Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

28 I’m coming crawling around to lick your hand just to stay at McMullen you’ve got another think coming! I haven’t changed my opinion of you a bit... You can keep on telling everybody from Natalie Brewster down about how smart you were and what a clever stunt you pulled with me as goat “That'll be about all, Ransom.” The words were soft, but there was some- thing deadly in them. The pilot’s eyes as they met Ransom’s were blazing with such searing wrath that the observer instinc- tively shrank away, the words he would have uttered forgotten. “Now we'll get that log,’ said Tex in level tones, and without a word the observer followed him toward the river. Several sizable logs had been strewn along the banks, probably in one of the Rio Grande’s infrequent but troublesome high- water rampages. Tex selected the largest of them, which was about eight inches thick and ten feet long. In utter silence the two flyers tugged and strained until they loos- ened it and then laboriously struggled up the embankment. ‘Together they carried it to the field. Tex gave no inkling of whatever his thoughts may have been, but Ransom’s face reflected the complete misery that was within him. It had come—the beginning of the end of his career as a border-patrol flyer, and right then there was nothing in the world that could compensate him for the failure that deep in his heart, unad- mitted even to himself, ke knew that he alone was responsible for. They placed the log in front of the land- ing-gear wheels. Tex figured that there was room enough to take off from where the ship was sitting, so they began to roll the log up the field. It matted down a ten- foot strip of brush surprisingly well. To make sure, they rolled the log backward over the same lane, working in absolute si- lence. Breathless and dripping with perspira- tion, they finally rolled the timber out of the way. Ransom flopped down on it and wiped away some of the moisture from his crimsoned face with his sleeve. Tex sur- veyed the swath with an expert eye. It would be a fairly easy task to keep the ship going straight down the cleared trail, but in order to take no chances on the brush on either side he got a wrench from the tool- Adventure kit and quickly took off the wing skids. The half-oval braces, attached to the under side of each lower wing out near the tip, are for protection in the event of a ship’s tipping up sidewise on the ground in a ground-loop or quick turn. The skids might possibly catch in the weeds and hin- der the take-off. “We'll have to carry that log back over here for a wheel-block,”? remarked Tex dis- gustedly. ‘“‘Let’s go.” Ransom got up and helped set the log. under the wheels. Tex climbed into the cockpit, turned on the gas petcocks, set both switches at contact, pumped up the air- pressure and set throttle and spark. In lieu of turning over the prop to suck gas into the cylinders-she primed the motor with three stiff shots of gas through the priming- ump. “T’d better take the outside—I’m heavier and can pull you better,” said Tex and Ransom nodded listlessly. Tex took hold of one of Ransom’s hands and the observer set himself with feet apart and his other hand on the propeller. With Tex counting ‘“‘one—two—three,” they swayed back and forth on the first two counts and then on three Ransom pulled the seven-foot propeller through, Tex jerk- ing him ott of the way. Due to the terrific heat of the sun’s rays the motor was not at all cool, and with a sputter it caught on the first try. Tex leaped for the cockpit, shut off the throttle a trifle and listened to the steady hum of the Liberty with much satis- faction. ys of the rider who had started for the stricken ship an hour and a half be- fore and neither flyer noticed him as he tied his frightened horse to a mesquite tree at the cdge of the clearing and walked toward the flyers. Tex was intent on the instruments in the cockpit as he tested the motor, and Ransom was carefully searching for any tools that might have been scattered on the ground. Sefior Aldez—for it was the Mexican who had participated in the poker game at the Del Norte—approached interestedly. He had expected to see a bad wreck—perhaps two dead Americans. The Mexican was spotless in khaki, riding-boots and ornate silver spurs, topped by a huge, filigreed som- THE noise deadened the approach brero. As he came within a few yards of COmiclboo \ ) (©