[Illustration: At last the heavily-loaded Wind Bird began to lift
gallantly, then zoomed up into the sky.]
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A VIKING OF THE SKY
A Story of a Boy Who Gained
Success in Aeronautics
_by_
HUGH MCALISTER
_Author of_
"STAND BY", "THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVER SHIP",
"STEVE HOLWORTH OF THE OLDHAM WORKS",
"CONQUEROR OF THE HIGHROAD",
"FLAMING RIVER".
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A VIKING OF THE SKY
Copyright, MCMXXX
_by_ The Saalfield Publishing Company
Printed in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
I NIGHT HAWK
II WINGS
III FLYING HOPE
IV WINDS OF CHANCE
V CHALLENGING THE AIR
VI ON THE WING
VII A ONE-SHIP CARNIVAL
VIII RIVER OF THE WIND
IX GROUND WORK
X SAFETY AND DANGER
XI AN AERIAL MESSAGE
XII QUICK ACTION
XIII VISION
XIV DOWN THROUGH THE AIR
XV TWO ROADS TO FAME
XVI ABOVE THE CLOUDS
XVII FIGHTING THE TORRENT
XVIII TO THE RESCUE
XIX WHEN LAND CRUMBLED
XX PRISONED WINGS
XXI CALL OF THE WINDS
XXII WINGING WESTWARD
XXIII FIGHTING DEATH
XXIV NIGHT
XXV HIS NAME ACROSS THE SKY
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A Viking of the Sky
CHAPTER I
NIGHT HAWK
"Oh, how I wish I was up there!" muttered Hal Dane to himself as he
cocked an eye upward into the far heights of the moonlit sky.
In mind, Hal Dane was already just below the stars, riding the clouds in
a winged ship; before him, on imaginary instrument board, ticked the
latest thing in indicator, controller, tachometer. And all the while,
like the other half of a dual personality, his hands and feet
mechanically guided his rattletrap old truck along the ruts of the
lonesome country road. On the downgrades Hal's left hand with skill of
long practice chocked a brakeless wheel with a wooden block, and on the
upgrades his right foot judiciously kicked a wire that let on extra
"juice" for the pull.
In Hillton, Hal's home village, folks laughed considerably over the
Western Flyer, which a green daub of paint on the sideboards flaunted to
the world as the ancient truck's title. But folks didn't laugh at the
boy who persistently patched up the rattletrap and drove it. Anyone knew
that it took genius of sorts even to hold the contraption to the
straight road.
For all its decrepitude, Hal had to hang on to the old truck. It
furnished his living--and a living for his mother and his great-uncle
Telemachus, who was "stove-up with rheumatism." The weeks when hauling
was brisk, the truck even earned a few strange luxuries such as queer
Hal Dane would want--bottles of odd-smelling glue, old wire springs and
bits of metal from Kerrigan's junk pile, and now and then a precious
book full of diagrams of aeronautical engines.
Usually Hal got a chance to make at least one trip a day, hauling garden
truck over the thirty-mile route from Hillton to Interborough, the
nearest city. On the return trip he'd bring supplies for the little
stores in his home village and other villages beyond Hillton.
Sometimes he had the luck to land a second sixty-mile round of hauling
in one day--like the present occasion that was bringing him rattling
homeward in the night.
Night hauling was wearisome work, and if it hadn't been for Hal's lively
imagination he would have been tempted to doze on his job. But Hal
Dane's air-minded brain was seething with spirals and Immelmanns and
three-point landings. One of the great events of his life, the State Air
Meet at Interborough, had been over for a week, but every flight and
entry was still fresh in the boy's mind. He lived them over again. By
twist of the imagination old man Herman's two milk cans rhythmically
banging against Grocer Kane's crate of lard buckets seemed almost the
roar of a stunt plane warming up for action. Hal could almost think
himself into seeing in that empty stretch of sky above the host of
planes that had formed the "flying circus" of last week. There had been
Rex Raynor, famous pilot who stunted upside-down; there had been aerial
rope-swingers and ladder-climbers. There had been--
"Bang--bong--scre-e-eak!"
With a snort of dismay at the clattering outspilling of his load and the
scrape of his truck as it careened sideways, Hal chocked his wheel and
leaped for the ground.
"Jumping catfish!" moaned the lanky, long-legged blond young trucker as
he raced madly down the road he had just rattled up. "Ought to have
looked back once in a while 'stead of always up at the sky--wouldn't
have happened then!" And onward he sped, chasing a runaway wheel.
