Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

84 space into a bottomless void below, without a detail save now and then, as they circled, a dim glow that came from the electric lights of the resort they had left. . Ward turned the rays of his little pocket flash-lamp upon the dial of his altimeter every now and then, watching the needle slowly crawling around as they rose higher and higher. When it marked four thousand feet, he headed southwest toward the lonely railroad station at the foot of the range of hills that had so suddenly become the very center of all the hopes and desires of his life. The girl beside him did not stir during the flight. Once or twice he glanced at her before snapping out his light after an alti- meter reading, but she did not even look up. Her eyes were fixed into the darkness straight ahead, calm and undisturbed, but deep with an expression of brooding thoughtfulness. He felt the magic of the night creep upon him and the greater magic of her nearness to him; he was almost tempted to reach out and touch the edge of her dress as she sat close to With every turn of the propeller, he had a growing sense of drawing nearer and nearer to the end of this association which had come to mean so much to him. Whatever _ the outcome of this flight tonight, it seem- eee hie a, A) Ma ey Be Ot AN Te add Ak Pa ee ee Ae oe OS Os OO ee sient ial be Sic} A bay Lk : ae) peokfe, ; Oe . a ‘ . ‘ . . > ed doomed to write “Finis” in large letters across the only love for woman that he had ever known. The whole story of Caprice seemed now focussed upon that narrow stretch of land between Hackett’s Station and the camp on the North Branch, and no matter what the climax should prove to be, it seemed certain that it would make him no longer necessary to this girl—that it would take away from him the precious privilege of seeing her con- stantly, of talking with her, of watching the play of light and shade in the brown eyes as they sought his, of touching the firm fin- gers in the clasp of fellowship. IN THE inky blackness below them to the west, he suddenly made out a thin finger. of white light crawling sputhward. A moment’s inspection showed him that it was the headlight of a locomo- tive, a train from the Junction heading for Hackett’s before swinging around the curve at the foot of the hills and thence heading up for Sea View. © He welcomed it gladly, for he was trying Adventure to locate his turning-point entirely by stop- watch and a knowledge of his own speed. Now he circled easily, waiting for the train to stop at the station and then resume its way northeast. In a few minutes, he saw that the finger of light was no longer moving; then, again, it went ahead, swinging about slowly until it*was pointing toward the resort that they had left. It gave him his bearings accu- rately. He glanced again at his altimeter, saw that they were well above five thousand feet, headed due south, dived and cut off his motor. The girl stirred as the thunder of the en- gine ceased. He did not speak to her until he had guided the machine to its slowest safe angle; then he looked toward her and called: “Keep a sharp lookout below for the camp-fire. We ought to be over it in four or five minutes.” She was the first to discover it, It lay far below them, a tiny dot of light, like a dim star reflected from the abyss on her side of the machine, but with a descent of two cir- cles at a steeper angle, he saw it clearly enough to be certain that it was the beacon they sought. It was impossible at first to distinguish the water of the North Branch in the dense darkness that surrounded it. He located it finally by gliding to the south and picking out the reflection of the blaze upon the sur- face of the stream. Nearly a mile below the camp, Ward brought the machine down to the water as lightly as a bird. The stream was amply wide for it and it was evident that it had depth enough to make it an ideal water course for the speed-boat that Carter and his crowd were using. He helped the girl climb over the bow to the shore and the firm touch of her fingers showed that she was not even slightly ner- vous. She drew a deep breath of the fresh night air and joined him, in spite of his pro- tests, in hauling the bow of the machine well up on the shore. He made one final effort to induce her to let him carry out the rest of the task alone. “Tt will be perfectly useless for you to go to the camp with me,” he argued, but she interrupted him with, “Yes, and perfectly useless for you to attempt to go without me. I am not going to let you run the risk alone. You see, I am an obstinate. and (e(0) 0\(0 (0) AAILICe <S (Ee)