*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75566 ***



VISIBILITY--ZERO

by John Amid

Was this Airplane Pilot Yellow? Not Hardly. Nor Was He a Wild Fool.
Just a Regular Human Being.


“Not a chance!” Bill Melford said, straightening up to his full six feet
like a football tackle. “Nothing but mail, tonight.” He glanced at the
passenger, a thin, well-dressed man, who was listening anxiously.
“Sorry,” he added. Then he dropped the subject like a mail sack. “Any
more dope on the weather, Eddie?”

Feldman, the field manager, shook his head. “Another report from
Chicago’s all. Same thing, open and shut. Not so good, Bill. I’m not
sure I ought to let you go out yourself.”

It was cold in the big hangar. Black night had already shut down, with a
twenty-mile wind howling outside. Flying the mail in midwinter is no
fair-weather pastime.

“Is this the only plane going through, Mr. Feldman?” the passenger
asked.

“No-o,” the field manager answered. “Probably not, if anybody goes.
We’re waiting for the Toonerville.” It was the company nickname for a
feeder-line plane that came in a paltry two hundred miles. “He’s got
about six hundred pounds. We’ll likely send out a double-header. It’s no
night for too big a load.”

“Then I can try the other pilots?”

Feldman hesitated. In his pocket he had the usual form letter from
Hendricks, division superintendent, issued only when the company wanted
to get a passenger through if it could possibly be managed. “Mr.
Webber,” it read, “is anxious to get through to Chicago. Please do
everything you can to help him complete his journey. He understands the
conditions, however, and knows that the company is under no obligations
and that passage can be arranged only if load and weather conditions
permit.”

“Why--yes, if you want to.” He wondered how much pressure it was fair to
put on the flyers to get them to take passengers through, even under
exceptional conditions. He hated to subject them to the discomfort of
having personally to listen to a passenger’s sob story, before turning
him down. Melford--“Wild Bill” until for safety-publicity’s sake the
“Wild” had been dropped--was the most daring man on the line, as well as
senior pilot. The others would merely follow his lead. “You can speak to
Pat Grady, when he comes in. He’ll probably be taking out the second
plane. Or Crager.”

It was a company rule that, as far as passengers were concerned, each
pilot had to write his own ticket. The field manager could order planes
out with the mail, or hold them, but even this authority was sparingly
used, and at that usually only after full consultation with the pilots
themselves. Carrying passengers was up to the pilots alone. If they were
going out, they could, when the load permitted and they were willing,
take passengers. Or, if they considered flying conditions too hazardous
for passengers, they could refuse.

The little office beside the hangar, with its iron stove in one corner,
was a warm refuge. Grady came in after dinner at the lunch counter
across the way, spreading his hands above the hot stove. Like Melford
and Feldman, he was immaculate, with trousers freshly creased. These
neat, healthy-looking commercial pilots bore little resemblance to the
hard-bitten birdmen of earlier days, whose every flying minute might be
their last. But they had the same questioning eyes, the same silences,
the same skill. Surer, more prosperous, and longer-lived, they still
were pioneers, blazing the sky trails for tomorrow’s great passenger
lines.

“We’ll be missing this little room,” Pat Grady said, “when the station
yonder’s finished. It won’t be the same. Who’s going out?”

“Bill’s taking No. 1,” said Feldman. “Mr. Webber, this is Mr. Grady. I
told him, Pat”--turning--“he could ask you about his chances of getting
through to Chi tonight, if we send out a doubleheader.”

They looked at the door as “Slip” Crager, old as these other still-young
airmen in years, but even younger in service with the line, came in,
shutting the door quickly behind him against the wind.

“Meet Mr. Crager, Mr. Webber,” said Feldman.

To each other they were all “Bill” and “Pat” and “Eddie” alike,
irrespective of rank, but “Mister Grady” and “Mister Crager” and “Mister
Feldman” to outsiders.

“Why doesn’t he ask Bill about it?” said Grady.

“I did,” the passenger spoke up. “He wanted to take only mail.”

“Well,” said Grady, “I guess that’s that.”

“You mean that, no matter what the conditions are, you won’t if he
won’t?”

“Bill Melford’s about the best pilot we’ve got, Mr. Webber,” the field
manager put in, “and what’s more, he’ll take chances if any one will. If
he won’t take you, you can hardly expect the others to.”

“Just what,” asked Crager, “are the conditions?”

