Motor full on, he sent the frail D.H. hurtling downward in a power dive which made the wires shrill madly and the ship tremble from nose to tail. He was without fear, and his hand was steady as a rock on the stick.
In that brief moment, with the roar of the overspeeding motor dinning in his ears and the peril of the storm surrounding him, he kept his eyes on that wreck below, and saw himself for what he was. He realized what he had done when he had forced Dumpy into this mad trip.
He was calling himself a murderer as he leveled his ship above the water. He was a hundred feet back of that sinister mass, floating so peacefully. He was possessed of a great calm, and he handled his great ship with a sureness he had never known before.
He cut the throttle, and nosed the D.H. upward. It lost speed, and as the stalling point came he threw it into a steep bank, left wing down. He jammed on right rudder at the instant when flying speed was about to disappear, and the De Haviland shot downward on one wing, with scarcely a mile of forward speed.
He gathered himself as the water rushed up to meet him and the airblast flayed his left cheek. The left wing cut the water five feet from Scarth’s wreck. The motor plowed into the river, and the ship flipped over, half on its back, as the left wingtip smashed into the bottom of the shallow stream and the entire structure of linen and wood crumpled in a series of ripping, tearing reports.
He was unhurt, and he had unsnapped his belt buckle at the instant of crashing. He was out, wading through the water, which was to his armpits. He took a long breath, and plunged under the other ship.
His groping hands found the body, hanging limply, head downward. His lungs bursting, he heaved upward on the unconscious Scarth, to keep the weight from the belt, and tore at the buckle. It was an eternity before it unfastened, and as he got Scarth above the water he fell limply against the soaked fuselage.
For a moment he had to stay there until his laboring lungs and bursting head grew more normal. Then he stumbled through the water toward the shore. He had scarcely laid Dumpy down when three riders came galloping madly through the mesquite along the river bank.
It was Crosby, with two Mexicans. The customs man took in the situation at a glance, and went to work on the unconscious Scarth with no comment other than a curt:
“If anybody was comin’ across tonight they won’t now. They’ll have heard the ships.”