This, though, was no unheard-of performance. The Western Flyer flung
some piece of its anatomy to the winds on at least every other trip.
With a grunt of satisfaction young Dane fell upon his miscreant wheel as
it thumped to a standstill in a ditch. Methodically he trundled it back
along the road, jacked up the ancient truck on the side where its
protruding axle had ploughed the ground for some forty yards, and set to
work repairing damages.
An hour later the boy had his wheel cotter-pinned and hub-capped back
into place. As he slid under the steering gear, he determined to keep
his eyes and his mind out of the sky, and to concentrate all energies on
navigating the Western Flyer safe into her garage by dawning.
But farther along the road his imagination began playing him false
again. Rhythmic thump of his load of cans seemed to simulate whir and
zoom of an air engine.
Imagination! Was it imagination?
All in a quiver of excitement, Hal Dane silenced his own engine and
cocked a listening ear towards the skies.
There it was again--faint hum of a motor high in the air. An airplane
was winging its way across the forest-covered hills that lay between
Interborough and the railroad gap at Morris Crossing. No air mail route
lay that way. This must be something out of ordinary; an important
message to be dropped at the railroad crossing, perhaps.
"Gosh!" ejaculated Hal to himself. "Speaking of dreaming things till you
really see 'em! Listen at her coming in!"
The plane was swooping nearer; was now practically above him. Staring
upward, Hal caught a glimpse of the spotlight focused on the hills
below. It was turning from side to side. The boy looked on with anguish
beginning to clutch at his heart. The motor of the plane was missing in
an alarming manner. It sputtered and coughed--ran smoothly for a few
seconds, then sputtered again.
"Trouble!" muttered Hal. "In trouble and looking for a place to land.
There's no place--unless--"
Above him the plane slid crazily on its way. Now it seemed to hang in
the air at a mere crawl, now it shot onward. At a spot which Hal judged
was a couple of miles distant, the light became stationary for an
instant, then tipped sharply downward and was swallowed up by the pine
forests on the hills.
"A crash!" whispered Hal Dane. He shut his eyes, then opened them
quickly, staring hard at the moonlit landscape to impress location on
his memory. That jagged pine, that spur of the hill--it was somewhere
between these that the plane had crashed.
Next moment the boy was on the ground and cranking up his old truck like
one possessed. As it roared into life, he swung aboard and let her out
for all she was worth. In the case of a human pinned under wreckage in
horrible certainty of fire or suffocation, speed of rescue must mean the
saving of life. So down the woods road shot Hal, his ancient truck
gallantly riding roots and ruts and snorting to the charge with a
backfire like gattling guns. A tire blew out and nearly careened Hal,
truck and all into a bank. But the boy held to the wheel, wrenched her
nose straight to the road and bumped onward. A second tire burst, and
the bumping went on more evenly.
Then the headlights showed an opening through the trees where great
white wings lay flattened to the earth.
"He made it down--in the only landing place for miles!" jubilated Hal as
he leaped from the truck and raced toward the grounded plane.
As he reached the scene of the crash he saw that the plane really had
made a marvelous landing, merely slightly down-tipped as to nose, and
frame intact save where a sapling stub had torn a jagged hole through
one wing.
Minor injuries to the plane--but the man! The aviator hung limp against
the supporting belt. As the boy loosed buckles and lifted the pilot out,
he felt blood dampen his hands.
Hal raced to a stream he remembered crossing. With his hat full of
water, he was back and kneeling beside the aviator, splashing water in
his face.
It was like a ghost rising from the dead when the prostrate man flicked
open his eyes, then suddenly--as though some valiant pull of power
within urged him--staggered to his feet, made a few steps and leaned
heavily against his plane.
"Why--" Hal Dane's mouth dropped open in amazement as he stared at the
figure picked out whitely in the moonlight, "it's--it's Rex Raynor,
famous--"
"Yes--yes! Don't waste time gawking at me. Need help--got to get
this--this packet on the train--at crossing!" He touched the bulge of
the packet beneath his coat. His eyes were wild with pain, but somehow
he forced his voice to be steady, even as he forced his body to stay
upright. "Can you help--patch things--get me off--"
"Yes," Hal Dane answered, "yes!" At first he had thought to offer the
truck, but two tires were down and the back axle had steered in a
strangely crooked fashion towards the end of that wild dash over stumps
and boulders. It might take hours, days, to get the truck back into
running order. The plane--maybe there was a chance there!