“I didn’t mean,” the passenger said hastily, “weather conditions. I
meant--I meant my own conditions, the family and everything. I--I could
make it pretty well worthwhile, as far as money goes, only I don’t
suppose that makes any difference.”

“No,” said Crager, “it doesn’t. I meant--why is it so important for you
to get through? Business?”

Grady scowled at him. Merely courting trouble, this was. Just putting
them all in bad for refusing, when it was the only sensible thing to do.

“It’s--it’s my wife,” said Webber. He stopped abruptly. “Hurt,” he
added, without detail.

“There’s an express at eight fifty,” Feldman suggested. “That would get
you in by ten thirty tomorrow morning, and no danger. Even if you
started with us, you couldn’t be sure of getting through. Better let one
of the boys run you over to the station.” He looked at his watch.

“It wouldn’t do your wife any good,” said Grady, “for you to get
yourself killed. Be a lot better to get there alive in the morning than
come in dead at midnight--especially if it took you longer to get in
with us than by train.”

Bill Melford came in. “Toonerville’s just coming in,” he said. They
could hear the drone of the motor as the plane banked. “No reason why I
shouldn’t get out right away, is there?” he asked.

Slip Crager was at a window, staring out into the night. But instead of
the white glare of the flood lights, turned on for the Toonerville, he
saw only the array of images flashing through his own mind--a white
hospital bed, with a bandaged patient--Stella Fleming, saying good night
to him at the door--Bill Melford talking to a couple of other pilots in
the hangar, in a side-glance conversation that flattened into an
uncomfortable silence as he came within hearing--the neatly typed
company memorandum, old J. K.’s pet, issued periodically: “Pilots are
urged not to take any unnecessary chances. Crack-ups destroy dividends.
Get the mail through if possible, but avoid undue risks. The line takes
pride in never having lost a passenger. It will not tolerate reckless
flying.”

“Nothing to hold you that I know of,” Feldman answered Melford. “The
sooner the better. Those snow flurries around Chi seem to be getting
worse all the time.”

The flood lights on the field were switched off, as the Toonerville
taxied up to the hangar with its own landing lights, yellow by contrast
with the white glare that had greeted them. Melford took his heavy
flying suit from a closet and began drawing it on.

“There’s another thing,” said Grady, “we’ll not be seeing much more of.
Fur to keep from freezing with. When we’re all flying trimotors, we’ll
be sitting in glass, warm like a parlor.”

“You’ve got just about thirty-five minutes to make that train, Mr.
Webber,” said Feldman. “That doesn’t give you much extra time. Shall I
get one of the boys to run you over?”

Slip Crager turned from the window.

“If you want me to take out No. 2, Eddie,” he said unexpectedly, “I’ll
take him.”

They stared at him. The passenger recovered himself first. It was the
miracle he had been hoping for.

“I’ll certainly appreciate that,” he assured Feldman, reserving his
thanks to Crager for later.

Melford resumed fastening up his flying suit. Then he sat down to pull
fleece-lined moccasins over his polished shoes.

“Why--why----” said Feldman, still at a loss for words. “Why--sure it’ll
be all right. That is, if you really want to try it.”

A mechanic opened the door and stuck his head into the room, letting in
a blast of air straight from North Dakota. “No. 1’s ready,” he said.

“I’ll take a chance,” Slip answered Feldman.

Melford fastened the chin strap of his helmet, drew on thick gloves, and
padded out into the night like a giant Eskimo.

“I’ll get my bag,” said the passenger, following him.

“_I_ think,” said Grady, “you’re crazy.” He appealed to Feldman. “You’ll
not let him go out! Not Slip Crager, the only man on the line who’s
always refused to make himself into a damn fool!”

“Yeah!” answered Slip bitterly. “And gets himself called yellow! You
needn’t think I haven’t heard the talk!”

“Oho!” said Grady. “So that’s it, is it? Well, to prove it’s not so, do
you have to go and crack up a ship? Eddie, you’ll not let him go out!”

The roar of Melford’s motor came from outside, as he opened her wide in
a final test before throttling down for the start. Then they heard him
taxi out across the field.

“Don’t be a nut!” said Crager. “What do you think I am--somebody’s
little girl? Bill’s gone already, and you weren’t worrying any about
going yourself.”

“You’ll notice, though. I wasn’t taking any fool passenger along. Nor
Bill, either.”

