THE AEROPLANE AS AN AMBULANCE
On the sixteenth of July, the Aeroplane Express was inaugurated. Mr.
Blocki spent over a day on his sketch map of the country in which the
Utah Mining and Development Company was interested. This extended from
Bluff, on the east, to the Sevier Mountains, on the west, and from the
south boundary of the state as far north as the junction of the Grand
and Green Rivers.
The Company had six gangs of oil and coal prospectors in the field.
One of these was opening new territory in the Elk Ridge District.
Another had moved east beyond Abaja Peak on Montezuma Creek. To this
party, Sink Weston had been assigned. The other four parties had spread
out west and north. On Mr. Blocki’s map, their probable location was
indicated by pencil crosses with the date when last heard from.
No. 1, Hi. Clark in charge, had crossed the Colorado and was on the
banks of Pine Alcove Creek, June second, ready to ascend to the Henry
Mountains.
No. 2, Alex. Woodruff in command, was following up the Fremont River
toward Castle Ridge, May fifteenth.
No. 3, Fulmer Lowell in charge, was somewhere east of the Cliff
Dwellers, on Dark Canyon. He had sent in a courier, June twenty-second.
No. 4, Burnham Stenhouse, a young graduate of the Colorado School
of Mines, in charge, had not been heard from since it parted from
Woodruff, May twelfth, at the mouth of the Fremont, Dandy Crossing of
the Colorado.
“There is no reason to be apprehensive,” explained Mr. Cook. “But
Stenhouse should have sent some word before this.”
“Why do you want to keep advised of their movements?” asked Roy.
“It’s business. We’re following the petroleum and coal veins. When
they show up in one place, that’s where we’d like to work everybody.
Probably not one of these gangs is over one hundred and twenty-five
miles from our office, but they might as well be a thousand.”
“I’ll find ’em,” exclaimed Roy. “Here’s the map. I’ll get ’em all. I’m
ready.”
Young Stenhouse’s party was selected as the first to be located. But,
as a precaution, while Roy made his preparations, the next morning, Mr.
Cook wrote letters to all his “oil scouts.” Roy equipped the aeroplane
with the entire outfit he had brought from Chicago.
Food was secured from Mr. Cook’s house, and the trading stores. The
list was prepared by Sink Weston.
“What I’m apackin’ fur ye,” he explained, “won’t spile. An’ so be it
anything puts yur aeroplane express out o’ commission, hyar’s enough
fur any keerful man fur five days.”
The list included: 1½ pounds of crackers; ¾ pound of rice; 1¼ pounds
salt pork; 1¼ pounds bacon; 2½ pounds ham; 1 pint syrup; 1½ pounds
sugar; ¼ pound tea; 1 can condensed cream; ¼ sack salt; 1 jar cheese; 1
bar soap; 2 candles; 2 boxes sardines.
“An’ lastly an’ firstly,” exclaimed Weston, “two boxes o’ matches kept
separate.”
There had been no advertising of Roy’s departure, and the event passed
off with but a few spectators.
“An’ say,” suggested Weston, who had appointed himself a sort of master
of ceremonies, “ef ye git time down thar about Pine Alcove an’ are
achin’ fur somepin to do, remember my ole friend Banks, the Mormon,
the High Mucky-Muck o’ the Lost Injuns. Ef ever ye git time drop into
Parowan.”
Roy laughed and promised. Then he spoke upon the subject that he had
been thinking about all morning.
“Mr. Cook,” he asked, with a laugh, “what are you going to name the new
express?”
“Name?” repeated the manager--they were all standing about the
aeroplane. “Why, ah, why--I haven’t any name.”
Roy opened his “carryall” bag and took out the streamer the painter
in Newark had made. A moment later, the red letters _Parowan_ were in
place.
“Parowan!” exclaimed Mr. Cook. “What’s that?”
“Mr. Weston’ll tell you,” said Roy, reaching out his hand. “I’m off
now. Good bye, all. See you this evening.”
Five minutes later, the _Parowan_ was a bird-like speck in the
northwest. Sink Weston, with his pack mule trailing behind him, watched
it from the trail along the Cottonwood on his way to join the Abaja
Peak party.
“I reckon,” mused the old ranger as he sat cross-legged on his pony
and sucked at his pipe, “that’s the last o’ the kid I’ll see and
_Parowan_, too. Back to salt pork an’ alkali water fur me.”
Sink was mistaken; both as to Roy and news of the old Mormon elder.
But, for six weeks, the young aeronaut and his friend did not meet
again.
In that time, Roy made the name of the _Parowan_ and the Company’s
Aeroplane Express famous all over southern Utah.
Within a week Roy had located, although with the greatest difficulty
in the cases of the Lowell and Stenhouse parties, all the prospecting
sections. That done, carrying out Mr. Cook’s idea, each “boss” was
furnished a yard square of bright red cloth. Subsequently, when a
“boss” had any advices for the home office or desired to communicate
with the express, he kept the red flag flying. The result of this was
that when the _Parowan_ in what soon settled into a weekly cruise, made
the long, swift flight over mountain and desert, it landed at a camp
only in response to the signal. This was when it did not happen to have
orders from the manager.
Late in August, Mr. Cook found it necessary to go to Denver. Roy
carried him ninety-four miles to Dolores, starting at ten o’clock in
the morning, and putting his proud passenger upon the one o’clock
train. Five days later, he met him again, started from Dolores at one
forty-five in the afternoon and at three thirty-three landed upon the
Company corral.
