Adventure Magazine Cover — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

52 time the train pulled out, and he quickly shoved on the throttle of the still idling ship. He gave silent thanks for the lucky chance that had made him leave the motor running—not that he did not have plenty of time, but it would be easier to spot the fugitive before he struck the thicker mesquite farther away from the railroad. He hurdled the trees fifty feet high and banked around eastward. In less than half a minute he saw the man below crossing a small clearing. Williams stopped and as the ship roared toward him Tex could see him firing at it. The pilot grinned. Ninety miles an hour makes a target hard to hit. He circled the clearing leisurely—a hun- dred feet high now—and glanced over at the train. It was a half-mile away, belching smoke in a mighty gray-blue cloud. He looked below and picked up Williams, who was walking steadily eastward. “Tt’s a long walk to the Gulf, old sport,” thought Tex. He glanced at his instruments and a bitter curse snapped out as he saw the air-pressure standing at nothing. It might have been a lucky shot in the gas-tank, or the tank might have sprung a leak from other causes. As his hand automatically dropped to one side of the cockpit to turn on the reserve tank, which fed by gravity and not air pressure, the motor started sputtering for lack of gas and the pilot nosed down to keep flying speed. His groping hand found no petcock. He had made a serious mistake,.and realized it too late. He was so accustomed to De Havilands, in which the reserve tank pet- cock is located at- the side of the cockpit, that he had not remembered quickly enough that the little lever which controls the gravity tank on a Jenny is above the wind- shield right before the pilot’s eyes. The little fraction of time was too much— the motor quit dead and the ship was scrap- ing the trees. Like a flash Tex pulled back on the stick, stalled—and dropped. The right wing caught in a tree, throwing the ship’s weight on the left wing, which crumpled against the ground. The fuselage shd for- ward and the right wing broke against a limb. i>) A SWIFT wrench that sent stabbing Ko) pain through his leg made Tex cry out. Then he found himself lying with a wing-strut not two inches in front of his eyes, his right foot still in the cockpit Adventure and his left doubled up under him. His wonderful little ship, a combination of lightness and strength, had saved him, plus the fact that they had hit in such a manner that the motor was not forced back on him. In a De Haviland if the wreck itself had not killed him the whole mass would probably have been in flames by this time. Tex forgot that his leg might be*seriously injured in the bitter thought that Weasel Williams could now make his escape, possibly. In an instant, however, he felt a wild thrill of hope as his swift-working mind hit on a ruse that might work. Care- less of the agony his wrenched ankle gave him he crawled out and surveyed the tan- gled mass that had been his ship. It was one of those wrecks where a landsman could never have understood how the pilot could come out alive. Beads of icy sweat stood out on his face and his face was drawn with pain as Tex crawled under what had been fuselage and left wings. He allowed one arm and one leg to remain exposed, and quickly ar- ranged a linen screening that would hide his face and still be no barrier when he got into action. A tear in the linen allowed him to see without being seen. This ac- complished, he leaned back, stretched prone beneath the wreck and waited. Lying motionless as he was, his ankle ceased to be so painful. He knew that he must be less than half a mile from Williams and he felt sure that he had been flying so low that Williams had seen that there was but one man in the ship. The noise of the crash must have been tremendous and in addition he had wrecked directly on Williams’ course east- ward. It was almost inconceivable that the outlaw would not scout around the wreck. With his ignorance of flying. he would be sure to believe that the pilot was dead or at least unconscious. He soon saw that his reasoning had been correct. A wary head topped by a spike- like thatch of red hair protruded from be- hind a tree. Tex held his exposed arm and leg motionless. For a full five minutes Williams looked and then started fdr the wreck, keeping behind trees as he covered the intervening fifty yards. He held his six-shooter ready for action and in his left hand was a grip, which he placed on the ground behind a tree ten yards away. CORNICGLOOOKS (C@