Webber’s reentry ended the exchanges. Feldman, with one plane already on
its way, disregarded Pat Grady entirely, although his silence showed he
was troubled. But before the second plane was ready, an automobile door
slammed shut outside the office, and Stella Fleming burst in.

“Where’s Slip?” she demanded before she saw him. “Oh, there he is! Slip
Crager, you----”

“Not here,” he interrupted shortly. “Come into the hangar.”

They faced each other under the wing of a big monoplane. Beyond it the
ground crew were packing the last mail sacks into No. 2.

“Slip, you’re not going to fly to Chicago tonight! With a passenger,
too!”

He stood very still.

“Yeah? Look here! Who told you?” She was breathless.

“Never mind who told me! Are you _crazy_?”

“It was Pat Grady, that’s who it was! Pat Grady! He called you up! Say,
I’ll----”

“Listen! It doesn’t make any difference whether it was Pat Grady or not.
He’s your friend, Slip, and a good friend, too. Slip, you _mustn’t_!
It’s too dangerous, and even trying it will spoil your record. And----”

“Yeah? And are you the dame that told me, only last night, you weren’t
sure whether it was true or not--what they said about my being yellow?”

She moved her hand helplessly. “Slip--that’s nothing! You mustn’t!”

“Nothing, eh? And I mustn’t go tonight? Yeah? Who says so?”

“I do! And I mean it! Slip, it’s--it’s an ultimatum!”

“Yeah?” His eyes were very bright now and his voice hard. “Listen to her
land on the dictionary! Say, let’s both get in on the ultimatum stuff!
All right. Whether we get together or not, you’ll keep away from this
airport in work time, and out of what’s my own business, which is
flying, except as a _guest_! Get me? And that’s _that_!”

Her eyes widened. She let her hands, that had been reaching for the
lapels of his coat in frantic appeal, drop to her side. Then without
another word she turned and walked out of the hangar, very straight,
fumbling for a moment with the knob on the little door in the corner.
Through the cry of the wind he heard her automobile starter whir, the
motor catch, the door snap shut--and she was gone. Outwardly as stolid
as ever, he was still trembling when he got out his flying togs, and had
to turn away from the others to conceal his awkwardness.

“Ready with No. 2.”

Followed by his passenger, Slip went out into the cold. The biplane, her
motor idling, already stood in front of the hangar, the big sliding
doors still open behind her. Slip climbed to his seat like a diver, with
all his heavy outfit, climbing up the side of a vessel. Mechanics helped
the passenger to the little cabin between the wings, handing his bag in
after him, and shutting the door with a snap. For a minute or two after
Crager was comfortably in his seat he listened to the motor, opening the
throttle wider and wider until the whole machine rocked and vibrated
under the strain. Then, throttling down again, he waved his hand and the
blocks were pulled from in front of the wheels. Nearly an hour behind
Melford, No. 2 was on her way.

Trundling out into the darkness across the frozen field, Slip turned
into the wind and gave her the gun. Fifteen seconds and they were off
the ground, climbing sharply, flattening out, then climbing again, as if
ascending a great imaginary stairway across the sky. Beneath them the
level finger of the air beacon swung steadily through its circuit,
lighting up as it passed the snow-covered country for miles around. Far
ahead, at twelve-second intervals, the next beacon flashed, as its white
finger passed. Already they were over the first blinker light marking
the course between--winking up at them like a firefly through the
darkness. To left and right, ahead and behind, the lights of towns
twinkled like clusters of frosty stars.

They were just below the clouds. A low ceiling, barely five hundred
feet. The barometer showed an altitude of twelve hundred, but that was
to sea level. The needle of the air-speed indicator jumped back and
forth, all the way from a hundred and five miles an hour to a hundred
and twenty-five, in the uneven gusts of wind they were cutting across.
Holding its course along the row of lights, the plane traveled
slantwise, like a crab. Slip glanced at the tachometer; his motor was
turning up seventeen hundred revolutions a minute. Power to spare.

He gave himself up to the bitter tumult in his mind. Here he was,
heading into bad weather with a passenger, after a break with Stella
that was probably final. Idiot! Committed to follow Melford under
conditions that even Bill himself had refused to take a chance on. If
the storm forced him to turn back, the record would show he had offered
to take a passenger into weather that could not be faced. If he kept on,
he risked a forced landing that might mean a bad crack-up, or even the
loss of his passenger’s life. Either way he was bound to lose. Even if
he managed to get through he would be charged with utter recklessness,
as Stella had told him--going against the judgment of the most
experienced as well as the most daring man on the line.

