch as it seems necessary to throw ourselves on your hospitality for a while, it may be well to introduce ourselves,” Graves said quietly. In some uncanny way his dignity and competence seemed to radiate from him, increased by the prestige of his uniform. Both the airmen felt its influence.
“I am Colonel Graves, of the United States Army Air Service. These are Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley. We are flying from Langham Field, Virginia, to Dayton, Ohio, on important army business. I trust that we will not trespass on your hospitality too long, but I fear we will have to dismantle the ship and send it home by rail. We can’t take off out of this field. We are lucky to have had such an experienced pilot as Lieutenant Broughton to land us. We did not expect to find so many people in this deserted place.”
A portly, fleshy-faced man with small eyes set in rolls of fat shoved his way forward. He had been talking to the fox-faced little man.