Part 2

Scoggins shook his head. “Not for you,” he said. “Nobody who’d ever read a newspaper would trust you to push a baby carriage full o’ bricks across a quiet street, let alone flyin’.”

King Horn nodded somberly. “That’s what I’ve been finding out--suddenly, Syd,” he said. “But I’ve got to get a job, somehow. And I’m not good, for anything but flying.”

He stared across the field at a ship gliding in for a landing.

“I’ve got to get a job, somehow,” he said again, rather desperately. “I’ve got to!”

“Sorry for what I’ve done to spoil things by writing those wild-eyed stories about you,” Frank Cross muttered. He had gone back to prodding the ground with his stick.

“I didn’t mind ’em--they helped the circus. But things are different now. And I’ve got to--”

Scoggins, who had been thinking hard, nodded toward the huge field that lay to northward of them.

“Try the Grand Trunk Airway,” he suggested, though his voice was not hopeful. “They’re just startin’ in--lots of cash an’ no sense. My brother Nat’s got a job with ’em--a guy named Winship, old enough to ha’ promoted horse cars, give it to him. Nat’s a God-awful pilot but he looks like one and he’s put in a lot of hours.”

“Winship’s a big man in Wall Street,” Cross commented. “He’s just been bitten by the flying bug, like a lot of them down there, and he’s running things himself.”

“Of course--they prob’ly ha’ heard of you, King,” Scoggins said haltingly.

“They probably have,” King Horn agreed. “Well--thanks, anyhow.”

He smiled at them, jerked a hand in farewell and strode away. Since he needed a job, now was the time to go after it. He caught a taxi and drove to the field which the Grand Trunk Airway had leased. There was nobody around the hangars but three disgruntled mechs.

“The big boss will be down for a hop tomorrow,” one grease monkey told him. “Nothin’ doing around here today. No orders or nothin’. We only got one ship anyhow--a three-motor job--an’ no organization. This here airway is hind end to.”

That afternoon King tried another barnstorming circus, two air schools, a plane-building company and an outfit that did a growing aerial-taxi business. Everybody was glad to see King Horn. They had cigarettes and conversation for him, but no job. That night he went to see Lyle Tennant at the little hotel near Garden City where she stayed with her father. She was out. At least he was told that she was out.

In the morning in his boarding house King looked at the Sunday _Era_. His exploit of the previous afternoon was on the first page:

KING HORN CRASHES THIRTEENTH AIRPLANE TO SAVE SPECTATORS

Aerial “Deuce” Wrecks Ship at End of Wild Flight

SLIGHTLY INJURED

All Through with Stunts, He Asserts.

King Horn is through. Rising from the wreckage of his thirteenth crashed plane yesterday afternoon at the Long Island field where the Tennant Circus is operating, King Horn announced that never again would he tempt death.

The pilot, whose whirlwind flying has won for him among airmen the title of “Ace of Deuces,” had survived a stunt flight that turned hard-boiled brother pilots pale as lilies. Then, just as he was about to land, a boy with a camera ran into the path of his machine. In saving the boy and some spectators who rushed after the lad, Horn was forced to wreck the plane in an effort--

The story went on and on, and recounted former exploits. King dropped the newspaper to the floor in disgust. Then he picked it up again, and read it through. Franklin Cross had kept his promise to announce his retirement, but the story he wrote was a story of recklessness and folly. It was a just story, King conceded even while he frowned at it. Cross was playing fair. The story wasn’t wrong; it was King Horn that was wrong. He read the other bits of news of Long Island flying activities with careful concentration.

After that he arrayed himself with great care in what is generally considered the conventional attire of a civilian aviator. He wore his only pair of whipcord knickers, with high Cordovan boots, a gray-flannel shirt and a leather coat. It was the first time in a long while that he had been so perfectly habilitated.

He worked grimly on the details of his attire. Looks had become important. He had tried the smaller air outfits and failed; now he must tackle the larger companies--the gilt-edged concerns that carried on a transport business, with mail contracts and regular routes. It was Sunday, of course, but there was plenty of action on Long Island even on Sundays during the summer. For example, Winship, the boss of the Grand Trunk Airway, was to be down.

