Adventure Magazine Cover — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

130 Scarth, by a really marvelous bit of nervy, accurate flying, had succeeded in dragging a weighted wire through the propeller of the stolen ship, forcing it to land on the Marfa airdrome. . ; “‘Well, I guess he’s about ready to take off,” said the captain as the noise of the motor died down and the mechanics pulled the blocks from the wheels. “T wonder what exhibition he’ll pull off to prove that we haven’t got a flyer to com- pare with him.” “I believe we have,’ returned Hickman. “The only trouble with you pilots is that you’ve got too much sense to slap the gods in their faces by doing all this crazy stuff to show off.” “Maybe this new man coming in this afternoon will be crazy enough to uphold the honor of McMullen. Hello! Here comes Dumpy!” The De Haviland came roaring across the field, two feet above-the ground. It was headed for the big baseball backstop on the edge of jthe airdrome, about fifty feet | from the squadron building and directly in front of it. As the great ship, still less than fifteen feet high, flashed even and to the left of the wire structure, it banked up until almost vertical. With a deafening rush it swept past the astonished group on the steps, around the backstop, and then up- ward in a_ beautiful climbing turn. Dumpy’s lower wing had not been five feet off the ground, and he had cleared the squadron building by less than twenty feet —the backstop about the same. Straight- ening out, he waved a fat arm to the men below and drove swiftly westward toward Maria. Cravath had watched these happenings with his mouth literally hanging open. “‘What’s the matter—don’t they do that stuff where you come from?” chuckled the C. O. “Why—why—the - fool!’ sputtered Cravath. ‘“‘lf that ship had slipped, or mushed a little more, why 2! “Sure. But when Dumpy has the stick they never do. And that’s the reason he gets away with all this bragging. Take his conceit about flying out of him and he’d be a good scout. But when a man flies like that, what can you do?”’ “The answer is—nothing!’’ stated Cra- vath. ‘And I’ll say this new man will be a curly wolf if he matches Scarth!”’ Adventure ‘That reminds me—get a car started to meet him on the 3:10, will you, George?” “Already gone, captain,” replied Hick- man, who was transportation officer in his spare time. ; ‘Who is our new addition,” asked Jimm .Jennings, who was just out of the hospital where he had spent three months as the result of a bad wreck. ‘‘He’s a young Texan who flew with the Royal Air Force from 1915 on,’’ answered the captain. ‘He took the examinations in July for the American Air Service and landed a first lieutenancy. He was a cap- tain with the British. Has three Huns to his credit—official—and was a prisoner in Germany for several months.”’ “If he trained with those Englishmen he’s liable to be a wild hombre,” remarked Binder, who had been overseas. ‘They were the wildest bunch in the world. They actually trained their flyers that way; not a one of them thought any more of their necks than they did of a nickel!”’ Captain Kennard, who had the D.S.C. for bringing down a couple of boche him- ‘self, grinned reminiscently: ‘There was a Bristol Squadron stationed at Cologne after the armistice, and they flew down to Coblenz, where we were, on a social visit. I had to fly a Salmson back that way so I joined the formation of little Bristols on their way back. That English flight commander led his formation straight for the Rhine, and by the great horn-spoon he never got ten feet above the water all the way to Cologne. It was awful! Of course I couldn’t leave the formation and admit myself beaten, but when we were scooting up that river between those high banks I’Jl admit I was scared stiff. You remember that first Coblenz bridge?” Binder nodded. “That whole formation went under the thing and never broke!” “You weren’t at Cologne when the Prince of Wales made his visit, wére you?” Binder asked the captain. “I never saw anything like it in my life. Those crazy fools took off in Sopwiths, and three | of them looped off the ground! Then the whole bunch lined up in the air, and one after another sideslipped down. Without any exaggeration most of them bounced their wheels off the side of a hangar. They got into a loose formaticn and looped, spun and roJled—in formation, mind you! I COmiclbook CO