AT RISK OF LIFE
Though the three young adventurers fully appreciated the chances they
were taking, their hearts were high and their souls undaunted. They
had counted the cost before they had embarked on their enterprise,
and they were willing to pay that cost, if an unkind fate should
demand it of them.
On they went over the wild sea, flying at an altitude of three
thousand feet.
An hour of this, and Slim Tyler relinquished the control of the plane
to Jerry Marbury, while he snatched a little sleep.
"How is she going?" he asked, a couple of hours later, when he came
to relieve his companion.
"Not very well," returned Jerry uneasily. "She doesn't answer as she
should. I was just going to call you and have a talk about it. I'm
afraid there's something wrong with the stabilizer."
"The stabilizer!" exclaimed Slim quickly, for all the meaning of that
disaster flashed upon him at once. "Here, give me the control and
let me get the feel of it."
It took him less than a minute to realize that Jerry was right. The
_Hope_ was tossing and bucking like a balky mule.
"I know what it must be," declared Slim, after he had run over in his
mind all possible reasons for the _Hope's_ eccentric behavior. "The
streamlined cable brace on the right side of the stabilizer has
parted."
"Parted!"
To an experienced airman like Jerry, the word was like the crack of
doom!
The young aviators looked at each other. The blood had fled from
their faces.
"Unless we fix it, we're goners," declared Slim.
"Of course we are," agreed Jerry. "But how are we going to fix it
unless we can come down?"
"I don't know how, but we've got to," affirmed Slim.
"I don't believe it's ever been done on an airplane while in flight,"
groaned Jerry. "Looks to me, Slim, as though the jig is up."
"What's all the shooting about?" asked a sleepy voice, and Dick
Mylert, roused by the excited conversation, came forward and joined
the pair.
"Plenty," returned Slim. "The stabilizer brace has given way."
"And that means?"
"It means that unless we fix it promptly we'll get a ducking,"
replied Slim grimly. "I can't explain it to you now. Let me think."
He needed to think and think quickly, for none knew better than he
what was meant by the parting of that brace that put the rudder in
jeopardy.
One plan after another chased itself through his mind, to be rejected
as impossible.
At last he fastened on one that offered some glimmer of hope, though
it was beset with manifold dangers.
"Dick," he commanded, "you'll find some rosin in a bag back there.
Break it out."
Mylert hastened to obey.
Slim turned to Jerry.
"Get me a spare brace, Jerry," he directed. "You know where we keep
them."
In a minute Jerry was back with the brace, a steel strut about a
quarter of an inch thick, an inch wide, and about three feet long.
"Here it is," he said. "What's your plan, Slim?"
"We're going to smash the rear bulkhead," explained Slim. "Then I'm
going to crawl to the tail of the ship through the fuselage. I'll
take a sharp knife along and slit the fabric on the top of the
fuselage. Then I'm going to push my head and shoulders through the
hole, so that I can have my arms free."
"But you'll be in the full blast of the propellers!" cried Jerry,
aghast. "It will tear you to pieces!"
"I guess not," replied Slim. "Anyhow, I've got to take the chance."
"Let me do it," pleaded Jerry. "My life isn't worth any more than
yours. Why should you take all the risk?"
"No," said Slim. "I've got the whole thing mapped out in my mind. I
won't be blown away. That's one reason why I asked Dick for the
rosin. I'm going to spread it over my suit, so as to give a better
grip on the fabric. You stay at the controls, Jerry, and try to keep
this bucking broncho steady until I've finished my work. In a little
while we'll either be riding pretty or we'll be at the bottom of the
sea."
He rubbed his clothes with the rosin that Dick brought, and with the
latter's aid broke through the rear bulkhead and slit the fabric
until his head and shoulders could emerge.
It seemed that the blast of the propellers, as he came into its full
force, would blow his head from his shoulders.
It would have been a delicate piece of work to do, even under the
most tranquil circumstances. In this wild roaring and tumult it
seemed impossible.
One end of the brace was bent into a hook with a sharpened point. A
hole had been drilled below the point of the hook. In the shaft of
the strut opposite the hole in the hook was a corresponding hole. At
the end of the shaft was another hole, larger than either of the
other two.
Slim pulled the hook of the strut through the fabric of the
stabilizer so as to hook the outside tubing, which was just on the
other side of an interior steel brace.
Then he put a bolt through the two holes and screwed the bolt tightly
into place. That proceeding clamped the strut permanently to the
stabilizer.
With a heavy pair of pliers he drew the end of the broken brace
through the big hole in the end of the shaft of the new strut as
tautly as he could. Then he lashed it securely.
It had been a fearful task that would have daunted a lesser soul.
The blast of the propeller was tearing at him, taking away his
breath, searing his eyes, threatening at any moment to wrench him
from his precarious hold and hurl him into the raging waters beneath.
His lungs were laboring to the bursting point with his terrible
exertions. His hands were so numbed by wind and cold that they had
scarcely any feeling left in them.
But he had triumphed! He had saved the plane! The brace was not
quite as rigid as he would have liked to have it, but amply so for
their present needs.
That it was working well was evident from the fact that the bucking
and balking of the plane had ceased. She was once more answering her
helm without protest.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Slim Tyler drew back into the
fuselage, got back into the cabin through the broken bulkhead, and
made his way to the control.
Jerry fairly hugged Slim in his delight at his safe return.
"You did it, old boy! You did it!" he exclaimed. "It was a hundred
to one chance, but you won! A thing I don't think has ever been done
before by a flyer--repairing a stabilizer while in flight. Didn't I
tell you this fellow could work miracles?" he demanded of Dick Mylert.
"I'm beginning to believe you," replied the young newspaper man
warmly. "Gee, my heart was in my mouth while you were out there,
Slim! It looked as though you were up against a hopeless task."
"Nothing is hopeless, unless we admit it is," replied the young
pilot. "I'll take a turn now at the controls while you boys finish
the job. You'll need a curved needle to sew up the slit in the
fabric and then you can repair the broken bulkhead. That will make
everything O.K."
Jerry and Dick set to work busily and soon had the repairs made,
pending a more complete job when they should be able to land.
It was bitterly cold, and grew still colder as they progressed toward
the Greenland coast.
Below them the sea was dotted here and there with huge icebergs,
great masses that had broken off from the ice cap and were now
floating in stately majesty toward the warmer waters of the south.
With the moonlight reflected from a thousand jagged points, the bergs
resembled gigantic diamonds. It was like a scene from fairyland.
But the aviators had not long to enjoy it, for great masses of clouds
gradually obscured the moon, and gusts of wind, growing ever fiercer
in intensity, presaged a coming storm.
"Something brewing," remarked Jerry. "Looks as if----"
The sentence was never finished.
A terrific blast struck the plane with such irresistible force that
it turned turtle!