He tried to see how he had managed to get himself into such a mess. The
Stella part of it was, of course, the worst; that had come on top of
everything else. But the matter of his standing with the company was bad
enough. The fact was, he had used his head just so long, and then, when
he couldn’t stand it any longer, he had broken. Played the fool. That
was it, plain fool!

The air was very bumpy. On the edge of the storm the plane was twisted
and tilted like a gull in a gust. Good thing the line used the stanchest
ships built, and not these cheap doo-dinguses that were liable to have a
wing break off, and drop like a dead duck! He went back to the storm
inside his own mind.

The trouble had begun with that damned memorandum the company issued
every so often. “Pilots are urged not to take any unnecessary chances.”
“Avoid undue risks.” Where he had gone wrong was in taking it seriously.
Of course it was good sense, and the company meant it. Old J. K.
himself, founder of the line and chairman of the board, was responsible
for it. Only thing wrong with it was: it couldn’t be done. It was too
soon. Enough conservative pilots hadn’t been born yet. They all took
chances--and the line stood for it. Wild Bill, the most reckless of them
all, was senior pilot!

Crager could understand that. His own training had come at Kelly Field,
where the old army traditions of daring still held good. His first
forced landing had come when, flying low in formation, his motor, that
should never have been allowed off the ground without a complete
overhauling, had suddenly quit on him. He had done the best he could on
rough ground, but the ship had been washed out, and he had spent two
months in a hospital. It had seemed so utterly needless, the waste and
the pain, that he had decided to play safe whenever he could. Leaving
the service, he had turned mail pilot, and rejoiced in the strong ships,
the motors in perfect repair, the avoidance of flying blind in thick
weather.

“Avoid undue risks!” Well, he had. For fourteen months he had been
“avoiding undue risks,” until he was rated one of the best pilots on the
line--and the most conservative. But what had that brought him? The
charge, never spoken to his face, of being “yellow”! The old flying days
were still too close. Airmen were supposed to take chances--there was
something wrong with them if they didn’t. Even the officers of the line,
while praising his conservative flying, had begun to wonder if he was
really good pilot material! Among the close-knit fraternity of the line,
it had made him an outcast, a pariah, a metic. He had stuck to his guns
until Stella Fleming had joined the chorus, following a halfway quarrel
the night before. That was too much!

So, tonight, brooding over the injustice of his unspoken condemnation,
he had suddenly decided to take a chance and get this anxious passenger
through if he could. And of course he had messed it. With Stella worst
of all. Now he was in bad all around. Pat Grady had called the turn on
him. Fear of being called yellow had driven him to do something the line
would never forgive him for--risk a passenger’s life--to prove he
_wasn’t_ yellow!

He comforted himself with the reflection that at least he could always
turn back. The minute the clouds shut down, he could turn back into the
clear and come down on the first emergency field. “Intermediate fields,”
they were calling them now--more of this soft-pedal stuff for the dear
general public!

The plane was trying all the time to get off the course to the right.
That meant the wind was increasing in force, or was swinging still
farther around. It was almost at right angles to his line of flight
already. He was flying so low that the ground roll, the upward twist of
gusts from uneven surfaces on the land below, made anything like smooth
flying impossible. The plane dropped or rose suddenly as if struck from
above or below with great air pillows. Off to the right the light
clusters that meant small towns, moving slowly backward as the plane
swept along, began to disappear. Fog. Couldn’t be in such a wind. Snow,
of course. Off there to the right it was beginning to snow.

Automatically Slip selected his landing field. There it was, straight
along the blinker lights at the next revolving beacon less than fifteen
miles away. Already he could pick out the little oblong of lights that
marked the edge of the field. Nothing to do but come down; even turning
back would be useless with the clouds over him likely to begin shedding
snow at any minute.

A light so bright that it rivaled the flash of the beacon appeared on
the landing field. Another. Flares. They were ordering him down! Well,
he was coming down anyway. Just as soon as he could get to that field,
instead of taking a chance on nosing up in the snow directly beneath
him, or cracking up in a gully or on a barbed-wire fence.

He wondered if they’d been able to catch Melford all right, a hundred
miles farther along toward Chicago. Probably. Melford was a pretty wise
coot, in spite of the number of chances he took. If they didn’t flag him
down, he’d probably made a landing anyway, just before it was too late.