He decided to try the Grand Trunk first. There were jobs there to be filled, anyhow, and he felt that he needed a job so badly that it would take a lot of refusing to keep him away from it.

When his taxi stopped at the spacious field leased by the new company, he heard the throb of motors turning at idling speed. The great three-motored monoplane was out on the line in front of one of the hangars. Its broad wing glistened like the path of the sun on smooth water. King Horn eyed the ship respectfully but wistfully. Then he forgot all about it.

There were, besides the fussing mechanics, four people standing in front of the ship. Two of these were Franklin Cross and Lyle Tennant. They were together.

“Maybe I don’t need that job so badly after all,” King muttered to himself. His heart was jumping.

As he walked toward them, Lyle Tennant saw him coming. And quite suddenly, as her eyes spoke to him and his eyes spoke to her, King Horn realized that he did need the job. She knew--and he knew.

Lyle came toward him, and Franklin Cross came with her. There was no greeting.

“That’s Winship talking to Scoggins, the pilot,” Cross said rapidly. “Come over with us and let him get a squint at you in that rig.”

“Frank--Frank’s helping, King,” Lyle murmured.

“Wait and see,” the aviation editor of the _Era_ retorted.

Winship was a tall, spare old man. In his pale, gaunt face his eyes seemed incongruously large and black. He was carefully adjusting a flying helmet while he catechized Nat Scoggins, Syd’s brother. Scoggins was not happy. He was answering volubly, but his eyes were uneasily dwelling upon his employer, who stood within three feet of one of the whirring wing propellers.

As King Horn, in his impeccable flying kit, approached, Winship stopped talking and peered at him with keen interest.

“A friend of mine--one of the best pilots in the business, Mr. Winship,” Franklin Cross said.

“Hope I’m not intruding, sir,” said King Horn politely as Winship nodded. He smiled at the nervous pilot. “Hello, Nat.”

Nat Scoggins grinned back, a trifle sheepishly.

“’Lo,” he said.

“You ought to wear that type of knickers, Scoggins,” declared Mr. Winship suddenly. “It is very smart.”

“I can fly withou---- Yes, sir,” Scoggins said.

Mr. Winship turned to King Horn with a benevolent smile.

“I am sorry I cannot ask you and Miss--ah--the young lady to join us on this flight over New York, but with Mr. Cross the ship is full,” he said. He waved a hand back toward the fuselage. “I am giving my board of directors a baptism of air.”

King Horn looked toward the cabin of the ship. Through the windows he caught a glimpse of several heads, white, grizzled or bald, bobbing about a trifle apprehensively. One, like Winship, sported an unnecessary helmet.

King smiled reminiscently at Winship’s elaborate regrets. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve been over New York.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr. Winship. “We old-timers are children at all this.” As if to prove it, he cinched on his helmet, turned and gravely walked directly toward the twirling, half-visible propeller.

With a howl Scoggins jumped for him. King Horn jumped, too, and faster. Together they pulled the startled financier away from the man-killing club.

“What--what” stammered Winship. Then he stopped. The unfortunate Scoggins, in voiceless agony, was bent over and walking a few steps this way and that. His left hand clutched his right. His teeth were clenched and his face contorted in agony. The idling prop had tapped him on the arm.

“Broken!” he gritted. “Broken!”

Lyle went to him, and he permitted her to touch his arm. “It is broken; we must find a doctor,” she said. Her voice was full of pity. “Hold it like that.”

Scoggins supported his arm. His self-possession came back to him. He turned to Winship.

“Can’t fly for a while,” he said tersely. “Sorry.”

“You must have my car,” the old man replied. “Smithers will take you to Garden City.” He motioned to his chauffeur, who stood at a discreet distance beside the hangar. “I appreciate what you have done for me; you’ll not regret it, young man. Meanwhile, full pay during your disability.”