First, though, Hal slit open the bloody sleeve of Raynor's coat and
shirt. From torn strips of clothing he made bandages over a bullet wound
in the lower left arm, and tightened a tourniquet above to stop further
bleeding.
With iron grit Raynor held on to himself--sheer will power must have
kept him from fainting a dozen times. In his harsh, steady voice he
barked out his orders.
The impaling sapling was cut away below the plane wing. Then the upper
length of wood was worked gently out of the jagged hole it had torn in
the fabric. With quick, deft fingers Hal Dane whittled repair sticks out
of pieces of pine. Wire from his tool chest slid in tight coils over
wood, under wood, binding breaks together. Except for his overalls, Hal
had very little clothing left. What hadn't gone for tourniquet was now
masquerading as wing fabric. Tire glue had to do duty as "dope" to
lacquer smooth the patched wing.
Rex Raynor, flyer, was too pain-dazed for his mind to give even passing
thought to the strangeness of his finding, out here in the pine woods, a
long-legged youth whose nimble fingers seemed expert at splicing
framework and patching wing fabric. The trouble he was in tensed his
nerves to breaking point. His one idea was, "The packet must go on--the
packet must reach the safety of railroad officials at Morris Crossing."
In between directions for repair work and frantic urgings for haste,
Raynor muttered broken details of the disaster that had befallen him.
Blue prints--aerial engine designs for the Nevo-Avilly contest--finished
too late to submit even by air mail--rushing to get packet aboard mail
car at crossing. Nobody supposed to know of his engine designs. As
Raynor crossed level by forest ranger's hut, a red rocket, distress
signal, had shot into the sky, signaling him to a landing. Knowing that
the ranger, a former flying pal, had been disabled by illness, Raynor
had answered the silent call by gliding to earth to render aid in some
emergency. Instead of the ranger, a masked bandit had leaped upon the
aviator, demanding the packet, even before switch could be cut or motor
throttled. In the ensuing fight Raynor had got winged in the arm by a
close range bullet, but had managed to shake off his assailant, and had
risen to the safety of the airways in his plane.
Knowing that one such daredevil attack would likely mean further
pursuit, Raynor fought off bodily pain and strove to keep his mind fixed
to one purpose--getting the packet aboard the U. S. mail train.
The flyer completed examination by electric torch of landing-gear,
engine, wings, Hal's last improvised piece of patchwork that was
hardening miraculously under its spread of tire glue.
"You have done well--it is good!" exulted Raynor, as with the boy's help
he trundled the plane backwards to get room for the take-off. "We have
twenty minutes--we will make it." He motioned Hal to climb into the
front cockpit.
For a breath Hal Dane stood rigid. At last it had come--his chance to
ride in a real plane! But he stood motionless. This man Raynor--fever
burned like delirium in his eyes, he fairly staggered from weakness. A
risky pilot to ride with! And yet the courage in that iron set of jaw,
the determination that drove a pain-weakened body to serve the will!
Raynor had come this far--Raynor would carry on to the end. And Hal Dane
would be in at that ending.
A thrill shot through the boy as he made his lightning-quick decision
and climbed breathlessly aboard.
Raynor cranked the motor with his one good hand, kicked aside a wood
chunk that had blocked the wheels, and scrambled heavily into the rear
cockpit. With a roar the plane moved across the clearing, gathered
speed, lifted within two hundred yards of the tree line. They were up
and off, a thousand feet above earth!
Hal Dane's blood pounded, he gasped for breath. Then he relaxed into a
feeling of keen delight.
Hal Dane actually flying! The boy knew instinctively that from now on
flying was to be his real life. He had managed this one time to skim the
clouds. Somehow he would manage it again and again.
Raynor had ascended rapidly. Two thousand feet below them the pine
forests lay like flat dark carpets. Little rivers and streams were like
silver threads reflecting the moonlight. In the distance a row of small,
swift-moving lights must be the east-bound mail train they were racing.
Looking earthward from the heights stirred no qualm, no dizziness in the
boy. He felt at ease, in his own peculiar element. Turning his mind
backward, it seemed that every event in his life had culminated in this
engine-powered flight with wings.
Even as Hal's serene gaze sought the pinpoints of trees and the silver
dots of water on the earth below, the great plane shot higher, looped
downward, aimed her nose at the stars again. After that came a sensation
of falling, then a careening, tipping of wings from side to side.
Rise, fall, dip--all consumed mere space of a breath.
