“I didn’t think you would. How can we make sure when we’ve found our man?” asked Spears.
“I’d know Judy’s pony anywhere,” declared the old man truculently.
Without another word, Sleepy went back to the cock-pit and snapped on the switches.
“I’ll pull you—I’m more used to this cranking than you are.”
As the Sheriff set himself with one hand on the prop, Spears grasped his other wrist with both of his hands. In time to the count, the two men swung backward and forward, without moving the propeller until “Three!”
With all his strength, Spears jerked the Sheriff away from the stick. The huge body actually left the ground under the power of the pilot’s pull. The Liberty caught, and Spears leaped for the cock-pit to advance the spark and throttle until there was no danger of the motor dying.
Trowbridge removed his cover-alls, literally tearing them off in his haste. His inseparable companions, the two big six-shooters, came into view, their pearl butts protruding from the swinging holsters. By the time Spears had strapped himself in and had begun to run the motor up in a quick warm-up, his passenger was ready.
When the temperature-gauge showed 60 Centigrade, the flyer glanced back. The Sheriff was standing up, peering at the instruments over his shoulder. For a second two pairs of gleaming eyes met in wordless appraisal. To the old man the devil that danced behind the cold sheen of the pilot’s eyes meant many things. In that moment was born an understanding which went deeper than mutual participation in the coming venture—it was a revealment of the fundamentals in the younger man’s make-up.
Without a word Spears turned and gave the De Haviland the gun. It skidded around in a close circle, and then with the ever-increasing roar of the Liberty sped across the field on its mission.
At two thousand feet they had a clear radius of vision of ten miles. The tachometer showed seventeen hundred revolutions a minute as with wide-open motor the ship drove toward the border at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Ceaselessly two pairs of eyes searched the far-flung desert of mesquit below, striving to spot the figure of a horseman.