A HAZARDOUS LANDING
During the days directly following Dave Boyd's departure for the
North, news came in daily regarding the Greenland expedition and its
whereabouts.
Dave Boyd and his co-pilots had met with favorable weather; they had
made even better progress than they had anticipated. So far, so good.
Slim Tyler and Jerry Marbury kept in close touch with the progress of
the _Flying Cloud_. Though neither of them had fully recovered from
the disappointment of not having been included in the party, they
nevertheless drew a vicarious excitement from the story of the doings
of Dave Boyd and his distinguished company.
They flew daily, not only because they loved it, but to keep in
practice and to test occasional new devices that were constantly
coming up for trial in aviation.
"If we get smashed up," said Jerry jokingly, as they were taking a
spin one day over the country surrounding North Elmwood, "Dave Boyd
will be sorry that he didn't take us along. Two of his most
enterprising young aviators gone to waste!"
"You must think we're going to land in the ash heap," laughed Slim.
"That's the chance we're taking every day," said Jerry.
They had made a wide circuit and were returning to the North Elmwood
field when, looking down, they saw some of the mechanics and pilots
looking up at them and gesticulating wildly.
"What's all the shooting about, I wonder?" asked Jerry in some
surprise.
"Search me," replied Slim. "They seem to be urging us not to come
down. Don't you see that they're pointing to the sky?"
"I'm not an expert at the sign language," said Jerry. "Why shouldn't
we go down? No cops waiting to nab us, I hope."
"I don't know," replied Slim, his bewilderment increasing. "All the
same they have some reason. What's Cusack doing there with that big
paint brush?"
"Spilling a lot of paint, anyhow," observed Jerry. "Marking down a
lot of big letters. Henry's all stirred up about something. And
there's Tom Ellsworth running toward his plane. What in thunder is
up?"
They saw Tom jump into the cockpit, while Cusack handed to him a
bespattered sheet of canvas. Tom gave her the gun and shot up into
the air until he was nearly abreast of Slim's plane.
He held out the canvas strip, on which Cusack had painted in
sprawling letters:
YOUR LEFT WHEEL IS GONE
Slim Tyler and Jerry Marbury started as though from an electric
shock. For the message spoke of terrible danger.
They would have to land on one wheel, and that was a thing that could
not be accomplished one time in twenty without a crack-up! Even Dave
Boyd himself would have had hard work to do it.
Slim Tyler felt all the blood leave his face. Then he gritted his
teeth and set himself to his task.
There was no more gesticulating from the field. The men below stood
in anxious silence. They knew that Slim Tyler had read and
understood the message. Now it was up to him. No one could help him
but himself.
"Think you can make it, Slim?" asked Jerry soberly.
"Can tell better when we hit," returned Slim grimly. "But I'm going
to do an awful lot of trying."
He figured that they would hit the ground at the rate of about thirty
miles an hour. Then they would have to run along for several hundred
feet on that one wheel.
If the wheel were only in the center of the plane, it would be fairly
easy to maintain an even keel. But it was on one side, and the
tendency of the plane would be to turn over on the unsupported side.
That would mean that the wing would strike the ground on that side
and the whole thing would crumple up, while the occupants would
probably be maimed or killed in the crash.
"Throw everything in the plane that you can move over to the right
side, and keep yourself over there too," directed Slim. "We've got
to get all the weight there we can."
Jerry did as directed, and Slim, moving in great, sweeping spirals,
drew gradually nearer to the ground.
Down, down, he went, seeming to do scarcely more than float.
Down still lower, until the one wheel touched the ground. It dipped
a trifle toward the unsupported side, and a groan went up from the
anxious spectators.
With a lightning turn of the wrist, Slim Tyler righted her, at the
same time throwing the weight of his own body as far as he could to
the right. By the most delicate manipulation and balancing, he kept
the plane upright on the one wheel until the momentum of the run had
spent its force.
The plane came to rest quiveringly, and only then yielded to the
force of gravitation and sank gently over on the left wing, so gently
that it would not have broken a pane of glass.