Scoggins, brusquely declining offers of company, moved toward the car. As he passed King, he let his left eyelid flutter. It was apparent that Mr. Scoggins had recovered from the jolt of the fracture and was now privately rejoicing that he did not have to take the impressive board of directors on the flight over the city.

The door of the plane opened and one of the uneasy directors looked out at Winship.

“A mishap,” the old man reported. “I am afraid that----”

He turned suddenly to King Horn.

“You are a pilot; are you--ah----”

He switched his gaze suddenly to Franklin Cross.

“He’s one of the best in the business,” the aviation editor assured Winship. “I’ll be delighted to ride with him, for one, if you intend to carry on.”

“Glad to take you over, if you want,” King Horn said. His heart was thumping, but he kept his voice as casual as he could. “You understand I’m not gunning for Nat Scoggins’ job.”

Winship looked at him again. Obviously this young man was a pilot. He certainly looked like one and the aviation editor of the _Era_ said that he was a good one. Moreover, he had acted quickly in the recent emergency--even more quickly than Scoggins, who had been nearer to him.

“We will carry on,” Winship decided. “That’s what men do in aviation--carry on.”

“Right!” said King Horn. “’By, Lyle.” He looked at her. “I’ll be back.”

He scrambled aboard in a hurry, lest Winship should ask his name. From behind, the nervous board of directors looked at him apprehensively as he slipped into one of the control seats in the open operating cockpit.

King Horn looked over his instrument board while Winship took his seat in the cabin and Franklin Cross came forward and sat in the other pilot’s seat, beside him.

“D’you understand all these dinguses?” Cross asked, a trifle nervously, as he saw the array of instruments.

“Certainly,” King Horn answered. “Don’t need most of ’em except for flying blind through a fog or night.” He leaned over and caught the eye of the nearest mechanic.

“All set, sir,” said the young mech promptly.

King Horn opened his throttles at once. If these old birds were kept waiting much longer he was confident some of them would blow up or melt away.

With the three motors hitting in concert he held the ship on the ground until he had something more than flying speed. Then he eased it off and, still flying straight upwind, went after altitude. There was no need to circle the field; for already another field was under his wheels. He decided it would be safer--since he was now playing safe--to get some air under this ship before he tried turns.

Franklin Cross was peering backward over the side.

“There’s a man back there waving at us,” he reported uneasily.

“It’s either fleas, St. Vitus or we’ve left a member of the board behind,” King Horn answered. “The mech gave me the ‘all set’ and the motors are ticking over fine. Take a look at our wheels, though.”

Cross looked over the side. “They’re all right,” he reported. He turned backward again. “Lyle has left. Maybe she’s in a car that’s heading for Tennant’s field at quite a clip.”

King Horn nodded. He was enjoying himself. After the obsolete wrecks he had been coaxing and hurling through the air, it was like sitting on a comet to ride this new ship. He had power--terrific power--at his fingertips, and the ship rode the infrequent puffs like a sentient thing. He found the stabilizer adjustment and moved the crank a trifle, until she roared along with no pressure needed on the wheel.

The city, an unconvincing array of tiny red buildings and black roofs, with here and there an eruption of newer white towers and spires to break the monotony, floated into sight below them. Even at the comparatively low elevation of two thousand feet it didn’t look at all like the mighty metropolis or man-crushing monster that may be read of in books. In fact, when King Horn looked at it, it reminded him of warts.

He swung northwest, hopping over the East River near College Point, crossed the broad and unimpressive Bronx and swept up the Hudson a few miles to give his passengers a look at the Palisades. Then, clinging to the smoother air above the river, he came southward again. These birds, he knew, would like a close view of the financial section, so that they could bore their friends about it next day.

“It don’t do to let ’em see that Wall Street’s no bigger than a flyspeck,” King shouted to Cross. “I’ll have to come down to where these buildings size up a bit.”

The aviation editor nodded.

King Horn throttled down and put the ship into an easy glide. One of his automatic glances around the sky suddenly encountered something more than vacancy--a ship coming from Long Island. Its wings were knifelike, for it was headed straight toward them.