Suddenly the field, the distant beacon beyond, a cluster of town lights
to the left of the course, all disappeared. Snow! Instantly Slip banked,
veering to the right with the wind, straining his eyes at the dim land
beneath him in the effort to pick out a place to sit down quick. But
before he could even look back along the course, much less come down,
the smother was on him.

In the snug little cabin, Webber, the passenger, felt the plane lurch,
and stared out into the night. He had been just dozing off. All the
sparkling little lights on the land below had disappeared; he could see
only grayness--a halo of fog around the green light on one wing tip,
another halo around the red light on the other. So! They had run into a
cloud! Dangerous flying, all right. He settled back into a corner
comfortably, secure in the confidence of his pilot’s skill. These mail
flyers certainly knew their stuff! This bird Crager wouldn’t even be in
a cloud unless he knew all about it. He’d get through all right! From
his dark cabin he watched the yellow landing lights flash on, boring
down into a streaming current of flashing white specks. Snowflakes, of
course. Could it be they were going to land right here? He hadn’t seen
any field.

The landing lights were switched off again. Crager had merely snapped
them on to make sure of his predicament and see if by some miracle they
would give him a hint of the ground below. Very neatly caught, he
decided. A perfect trap. The snow clouds had driven down on him,
broadside on. The entire course had been blotted out for miles at a
single swoop. No chance to go on to the next field, no chance to turn
back to the last one. And off to the right it had been snowing already,
so that in trying to swing out of one cloud he had merely run into the
other. A regular blizzard! The devil’s own luck that the line of
beacons, with the particular spot his plane happened to be in, was the
last to be caught.

It was cold, bitterly cold, but he no longer felt it. Five minutes
before, even inside the fur-lined moccasins, his feet had been almost
numb. Now he was warm all over. Funny.

He had gasoline enough for several hours. Probably about four. Meanwhile
there was nothing to do but fly by the bubble and hunt for a hole.

For the first time since his days at Kelly Field he wished for a
parachute--for that passenger down there, Webber, or whatever his name
was, who wanted to get through to his wife before midnight.

It occurred to Slip that perhaps by now the wife was dead anyway. This
Webber had certainly been in an awful hurry to get through. If things
didn’t work out right, now, that might not be such a bad idea.

Cautiously he worked the plane downward, trying to get below the clouds
and see lights again. It was useless. The “feel” of the air, the
stronger uprush of wind, warned him he could go no lower; the next thing
he would be crashing into some treetop. Yet his landing lights, switched
on and off once more, showed nothing but the streaming swirls of snow.
He could not see beyond the nose of his plane.

He worked upward again. He was not used to this blind flying, this
driving ahead at a hundred miles an hour “by the bubble,” having to rely
on instruments, instead of on his own eyesight and sense of equilibrium,
to tell him whether or not his ship was on an even keel, and so in no
danger of side-slipping: whether or not he was ascending or descending
too rapidly, and so in danger of a nose dive or tail spin. He sent the
plane up gradually to a height of more than a mile, on the chance that
he could get above the snow and get his direction, at least, from the
stars. But the smother was as thick there as nearer the ground, and the
twisting force of the wind seemed even more terrific. Too much chance of
having his plane torn completely apart. He worked back down to twelve
hundred feet, throttling his motor to sixteen hundred a minute. No use
wasting extra gasoline.

Completely lost, now, he started circling, hunting for a break in the
clouds, yet trying to keep where he felt the course was. Two complete
circles, as nearly as he could estimate, and he straightened out again.
Not a break anywhere.

Air pilots alone know the helplessness, with present-day instruments, of
“flying blind.” A steamer, in a fog at sea, can slow down or stop
entirely. Near a coast, the skipper can take soundings, and learn how
much water there is beneath his keel. Besides that, he is on a level
surface--the sea itself. He can go wrong only to right or left,
starboard or port. But an aviator in the skies has to keep driving
ahead. He cannot stop, to learn where he is or wait until the storm
passes; if he slows to less than around a mile a minute his plane will
crash to the ground like a wild goose with a broken wing.