A roar of relief and delight went up from the watchers and a rush was
made for the plane. Slim Tyler, drenched with perspiration from the
awful strain of that struggle, was pulled from the plane and pounded
and mauled by his enthusiastic friends until he begged for mercy.
"Gee, that was a wonderful landing!" exclaimed Henry Cusack. "I've
been on this landin' field for years and never seen anything like it.
Shouldn't wonder if Dave Boyd was right when he said that you were
the greatest flyer for your age in the world."
"Great work, Slim!" declared Tom Ellsworth. "I thought you were in
for a crack-up, sure. I wouldn't have given a plugged nickel for
your chances."
"Such judgment! Such balancing! Such stick work!" applauded Jerry
Marbury. "Slim, I take off my hat to you. I was already figuring up
whether I had money enough to pay for my funeral expenses."
"Just sheer luck," returned Slim Tyler modestly. "But you bet that
the next time I go up, particular attention will be given to the
wheels. A few experiences like this would give me gray hairs."
He was leaving the grounds half an hour later when he was accosted by
one of the mechanics.
"A couple of letters over at the office for you, Slim," he said.
"Better get them before the old stick-in-the-mud in charge there
tries to read them through the envelopes."
Slim thanked the young fellow and made straight for the office.
He was looking eagerly for mail these days. Since the notebook
containing the entries by High Hat Frank had fallen into his hands,
he had written to several places concerning Hugh Garrabrant and
Cameron Flood, but so far had received no word in return.
He was exceedingly anxious to hear from one or both of them, for he
was hotly embarked now on Nat Shaley's trail and hoped the miser's
other victims could aid him in his search for facts.
He waited with scarcely concealed impatience for Anthony Litwell, the
gossipy clerk in charge of the affairs of Boyd's office, to sort over
the mail and find his letters for him.
He got them at last. One was postmarked from a city in California,
where he had written for news of Garrabrant. The other was from a
town in Ohio, where he had hoped to obtain information concerning
Cameron Flood.
Back of the hot dog stand where some time before he had perused the
greasy, thumbed notebook of High Hat Frank, Slim Tyler opened one of
his two letters.
This was from the Garrabrants' lawyer and proved a distinct
disappointment.
Hugh Garrabrant was dead and had left no heirs as far as could be
ascertained. He had left, however, a claim against the Mt. Sunwa
Lumber Company which had operated in Oregon and was, Slim felt sure,
the one with which Nat Shaley had been connected.
The fact that Garrabrant was no longer living was a sharp setback to
Slim's hopes in that quarter. To get into touch with Hugh Garrabrant
himself, that was what he wanted, not a talk with a lawyer or an
unsatisfactory delving into long past facts.
He put the letter back into its envelope and shoved it into his
pocket.
"One lead gone," he said to himself. "Now I'll see what news the
other letter gives me. If Cameron Flood is dead, too, I might just
as well give up the investigation."
Almost in the first sentence of the letter he was informed that
Cameron Flood was indeed dead. However, he had left a son, Cameron
Flood, Jr., who would, the lawyer surmised, be glad to meet Mr. Tyler
and discuss this matter of mutual interest.
"This is better," crowed Slim. "Now I'm getting somewhere!"
He read on for a paragraph or two and his jubilant expression died.
"Now what do you know about that?" he muttered. "Isn't that just
rotten luck?"
The news that had caused Slim's swift change of expression was to the
effect that although Cameron Flood, Jr., was alive, he was
unfortunately no longer in his home town, but had left the city for
upper Canada, where he was about to join an exploring expedition by
airplane.
The expedition, the writer went on to explain, was bound for
Greenland.
"Can you beat that?" muttered Slim. "He must be one of those two
scientists slated to join Dave Boyd in Canada."
Now his disappointment at not being a member of the party was
redoubled.
"What a talk Flood and I would have had!" mourned Slim. "We'd have
had plenty of time to compare notes and map out a plan of campaign.
I sure am the original hard luck kid!"