Adventure Magazine Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

134 charges, made to the colonel commanding the district, had less weight than from an- other man. In fact, after he had left, the colonel laughed till the tears rolled down his face at Fitzpatrick’s profane description of the ten miles he had walked to get a team to pull his car out of the ditch, and various other highly spiced details. Then the colonel sent for Captain Kennard, who passed on to Tex the severe reprimand he received. And from Nogales to Corpus Christi civilians and Army men chuckled in unholy glee—even Dumpy, who was much disgruntled to think that he hadn’t done the thing himself. Dumpy didn’t begrudge another man his success—notoriety being Dumpv’s ideal of success—but rather he always cursed him- self for not having thought of doing that particular thing himself. As he read the papers after MacDowell’s little adventure in road-flying he felt himself slipping out of the limelight. His premonition was well founded, for only a week later MacDowell be- came an extensively advertised young man. Before that happened Tex had carved for himself a deep niche in the respect and affection of McMullen. His whimsical hu- _ mor, all-round capability and entire ab- sence of egotism caused him to make good with his flight from the start. They ad- mired him for his ability and liked him for himself. He was a never failing source of entertainment, as well. There was the in- cident of his first tour as officer of the day, for instance. One of the duties of the O. D. was to take charge of reveille in the morning and give the enlisted men of the flight a half-hour of drill before breakfast. Tex came in to breakfast with a wide grin on his face. “Anybody got a drill manual?” he in- quired as he seated himself. ‘“‘TI’ll sure need it next time I go on.” ‘“‘What’s the matter?” asked the captain. Tex grinned wider than ever. “Well, you see I never have had any handling of men and what I don’t know about drill would fill a library.. I got to hik- ing those boys around this morning, getting along pretty good, I figured. Then I got busy tryin’ to keep the rear of the column in step and forgot the front. They were head- ing for that shed where the crates are, and marched right into it. I didn’t know what command to give to get ’em out, so I sings eut, ‘Out o’ that shed; march!’ ” Adventure A gale of laughter interrupted him. With twinkling eyes but solemn face Tex went on with his tale, drawling a little more than usual. | “After that I figured I'd better run ‘em around a minute or two, for exercise, you know. So I gives ’em double time and ve start running. After we had loped around a while I was getting tired and then found out I didn’t remember what the command was to stop ’em. I knew it wasn't just ‘Halt’ so I kept on running ‘em, trying to think of it. I ran until my tongue was hang- ing out and my ears flapping with fatigue. Poor old Sergeant Sims out there was wheezing like a donkey-engine, and I pretty near cried every time he gives me a look of appeal. The rest o’ the boys was commenc- ing to drag the ground, too, and the lay was getting serious as I felt apoplexy coming on, myself. Finally I gets ’em headed for the mess-halls. Thank —— the doors were open. I headed ’em for the steps, stumbling and falling along, and then I just fades away around the corner. I guess they got to breakfast!” THE manner in which Lee Mac- Dowell became known literally the country over was simply another illustration of the way the spotlight of more or less general interest seemed to follow him. He was aided and abetted by George Hick- man in elevating a fairly common flying- feat into the realms of the unusual. Hick- man was one of the McLaughlin-Locklear clan of flyers who casually climb over and | around a ship in flight when ordinary rid- ing becomes too monotonous to satisfy their craving for excitement. MacDowell and Hickman were sent to Donovan Field with an old De Haviland, which they were to leave there for overhaul and repair, flying a new one back to Mc- Mullen. Hickman’s ability as an aerial acrobat being well known, Major Schaffer, who was in charge of the drive for new Air Service recruits, arranged that the repre- sentative of a moving-picture news weekly take some pictures of Hickman in action for purposes of Air Service publicity. The movie man was glad of an opportunity to get the pictures for his company’s weekly. Consequently George climbed around the big De Haviland to the great delight of sev- eral hundred civilians and several thousand Army men gathered at Donovan Field. It CoMmicbook ©