Hal Dane whirled around from his earth gazing, to steal a glance at the
pilot behind him.
There was reason for those wing-dips. Rex Raynor hung in a fainting
huddle across his strap. Almost at the glorious end of his race for
time, the flyer's iron will had lost its fight against pain.
Raynor's ship was a teaching boat, outfitted with dual controls. Between
Hal's knees rose a stick, mate to the control from which the pilot's
hand had fallen.
Instinctively Hal Dane's hand shot out to grasp this lever. His one
desire was to shove with all his power on the
gear,--forward--back--anywhere, to steady this awful tipping, skidding
roll that was hurling the boat downward. But even as Hal's hand touched
the knob of the stick, reason surged through his brain like a shout of
"Wait, wait! Death lies that way!"
Reason was right. Hal's fingers clenched into palm to keep from seizing
the gear. He must think it out, know what he must do before he ever
shoved that lever a hair's breadth. With cold sweat bursting out to
drench him, and his brain prickling to the terror of falling,
falling,--yet Hal Dane held himself rigid, eyes closed, while in his
mind's eye he made himself see again the paper diagram of a Wright
motor's control board. In his own cluttered old workshop at home he had
memorized every movement of manipulating ailerons, elevators, rudder.
Memory must save his and another's life now.
When Hal opened his eyes again, his stiff lips were muttering, "Stick
pushed forward, manipulates elevators--plane descends; pulled back,
plane rises; pushed to right, operates ailerons for right wing bank;
left, for left bank--"
To the boy mere moments had seemed hours of hurling earthward. He felt
that the very tree tops must soon be dragging at the landing gear,
crippling the plane for its crash. He longed desperately to look, to see
just what space lay between him and death.
Instead, for two dreadful seconds, he forced calm eyes to study the
control board, forced his hand to hold the fat knob of the stick in a
firm grip, to pull back--gently, gently.
And gently the ship lifted. Descent changed to ascent.
A sob of relief tore through the boy's throat. They were going up, up!
The waving octopus arms of the tree tops could not snare them to death
now.
It seemed he could never get enough of going up. He was above the clouds
now. The ship answered beautifully to every touch on the controls. A
slight pressure on the stick to the right operated ailerons and the
right wing dropped to form a right bank that drifted the ship in a wide,
lazy circle.
The response of the mechanism was wonderful. It was like a living thing
that moved at a touch. Hal Dane felt lifted on wings of his own.
Then he passed beyond the bank of clouds. Two thousand feet below him on
the earth crawled a tiny earthworm thing strung with lights--the mail
train, the crossing!
Elation ebbed from young Dane's mind.
In the sky heights was safety. On the ground below lurked death,
awaiting the slightest mischance in landing.
And yet Hal Dane must come down to a forced landing--now--immediately.
He was not here to skim the clouds for exhilarating joy. He must rush a
wounded man and an important packet to the train crossing.
Slowly young Dane circled earthward. And each downdrift laid a chill of
terror on his heart. Now that he was coming to earth, earth looked most
unnatural. Morris Crossing should be familiar ground; yet viewed in the
white moonlight from over a plane edge, all things took on monstrously
strange proportions. In his terror Hal began to feel that he could not
distinguish a field from a forest, a road from a river. He might smash
across housetops, might hurl himself, plane and all, into the moving
train before he could stop. No, he could not do this thing, could not!
If gasoline held out, he could drift in mid-air till morning.
In answer to his sudden tense pressure, the elevator was pulled so hard
that the machine all but stalled, then fortunately cleared off and
zoomed upward at intense speed.
High air--safety again!
But Hal Dane was no coward. Up in the heights, his brain seemed to cool.
The train was coming in. It was a matter of seconds. And he must meet
that train with the packet.
Coolly he began to map in his mind the lay of the ground close to Morris
Crossing. There was the group of small houses, the improvised box-car
waiting-room, a storehouse, behind that an empty, rolling stretch of
field. That was his chance. He must somehow land in that field.
A week ago, at the Air Meet in Interborough, Hal had watched innumerable
airplanes cut motors and circle down. He had studied and read everything
on aviation he could lay hands on--he knew exactly what he ought to do.
But actually to do it! A terror chill quivered up the boy's spine.
Then he set teeth, coolly stopped the motor, pressed into a bank that
began to drop the plane in great circles. Dane tried to remember
everything at once--best to volplane down in spirals of a certain
size--must flatten off to save a nose dive--must--
Then the black earth came up to meet Hal Dane.