“And as true as ——!” he finished, “if you funk this take-off I’ll climb in there myself and take her off, and I’ll bring her back to McCook, and I’ll label you in front of the whole cock-eyed world for the yellow-bellied, chicken-hearted, gutless —— that you are!”
For a moment he played with the idea. He pictured himself coming in, having made the take-off that Kink Forell couldn’t make. That would show them whether he was through or not.
He put temptation from him. He was dimly aware that he had played his trump card, as far as Forell was concerned. He hammered on along the same line—insulting, threatening, daring the snarling, hot-eyed pilot before him with a tongue tipped in vitriol and eyes that glowed their hate.
Suddenly Forell drew himself up tensely, and there were tears in his eyes as he shouted hysterically—
“All right, —— you, we’ll go to —— together just to prove that you can’t bluff me!”
He was trembling as he got into the front cockpit, and started the motor. Finley walked at the left wingtip as the ship taxied to the upper right-hand corner of the field, and there he helped swing it around. The rocks under the wheels, he got in. He was tight-lipped and grim-faced as he settled himself for his worst ordeal in eighteen years of flying.
What kind of a pilot would that quivering, hysterical youngster in the front seat be when he was flying for his life? The Kink was sure he was going to his death.
The Liberty roared into life, the throttle all the way ahead. The taut Finley felt the stick jam forward. An instant before the tires jumped the rocks the tail was in the air. Nose low to the ground, the Briston sped for the left hand opening between tree and forest.
Finley’s hand was on the stick, his feet on the rudder, lightly. The right wingtip scraped past the tree with scarcely two feet to spare. At that instant the right rudder went on, and the ship angled for the corner of the field. It was headed for the lower right-hand angle of the field, now, where towering trees were like sentinels, alert to repel it.
The time had long passed when there was any chance of turning back. It was all or nothing, now. The ship was off the ground, rushing for those trees, barely five feet above the ground. It was nosed down slightly, gathering speed. Now the trees were dancing right in front of his eyes.