A ship at sea has a trustworthy compass. Because of the mass of metal in
his motor, the airplane pilot has no instrument on which he can rely
with certainty to tell him whether he is heading north or south. Even
the best of airplane compasses, particularly in times of storm, is apt
to go mad. And instead of having to contend only with dangers or right
and left along a given course, airmen can go wrong in four different
directions--right or left, up or down--and tipping to one side or the
other, so that the plane falls like a dish. Skilled flyers, racing over
the Pacific, lost their lives when the light on their instrument board
went out: they could no longer see the bubble that told them their plane
was level in the air.

Crager was bothered most by the wind. In addition to the continual
danger to his plane from the twisting gusts, he did not know which
direction it was from. Just before the snow clouds had shut down, it had
veered. Blowing forty, or perhaps even fifty miles an hour, it was
taking him--where? Flying directly against it, his ground speed would be
only fifty miles an hour; flying with it, it would be a hundred and
fifty--with his air-speed indicator registering the same in either case.
If the wind was blowing from the right of his course, he would be
sweeping off to the left at fifty miles an hour, unless he flew his
plane crabwise into it to offset the drift. If it was coming from the
left, and he held his plane crabwise to the right in the supposition it
was coming from that direction, he would lie carried to the right of his
course eighty or a hundred miles an hour. And it doesn’t take long, at
that pace.

No instrument has yet been devised that can tell pilots who are flying
blind from which direction the wind is coming. That is why pilots,
perhaps supposing themselves over level ground, crash headlong into
mountainsides, that rush at them suddenly through impenetrable fog miles
from their course.

Crager himself had once followed the shore line of Lake Erie in a dim
mist, confident that it would presently bring him to Cleveland. Miles
after he should have reached the city his gasoline gave out and he came
down--in Canada, instead of Ohio, flying west instead of east.

Where was he now? Amid these snowflakes that filled the night, he had
been flying only by intuition and dead reckoning--guessing at the
direction of the wind, guessing at its force, guessing at the accuracy
of his compass. By now he might still be on his course, or a hundred
miles on either side of it. If he had kept it, with the wind still in
the same direction, he should now be perhaps a hundred miles from
Chicago. It was conceivable he had already flown past the city. Even the
great night glare of lights would not penetrate many feet into these
snow clouds. He might be over land. He might be over Lake Michigan. By
this time, instead of being over flat country, he might be over rough
hillsides.

Suddenly--the first time in an hour’s flying--he saw a light in the
darkness below him. Almost instantly it was gone. A hole in the clouds!
For a few moments he held ahead, to make sure that the blanket about him
was as thick as ever. Then, at the risk of getting his sense of
direction--and that of his compass--still more hopelessly confused, he
banked and turned back. Although it was like locating a single eddy in
the ocean, he must cross again that well in the clouds. Trusting he was
still over level land, he brought his plane lower and lower: the light
had been several hundred feet below.

Again! There it was! Lucky the opening itself had not closed in. This
time, before his ship reentered the cloud, Crager banked again. It
enabled him to hold the opening. As the plane turned, one wing was
already in cloud fog. Swiftly he descended, almost in a nose dive,
coolly gauging the distance below. A hundred feet above the ground, as
nearly as he could judge in the darkness, he leveled out, looking for a
place to land. The cloud opening was larger here; he could not tell how
large. But his landing lights told him little. At least he was over farm
country, fairly flat. Rather than be caught in the clouds again, he
would take a chance and come down. It might mean freezing to death in
the blizzard, even if they didn’t crack up, but that would be better
than smashing down from the skies. Yes, all things considered, much
better.

Meanwhile, as long as the visibility lasted, he would try to better
things a little. For nearly a minute he flew at the edge of the smother,
circling the opening as a boat might follow the coast line of a lake,
one wing tip touching the gray fingers of the cloud, the other in the
clear.

Then, far away to his left, a white light flashed for a moment. An air
beacon! He was only a few miles from his course!

Heading in the direction of the flash, he dropped as near the ground as
he dared, noting the snow-covered dimness beneath him to get the
direction of the wind and an idea of its force. It was snowing again;
all lights had disappeared. A darker patch in the grayness below came
toward him swiftly, and he rose to clear it. A patch of woodland. He
recalled the story of one of the early air-mail pilots out of San
Francisco, whose motor went dead above a ravine in the Sierras, and who,
misjudging his distance a trifle, struck the treetops on one of the
slopes with his landing gear as he planed down----

The flash of the beacon again! A mere hint, this time, because of the
snow, but almost dead ahead.