Absorbed in his maneuvers about the lower end of Manhattan, King Horn gave the other ship only cursory attention. Suddenly, as they circled above the Woolworth tower, Cross touched him on the arm.

The other ship was almost above them and circling with them. It was a black-and-white biplane--King recognized it instantly as one of Tennant’s circus; then, with narrowed eyes, he noted that it was the ship that Syd Scoggins, Tennant’s lieutenant, usually flew. He stared hard at the figure in the forward cockpit. Undoubtedly that girl was Lyle Tennant.

Syd Scoggins was waving vigorously and closing in on them. Frowning, King Horn waved back. Syd Scoggins was not one to go in for hand waving without cause.

In answer to King’s upraised hand Lyle, in the front cockpit, lowered something over the side of the biplane--a bulky thing that seemed to tax her strength.

It was a five-gallon gasoline can, and by the way it hung in the wind at the end of the rope, it was a full can.

King Horn’s eyes leaped to an instrument beside his seat that he had not thus far consulted--the gasoline manifold installation, with two visible-type fuel gauges. They told him at a glance that one tank in the big wing above him was empty and the other had in it about two gallons of gas--enough for about three minutes more in the air.

The mechanics at the Grand Trunk Airway field had sent him away with almost empty tanks. Another hand touched his shoulder. He looked around. Mr. Winship had left his seat and come forward.

“I--that other machine reminds me that we were waiting for the gasoline tank wagon when--when the accident occurred,” he said.

“Thanks,” said King Horn, somewhat grimly. “Please go back and sit down. Keep your friends sitting down, too.”

He encountered Cross’ agitated eyes. “Th-that mechanic certainly t-told you the ship was all set,” the aviation editor stammered. “I--I remember now---”

He glanced distrustfully over the side. The city looked much more solid and stony than it had before.

King Horn shook his head. “It’s up to me,” he said tersely. “I was too quick getting away before somebody blurted out my name.” He was already throttling down and heading the ship into the south wind, toward the bay. He adjusted the stabilizer control for a flat glide, with idling engines.

As he prepared, he was wishing that he had aboard no cargo of old men, too brittle-boned to stand a rough, forced landing and too likely to drown or to catch pneumonia if he picked the bay. A mere mishap for youth would be a certain tragedy for them. Unless----

Glancing up at the biplane, which was behind the bigger ship. King Horn motioned Syd Scoggins to come on.

“Look here,” King said rapidly to Franklin Cross. “I know you’re not a pilot, but now’s a healthy time to learn. Sit at that wheel. If she dives pull the wheel an inch or two toward you; If she shows less speed on that air-speed meter than is there now, push the wheel away a bit. That’s all. If she should sideslip--never mind that. Remember! Dive--pull! Stall--push! Get it?”

Franklin Cross nodded. His tongue was busy moistening his lips.

King Horn stood up. “If I go--let her glide as she is,” he said.

The wind tugged at his leather jacket and drummed upon the earflaps of his helmet. He paid no heed. All his attention was upon the biplane above. The tip of Manhattan Island drifted under them.

The circus ship drew closer overhead. Under it, swinging in the puffy air above the city, dangled the five-gallon can of gas. King Horn pulled out his pocket knife, opened it and gripped it between his teeth. He waved again and the biplane, gaining slowly on the idling monoplane, drew down so close that the heavy can seemed almost to menace the ship below it.

King Horn suddenly jumped upon his seat, planted one foot on the rim of the cockpit and scrambled up onto the thick wing of the monoplane. There was not a single grip for hands and feet on the top of that rounded and sloping plane, but King Horn, crouching on hands and knees, transferred his knife to his right hand and leaned into the wind and waved Scoggins on again.

“Come on!” he muttered. “Pass me that gas!”

The biplane dipped lower and the bulky can swung like a giant pendulum toward King Horn. He leaped to his feet and met the sweep of the can with his chest. His left hand whipped around it while his right slashed savagely at the rope that bound it to the biplane. He felt his toes lifting on the wing.

