Adventure Magazine Cover — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

174 mountaineey as something vicious and un- clean—a human’ vulture. He walked back up the field, after looking for a while down into the valley, coldly estimating his chances. “Help me bind Woodruff and your uncle together, will you Mark?” he said quietly. Something about him prevented either Mark or his sister from asking questions. Without a word they bound the dead man and his rhurderer together with the re- mains of the clothes-line. “Now help me lift them into the back cockpit.” It was a severe task, but they finally accomplished it. The old man’s eyes glared horribly with fear and hatred as Heming- wood adjusted Woodruft’s helmet and gog- gles on the head of his murderer. The sergeant’s head lolled back with the limp- ness of death. Hemingwood calmly length- ened the belt in the back seat, and snapped it around the tightly bound bodies. He folded the observer’s stool in the cockpit, so that the old man was standing, the dead body bound to him tightly. “Now what I’m going to do is this,” the flier told Mark and his sister after he had finished his arrangements. ‘TI believe I can get off here, if the motor is running. We'll soon find out about that. