Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

6 THOMSON BURTIS unbelievable. It was crude and ugly : and sublime. MacDowell turned around, his eyes glowing through his goggles. He pointed north of the town, and Daly nodded. There was a clearing there, and one air- plane was standing in front of a canvas hangar. Tex, who was flying, nosed the ship down and sent it into a tight spiral, directly above the town. Now Daly could see that derricks were being con- structed within the limits of the settle- ment itself. The white city was studded with them. A quarter of a mile east of Verona a closely set group of derricks, their boilers already in operation and the roughnecks busy on the drilling floors, indicated the original well. Most of the derricks were black with oil, and a huge sump was half full. From this as a center the derricks spread in a circle, the forest of them growing thinner and thin- ner as the circumference of the circle was reached. Daly shifted his attention to the field. It was small for a De Haviland, and spots on it testified to the fact that stumps had been pulled from its surface. However, it presented no problems to a flyer like MacDowell. He glanced southward. Santa Verona, Mexico, was in view on the bank of the river. Opposite it, on the American side, a small settlement looked like a con- tinuation of the Mexican town. The river was all of fifteen miles away, and the two towns combined looked no bigger than a man’s hand. That had been the place where a certain tragedy had happened ten years before, and for a moment Daly’s mind brooded over the past. Then, as the twelve cylinder Liberty’s roar decreased, and he felt the terrific wind against his right cheek which indi- cated a sideslip, he transferred his atten- ‘ tion to the ground underneath him. The center of town was but two miles away, and as he glanced at it he thought: “Seems as though there was a little excitement about us, at that! That’s funny — they’re used to airplanes.” It did seem that every living soul had stopped whatever he might have been doing, and was watching the big bomber come down. Tex had it sideslipping, right wing down. A hundred feet high and a little.more than two hundred feet north of tHe field he brought it level, cut the gun completely, and- glided toward the clearing. One solitary man stood be-. side the civilian ship, watching, and on the derrick floors of the wells close to the field Daly could see that all work had ceased. Four men on horseback were riding into the field as Tex brought the DH down on three points. It stopped rolling fifty feet from the hangar, and as they taxied up alongside the civilian ship the four horsemen rode to meet them. The solitary man who had been stand- ing alongside the ship went into the hangar. “Funny way for a flyer to act,” thought Daly. He transferred his attention to the horsemen. They were lined up on the line, and as the De Haviland stopped roll- ing and they could control their horses better, they rode around on the side of it. MacDowell turned off the gas, and Daly climbed out while the motor was running itself out. The horsemen dismounted silently. One man held the reins of all four horses as the other three walked toward the Duke. “The welcoming committee,” drawled Tex in his ear, and then said aloud: “Howdy. This is Verona, I take it? You’re not our guards for the ship, are you?” The man ignored the last ques- tion. “Shore is. Stayin’ long?” The speaker‘was a very small, dried up little man of about forty-five, Duke esti- mated, and he was slightly ahead of his companions. He was bowlegged, but he wore expensive field boots instead of the cowboy boots which would have seemed more in keeping with his appearance. Riding breeches of whipcord, a wellmade flannel shirt, and an ornate sombrero comnicloooks.com