Adventure Magazine Cover — page 177: what you’re looking at

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

Direct Methods diving through the gloom at a hundred miles an hour. It was only three thousand when they cleared the foothills. The coun- try was still ragged, but it was level. Broughton pulled his left parachute flare. A sense of ineffable relief filled him as he saw a fiery ball drop earthward. Those flares didn’t work as invariably as they might. The eyes of the three airmen, stranded there in the darkness, followed that ball of fire with unwinking eyes. Suddenly it burst, and a brilliant flare swung downward on a small parachute. The earth was lighted up fairly well in a circle of at least a mile’s radius. Broughton cut his motors still further. He beckoned to Hinkley. Hinkley knew the desperate need for haste—that flare would not last long and the other one, hung to the right hand wing-tip, might not work. He worked his way rapidly back to the cockpit, careless of his raw finger-tips as he grasped wires and struts to help him along. The flare was within three hundred feet of the ground, and the Martin a thousand, when he reached the seat and strapped his belt. ‘There was just one possible field. It was a cornfield, apparently, about seventy-five yards long. There was a fence at both ends, Next to one fence was a road. On the far side of the other was a very small clump of woods. The flare was growing dim and perilously near the ground as the Martin, with all switches cut, skimmed the fence and settled. The corn was nearly as high as the bottom wing. The bomber no more than hit the . ground before darkness came as suddenly as though a light had been turned off in a room. The ship wavered, and there was a rend- ing crunch from_the landing gear. Then a crash as the ship nosed up slowly and the front shell of the observers cockpit folded back until it loosened the instrument board. “Hooray!” It was Hinkley shouting. ‘Jim, I never was so glad to get on the ground in my life!” Broughton made a wry face. suddenly weak from the strain. For a moment the two sat there motion- less, not even bothering to unloosen their belts. Then Hinkley turned to look at Graves. That gentleman was unloosening his belt. He was 71 “We thought you might want to smoke a cigaret, so we landed,” said Hinkley. Graves held up the frazzled butt of a cigar. “T chewed it up from the time you got out there on the wing,” he replied. ‘‘We came pretty near trading a Martin for a pair of honest-to—— wings, didn’t we?” “Or coal-shovels,” grinned Hinkley. “How's Hayden?” “Came to once and I put him out again and tied him up,” replied Graves calmly. “Let’s flag this car coming down the road and see where we are. I’d like to get the first train I can get to.” “We’re not far from either Lexington or Richmond. I saw the lights of a big town a few miles north,” said Broughton as all three men climbed out. They lifted Hayden out of the back seat. His head was bandaged, and he was still unconscious. “TY bandaged him up—he was bleeding pretty badly,” remarked Graves, lighting a new cigar with a steady hand. “Let’s get over to the road—there’s a regular parade of autos coming.” A string of headlights extending so far that some were mere points of light were coming down the road. The noise of a Martin, plus the parachute flare, had aroused the whole country. Broughton lingered behind to use an electric-flashlight on the ship. The ground was soft, and there was a ditch they had hit, besides. That was the reason for the nose- over. It was better so, he reflected. They would have run into the fence and then the trees at the further end of the field, and some one would probably have been hurt. Within fifteen minutes there were a hun- dred marveling people around. The flyers hired a guard for the ship, and then accepted the invitation of a man who drove a luxurious touring car to spend the night at his home. Hayden,. whose identity was not revealed, spent the night in the town jail of Ellis, Virginia, guarded by the tireless Graves in addition to the regular warden, and accompanied that gentleman to Wash- ington by train early the next morning. He was handcuffed, and rode in a baggage car to avoid publicity. As he was leaving Graves shook hands with the flyers in a matter-of-fact way. “You'll hear from me,” he stated. ‘‘Per- haps I may see you again before long. Good-by.” COnmmicloool< (C@