For several minutes, he could see nothing more, except vague markings as
he crossed fields below him, rising intuitively for each fancied
obstacle and coming down again at once to avoid losing sight of the
earth, flashing his landing lights off and on at intervals in order to
try to get more of an idea of his altitude. Failure to clear a single
tree or slope, and it would all be over. Once out of sight of the
ground, and he would be as blind as before.

The beacon again! Near at hand, this time, defying the snow!

Only a few seconds more, and he was close in, daring to rise a little
higher in the certainty of reaching that revolving light. Sure
enough--there was the field, marked by its spectral border of lights,
seen dimly, close beneath him, through the snow. No hurry now. There was
still the chance of a crack-up in this wind, with the possibility that
he might nose over into a snowdrift. But the wind had kept the frozen
field almost bare. He banked, swept away, and came down into the wind,
just above the border lights of the field, in a perfect landing.

The field lay beside great farm buildings, seemingly deserted, except
for the clicking beacon above them, turning solemnly through the
blizzard. As Crager switched off his motor, the staccato
_putt-putt-putt_ of a gasoline jack cut the whistling of the wind, loud
in the desolation of the night.

Between the wings the cabin door swung open. “What’s the dope?” asked
Webber, the passenger.

“Well,” said Crager casually, “it was a little thick, so I just thought
we’d sit down.” He pulled off a glove and tried the palm of his hand
against his cheek to see if it was frozen. “We’ll go over ’n’ see what
we can find.”

They climbed out of the plane. The single watchman was asleep. The
telephone wires were down. The field was almost exactly a hundred miles
from Chicago. They sat around the fire in a tiny room and yawned over
the monotony of life--outwardly, at least--though the passenger’s mind
was still on reaching his destination, and the pilot’s back on Stella
Fleming and his troubles with the line.

An hour, and the storm lifted a trifle.

“Believe we might as well push on,” said Crager, after a look outside.
“I can see the next beacon. We can get at least that far.” He had
decided that the best thing would probably be to leave the
line--unless---- Well, there was little likelihood that Stella and he
would ever get together now. “Want to try it?” he asked Webber.

“Surest thing you know.” There was no risk of flying with these mail
pilots. They wouldn’t take you up unless they knew they’d get you down
again all right!

Again they took off for the city, flying low into the storm, over a dim
night world screened by streaming snowflakes.

An hour, and they were in--the only mail plane to reach Chicago that
night. Bill Melford was down two hundred miles out.

“I certainly do thank you,” Webber said, “for getting me through. I knew
we’d make it, the moment you said you’d take me.”

“Yeah?” said Crager. “Well, we did.”

It was two days before he got back to Feldman, and his home airport. The
field manager came out to greet him as he taxied up to the hangar.

“’Lo, Eddie,” said Crager, when he had cut the switch.

“Hullo, Slip,” said Feldman. “Get down and come over to the office.”

When they were in the little room, he shut the door behind him, leaning
against it.

“It’s about Stella Fleming,” he said. “Thought I’d put you wise before
she gets down here. She’s been talking to my wife.”

Slip sat down and began to loosen his moccasins.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You bet.” Feldman grinned suddenly. “Men have to stand together, sort
of. Oh, you’ll find out, all right. Well, I just thought I’d tip you
off. You hold all the cards, so don’t pay any attention to a damn thing
she says. Women are like that.”

“Yeah?” said Crager. He sat up without pulling his moccasins off. “What
about the line?”

“What about the line?”

“Yeah. That ‘avoid undue risk’ stuff, and all. You know perfectly well,
Eddie, my going out that night, with a passenger, was a damn-fool thing
to do.” He hesitated a moment, to make sure of his voice. “I sorta
figured that, with the line, I’m about through.”

Feldman looked at him curiously.

“Forget it,” he said. “You’re jake with the line, and all the boys, too,
the way you never were before. I thought you knew. That Webber lad is
the Prince of Wales, sort of--if you know what I mean. They were all
pulling for him to get through. I came pretty near telling Melford all
about him, only the line didn’t want to bring any extra pressure on
taking chances. Webber and his wife were on the point of a split when
this accident came along. Lucky thing for everybody. I supposed you
knew. She’s old J. K.’s daughter. Oh, you’re in right!”

Crager stared at him.

“The hell!” he said.

Then Stella Fleming came in.


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Second August Number,
1929 issue of _The Popular Magazine_]



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75566 ***