But the only person in Bluff who gave promise of being able to take
Roy’s place when he left was the younger clerk Vic. Christian. With
a natural mechanical turn, the postmaster’s son soon learned the
theory of the airship. But he had not the inborn daring of the natural
aviator. However, he did not lack in courage, and after a desperate
struggle, he began making flights with Roy.
“He’ll do,” said Roy at last to Mr. Cook. “And, in the end he’ll be
better than a daredevil who isn’t afraid.”
Mr. Cook was skeptical. He used every argument to persuade Roy to put
off his return. But school time was approaching. And Roy was in the
third year of high-school. He had promised his father and mother that
even a hundred dollars a week would not make him forget the education
ahead of him.
The one event that shadowed the brightness of Roy’s experience as the
director of the Aeroplane Express was the tragic fate of poor Burnham
Stenhouse, the young engineer. Reaching Camp No. 4 one afternoon about
four o’clock, Roy saw the signal and made a landing. He found Stenhouse
delirious and in charge of one of the men. Roy attempted, with the aid
of his few simple drugs, to give the engineer some relief.
Toward evening, the young man’s temperature fell somewhat, but Roy
decided to remain by the sick man all night. About bedtime, the boy
noticed a sudden change in his patient. The man’s temperature fell
perceptibly and his delirium subsided into such passive weakness that
the camp took new alarm. Within a quarter of an hour, Stenhouse’s
circulation and pulse were so poor that Roy realized the sick man was
beyond possibility of assistance from those about him.
There was not a doctor in the camp. Roy decided that the man must
receive professional attention at once or die.
“I’ll try it,” he announced to Stenhouse’s assistants. “It may be too
late, but he’ll certainly die here.”
“He’ll die anyway,” argued one of the men, “it’s desert fever. No use
to make sure o’ two o’ you kickin’ in.”
“Ain’t no sense uv it in a night like this,” said another. “He’ll git
vi’lent afore the end.”
But Roy did not consider the matter of his own safety. He realized that
directing an aeroplane almost a hundred miles in black night with an
unconscious man in his charge was a perilous venture, but the sight of
the boy’s drawn face outweighed this argument. Giving the sick man a
hypodermic injection of digitalis and strychnine, he waited only for
some slight improvement in the patient’s heart action. Then he made his
preparations.
Roy’s operating seat was just back of the engine. Between his feet and
the motor, a pallet of blankets was made. Laying the unconscious form
of Stenhouse diagonally across the section in front of him, Roy made
ready his acetylene gas light, affixed the lamp to his head and with
the brilliant shaft shooting out over the dark sands made a start for
Bluff.
For an hour, he sat like a man of wood. The whirring propellers and an
occasional groan from the sick man were all that marked his flight. His
compass route he knew. This instrument he had tied to the section floor
where he could throw the search light upon it from time to time.
About the time he calculated that he was half way to Bluff, Stenhouse
suddenly made an effort to arise. As Roy’s right hand was controlling
the forward and rear rudder, he used his engine hand to gently force
the disturbed man back to his cot. At the same time noticing that the
engineer’s fever was rising. The delirium had set in again.
Perhaps another quarter of an hour passed. Then the prostrate man again
attempted to rise. The strain was telling on Roy, for, with neither
light nor landmark to guide him, he was flying at top speed toward an
unseen destination. The ceaseless operation of the rudders, the effort
to watch the compass and his ears ever open for a possible variation in
the hum of the engine and propellers would have unnerved the boy had he
not steeled himself to his task. When Stenhouse attempted to get upon
his knees, Roy again reached forward with his left hand to calm him.
To his horror, the sick man did not relax. Instead, with sudden and
unexpected strength, he continued his effort. The cold perspiration
broke out on the boy. He spoke soothingly and then sternly ordered the
man to lie down. But there was no response. The next moment, Stenhouse
was upon his hands and knees and made renewed efforts to get up.
“Water,” he said huskily.
The situation was not only pitiful, but perilous in the extreme. Roy
could not use more than one hand to subdue or control the delirious
man--there was no possible way to give him water--and yet, should the
man escape the boy’s grasp, it meant certain death by being dashed
hundreds of feet to the ground below.
Like an inspiration, the knowledge came to Roy that there was but one
thing to be done. Throwing his left arm about Stenhouse’s shoulders and
arms, he suddenly drew the man’s body close to his own. The sick man
struggled for a few moments. One of his feet came in contact with a
cross bar of the section floor and, as it snapped, the engineer’s right
leg shot through the hole.
His body would have followed, but Roy, with desperate exertion, drew
the weakened man closer to him. Exhausted, the partly revived man sank
on his preserver’s arm almost a dead weight. For over thirty minutes
the gritty boy held the engineer from certain death. When the lights
of Bluff came in sight at last, Roy’s arms were almost immovable. The
pain had almost gone, for the circulation in the left arm had stopped
and it was as rigid as if cast in metal.
He made no attempt to reach the corral. Back of the town, in some
manner, with his free arm, he managed to shut off the engine and make
a landing. When the aeroplane came to a pause, Roy was too stiff to
move. In time, he attracted attention, and those who came to his rescue
carried the engineer to Mr. Cook’s house. Later in the evening, Roy was
able to make another ascent and he removed the _Parowan_ to the Company
yard.
But his hazardous flight was without avail. Young Stenhouse died two
days later.