Adventure Magazine Cover — page 146: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

136 side and looked at the landing-gear, the De Haviland still circling the field. Then he straightened up, crawled toward the pilot, and leaned close to him, apparently telling him his findings. This done, he climbed back in his seat, out the other side, and while the spectators held their collective breath he crawled out to the extreme tip of the right wing, on which side the good wheel was. Then the crowd below sprang into action. With willing civilians helping them, the soldiers quickly cleared a two-hundred-foot path through the impromptu fence across the field. The ship went north again for a mile, turned loggily, and as it headed for the field started a gradual] dive. As it neared the boundary fence Hickman could be seen, clinging to the right wing-tip. A hundred feet high, and the motor stopped dead—the switches were cut. force of the air-stream turned the propeller lazily. The dive steepened—speed was es- sential. A hundred miles an hour or more the ship skimmed the fence, and as it straightened above the ground the nght wing-tip began to settle slowly. Cocked up as it was, 1t touched the ground lightly on the good wheel, Hickman’s weight keep- ing the left end of the axle from dragging the ground. A mighty cheer of relief and admiration arose from the onlookers as the ip was stopped by twenty men from hit- ting the backstop through its excessive speed. Hickman’s nerve plus MacDowell’s perfect handling of the ship—— “Some combination!” yelled the captain, smiting the mayor of McMullen on a broad back that almost bent beneath the blow. The mayor, being engaged in waving his immense black sombrero, had breath only for a briefly profane word of agreement. WHEN word of the event reached Marfa in its progress along the bor- der Dumpy Scarth filled the air with oratorical questions as to why there was so much fuss made over the landing. : “Why, seventy-five per cent. of the Air Service pilots could have done it!’ he de- claimed, and usually launched into a de- scription of some forced landing of his own that he considered much more skilful. As a matter of cold fact, he was right. It had required A-1 flying-ability‘to make the landing, but the border-patrol flyers were all grade A flyers. Only the: Adventure Nevertheless, it was too good an oppor- tunity for kidding purposes to let go by. The incident had been made to order for movie purposes, and as newspaper articles, civilian comment, and finally the movies » themselves came along with MacDowell and Hickman featured, Dumpy became wilder and wilder. The deliberate effort of his comrades to egg him on was a constant stimulus. Matters came to a head when Dumpy landed at McMullen, ostensibly to borrow some spark-plugs, pending the arrival of a supply shipment from Donovan Field to the Marfa flight. His real reason for the long trip—the plugs could have been obtained from Donovan Field itself in less flying-time —was to try to belittle MacDowell’s achievement right on his home sod. He wanted to state personally that he did not consider Tex any flying wonder at all. “The trouble with you, Dumpy,”’ stated Binder with a wink at the others, “‘is that you think grand-stand stuff is the most skil- ful part of flying. As a matter of fact, it don’t show a thing!”’ “Grand stand nothing!” yelled Dumpy, almost beside himself with rage. “T’ll bet that I can beat this bird at any kind of fly- ing. All this cheap publicity on a common, ordinary landing like he made, with Hick- man mostly responsible, makes me sick!” ‘“‘There’s the window,” murmured Bea- man, who was enjoying the spasms of the fiery little flyer immensely. “This MacDowell, now,” pursued Binder, ‘Gs what I call a real flyer the best on the border!” Dumpy, his fat face red with wrath, registered complete disgust. “Best on the border! If he is, I’m the best cotton-picker in seven States!”’ ‘Well, now that Mac has come along you’d better take up cotton-picking or some- thing if you want to stand first in anything,” grinned Jennings. “Huh! I'd just like to have a chance to show this bird up!” The McMullenites, led by Binder, jumped at the opening. “Tn real flying—like landing for a mark or something—vou wouldn’t have a chance!” Before he left Dumpy had issued a sweep- ing challenge to Tex for a contest in land- ing for the mark, stunting, or any other branch of flying. Tex was off on patrol, but when he got back he demurred strongly. Comicbook (©