An instant later he was flat on the plane with the can clutched in his arms. He looked up, as the biplane veered hastily away from the giant ship down below.

Lyle Tennant was leaning far over the edge of her cockpit with her frightened eyes upon him. He grinned up at her reassuringly. She essayed an answering smile; then with a mighty effort lifted another can into his view. King Horn nodded. His hands were already unscrewing the cap of one of the wing tanks. He looked down again, into his own control cockpit.

Franklin Cross sat there, rigid, immovable. His hands rested upon the wheel as if they held a very fragile egg. The ship was still in the glide. The motors still turned on the last of the gas. The water of the bay was much closer than it had been before.

“Doing fine!” King Horn shouted at the aviation editor. “Once more and we’re set!”

He upended the can and sent the five gallons of gasoline gushing into the gravity tank. Five gallons--good for seven and a half minutes’ time at cruising speed!

“Just once more, Lyle!” he muttered.

The biplane was drawing in again. King dropped the empty can. It was whisked off the wing by the ceaseless blast of air and spun astern, dwindling to nothingness as it fell.

King steadied himself for another effort. Again Syd Scoggins jockeyed the biplane closer. Again King’s eyes followed unwinkingly the sway and jerk of the suspended can. Then the vagary of the wind and a touch of the biplane’s throttle sent it suddenly swooping toward him.

Facing backward, he met the swinging can with his chest again. But this time it was coming like a projectile. It thudded on his ribs and he felt the wing disappear beneath his feet. For an instant, with both desperate hands gripping the can, he was in free air. Then, with a crash, he fell upon something solid.

He writhed about; found that the can had knocked him off the wing into the cockpit. He had landed half upon Cross and half on the empty seat. The can was still there. Lyle had cut the rope at her end. If the can had swung a bit harder or if it had not been released it would have knocked him overboard or into the propeller of the center engine.

But it hadn’t. King pulled himself up. The ship was diving earthward now; his fall had flung Cross against the wheel. King grabbed the other wheel and pulled it back.

The water of the bay seemed leaping upward, catching at their wheels, but the ship’s nose raised and the defeated bay dropped away below them. King slipped into the seat, revivified the congealed Cross with a triumphant smile and went after altitude.

With a thousand feet under them, he gave Cross the wheel again, mounted the wing and poured the other can into the tank.

Then he turned the plane toward Long Island and safety. The biplane winged on ahead. King followed slowly. He had to stretch that gas and slow speed was the only way to do it. Once, remembering his passengers, he turned around to smile reassuringly into the cabin where the board of directors sat. One of them was unconscious; two others ministered to him, but Mr. Winship met King’s eye.

The dignified financier shook hands with himself in most fervent pantomime. King Horn looked sideways at the still blanched countenance of Franklin Cross. Cross had been game enough in the pinch but now he was not far from fainting.

“This transport business is great stuff,” King Horn confided, “but I don’t know that my nerves will stand it.”

“Great work,” Cross said with a shiver.

King Horn grinned. “Sinful recklessness,” he declared. “I’d have risked a forced landing if I’d still been in the stunt business.”

“You aren’t in the stunt business.”

“Think the old man will give me a job?”

Franklin Cross nodded stiffly.

“He will tomorrow, if he doesn’t today,” he said.

“You mean--we’d better have an ambulance handy when he hears who he’s been flying with?” King asked.

“Not just that,” Cross answered. His eyes glistened. He seemed to be thinking about something.

At the field Lyle was waiting--a pale-lipped, trembling Lyle in need of comfort and reassurance.

* * * * *

It was not until the next day that King Horn understood what Cross’ reticence had meant. King and Lyle were very busy talking to each other the rest of that Sunday, nor did King read the morning newspapers next day before seeking out Lyle again.

Consequently it was the thin little aviation editor who brought the _Era’s_ story to King Horn’s attention. Swinging his stick with a casual air, Franklin Cross walked across Tennant’s field and bowed with a certain awkwardness before Lyle.