Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

32 when I was twenty years old,’ Shorty said. “Then why don’t you get dry behind the ears?” young, Sandy said into his microphone above Bill’s head. “Shut up, you long-legged brat!’ Shorty answered. “I'll check back later” Bill” BELOW THEM the newly cleaned Statue of Liberty held her torch point- ing skyward. The waters of the East and Hudson Rivers joined in the harbor of New York. Barges and battleships, tugs and tramps, steamers and ferry boats made their way through the heavy harbor traffic, their whistles and sirens shrilling, Little antlike forms that were men poured out of the ground on their way to their every-day life in the tower- ing skyscrapers on the lower end of the island that was Manhattan. Black smoke curled above the indus- trial towns of New Jersey as they hur- tled above them. The Atlantic Ocean shimmered under the morning sun and curved away. A solid mass of cumulus clouds came racing toward them as the State of Delaware spread out beneath the speed- ing formation. Skirting the eastern shore of Mary- land they fled above the choppy waves of the Chespeake Bay and into Virginia. This was all old territory to Bill. He had flown it hundreds of times. The formation was flying blind now, check- ing their position with Bill every five minutes, Of - Cape. Flatteras: . Bill checked his bearings carefully and al- tered their course almost due east. The drone of the powerful Diesel motors filtered back through the sound- proof construction of the big duralumin shtp. The montony of the drone brought a yawn to Bill’s lips. He shook his head and decided to give the con- trols to Sandy while he took a look around to be sure everything was as it BILL BARNES should be. sleep. : He looked back and up to where Sandy was riding in the circular, one-pounder turret above his head. What he saw caused his eyes to pop. Sandy was sitting with a gangling dummy on his lap. The dummy had a belly like a department-store Santa Claus and a head covered with kinky, black hair. The features were picked out with white paint so that the face had the appearance of a death’s head. The thing was bowing and waving its arms as Sandy manipulated the strings attached to them. Bill grinned and strained his ears to hear what the thing was saying in that high, piping voice. “Red Gleason and Shorty Hassfur- ther?” it was saying. “Why, of course I know them. After they lost their jobs as street cleaners they were stable boys for my uncle. My uncle gave them the gate because it made the horses sick to look at ’em.” Bill saw that Sandy had the dummy talking into his microphone. He turned on his own radiophone to see if Red and Shorty were listening to Sandy. They were. He grinned as he listened to the cracks coming back at Sandy. “T understand they are fliers now,” Sandy said to the dummy. “Fliers?” the curious voice of the dummy replied. ‘Drug-store fliers, you mean. They’re so dumb they think an outside loop is something you attach to your radio and hang out the window, Shorty told me he was going to the zoo the other day. J asked him why. He said he wanted to see one of those wild animals they had just captured—an amphibian!’ Sandy threw back his head and laughed in the best stage fash- ion. “T understand you do a little singing on occasions?” he said to the dummy. “Oh yes,’ the dummy replied, “I sing very well. That guy with the flat ears, Red Gleason, thinks he can sing, BB—2 If he didn’t he would go to oO CON) Ghook CO