Finley’s face did not change. Forell had to dramatize himself, of course.
They took off Monday morning at eight o’clock, but there were fully five hundred people at the field to bid them good-by. Finley, his hand itching for the stick, sat tensely while the Kink took off. Forell held the ship close to the ground, and then zoomed it over the hangar. He followed the curve of the roof around, the wheels almost touching it, and dived briefly down the other side.
Finley relaxed. The grandstanding was over now, he hoped.
As the Briston droned swiftly across the rugged mountains Finley’s flyer’s instinct literally forced him to sweep the ground ceaselessly with his eyes. Most of the time he had a tiny clearing or a possible field always in mind in case the motor started missing. That was tough country down there.
He stiffened as there came a break in the even rhythm of the Liberty. For a moment the motor spat and missed. Then, for a moment, it fired steadily.
Finley was ready to sink back thankfully in the rear seat when the four hundred and fifty horsepower engine coughed again. His eyes leaped to the tachometer. Only nine hundred revolutions.
Forell did all he could. He jazzed the throttle, dived steeply, and tried the spark at all positions. The motor was stumbling along, its r.p.m. only seven hundred now.
Finley’s hand gripped Forell’s shoulder. He pointed down at the one possible field, three thousand feet below. Forell nodded impatiently, and turned to his work.
The field was an oblong, and very short on its longest side. Squarely in the middle of it stood a single tree, which turned the possible landing space into two strips, scarcely twenty-five yards wide. It was on a steep slope, and at its lower edge another hill, heavily wooded, started rising from the very rim of the field. As they spiraled down over it, Finley saw that in order to land uphill, the ship would be forced, willy-nilly, into a fairly steep glide down that other slope.
Forell was a master-flyer, but never-the-less it was agony for even the self-controlled Finley to sit idly by and watch Forell fly. Perfection in judgment and airmanship was necessary if they were to make that field in safety. There was not so much as a cabin within five miles, should they be hurt.