Adventure Magazine Cover — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

50 Tex circled the field a few times to get altitude and then headed north following the course of the little single-track raiiroad, hardly discernible through the blackness below. The two-hundred horse power motors seemed to him to be barely purring, its roar was so low compared to the mighty chorus of the twelve-cylinder, four hundred horse-power Liberty he had grown accus- tomed to. To Sheriff Trowbridge it seemed as if his ears would split from the noise. As the world below grew more distinct, although shrouded in fleecy morning mist” Tex swerved slightly and drew closer to the railroad. ‘To east and west in‘never ending billows of mist-covered green rolled dreary miles of mesquite-covered desert. To the border patrol flyer, accustomed to fly daily over country which was almost sure death to flyers compelled to make forced landings in mighty De Havilands, it seemed like a joy ride to be flying a light little Jenny up the railroad, where small scattered clearings presented many possible landing-places. Tex figured they would catch the train in about an hour and a half. It had a three hour stop-oyer at the junction point, Chaparville, which they were passing now four thousand feet below. Three-quarters of an hour more and they should be in sight of the ramshackle laboring little locomotive and its dusty coaches. The tall pilot, constantly checking the r. p. m., air pressure and oil pressure of his smooth-running motor, waited patiently for the fast-approaching time when perhaps he would have an opportunity to pit himself against his enemy again. The joy of the struggle flamed in his eyes, but the deepened lines around his mouth and the set of the lean jaw told not of reckless anticipation but of entirely businesslike determination. A half-hour later the two airmen sighted the train, crawling like a snake along its green-bordered lane. Tex throttled to a thousand revolutions a minute and nosed down. They were traveling more than a hundred miles an hour as they flashed past the train. The engineer and fireman were jeaning out their respective windows in the engine and on the platforms the conductor and brakemen could be plainly seen. The curtains on the Pullman windows were all drawn—it was too early for passengers . to be up. Adventure The train seemed to be standing still as the plane shot past it. Less than a thousand feet high Tex flew on up the railroad, throttle wide open and motor singing the crackling song which told of perfectly functioning mechanism, Five miles on Tex sighted his field. It was two hundred yards long, and the railroad track ran along one edge of it. Tex dived for it and skimmed along five feet above the ground as he looked it over for ditches, puddles or humps. It looked good. He zoomed the mesquite at the northern end and then banked steeply around, gradually cutting the throttle as he did so. The little ship dropped over the trees, leveled out above the ground and stalled down on smooth grass-covered terrane that presented no difficulties. Due to the smallness of the field it stopped rolling only fifty feet from the mesquite barrier at the southern end—so Tex gave it the throttle for a moment and ruddered around until the ship was pointed down the field in position for the take-off. It would be a with-the-wind take-off, for the prevail- ing breeze was southeast from the Gulf of Mexico though the air was almost motion- less in the early dawn. Sheriff Trowbridge lost no time. The train would be rambling along in a few minutes. Tex helped him doff his cover- alls and handed him his guns. The pilot himself had on a short leather coat and his Colt was ready to his hand. “ll go down the track a few hundred yards and flag that there conveyance,” said the sheriff. “‘You stay back o’ me about two hundred yards in case they should hap- pen to run by me. That'll give us two chances. If I stop ’em fan it down pronto. Are you figurin’ on turnin’ off your plane?”’ “No, Dll let her idle,” responded Tex throwing helmet and goggles into the front cockpit. “Tt’s a lot of trouble for one man to crank a ship, and we’ve got plenty of gas.” “Yore the doctor. Ill mosey now.” THE stalwart old man trudged off ve -@ | down the deserted track, his iron- wei} eray shock of hair in a terrifying state of disarray. When the train hove in sight, a mile down the track Tex saw him stop, remove the vest he was wearing and start to wave It. Go VOOLKS =) a (C@