In two minutes he was rewarded. Once again Buchanan’s head protruded slightly from his barricade. Trowbridge sighted, this time, his gun resting on a piece of shattered ash. With all the remnants of his strength, he forced himself to be careful. When the gun spoke, Buchanan’s head dropped limply on the horse.
It took the Sheriff two hours to bind the flesh wound in his leg and release Spears. The pilot was lying half under the motor, which had been jammed part way through the fuselage, leaving barely a foot of clearance between itself and the back of the pilot’s seat. One of Spears’s legs was caught under it, and an unnaturally bent arm told its own story. Trowbridge did not succeed in bringing him back to consciousness before he himself tumbled over in the blazing heat of the Texas sun. Above, three vultures hovered curiously.
At ten-thirty in the morning, when no word had come of the ship’s safe arrival at Willett, every plane at McMullen, except the two on patrol, was ordered out on the search. Jimmy Jennings found the wreck. From that time on, a ship was constantly hovering over the spot to guide the ground party. It was ten o’clock at night when Tex MacDowell’s De Haviland, equipped with wing-lights, brought the rescue expedition to the crash. The men were brought back to McMullen on a special engine and caboose furnished by the little jerkwater railroad.
Spears came to briefly at the start of the trip, and did not wake up again until the next afternoon, when he found himself in the McMullen hospital, with Sheriff Trowbridge—none of whose bones had been broken—sitting beside his bed, and Captain Perkins standing at the foot. In a moment Major Searles, the flight surgeon, came in with the hospital physician.
“Welcome back,” grinned the Sheriff.
“Glad to be here,” returned Sleepy weakly. “Doc, what’s ailing me?”
“Three broken ribs, a broken leg, and compound fracture of the right arm,” replied the hospital man briskly. “We can fix you up as good as new.”
“Outside of that, I’m all right, eh?” yawned the pilot “Did you get Buchanan, Sheriff?”
“In two parts,” stated the Sheriff. “Polished off the job after we landed. Bilney is comin’ along O.K. He and Judith are over to my house. She says she’s aimin’ to be an assistant nurse for you soon’s her daddy gets better.”
Sleepy’s square face lightened with a slow smile.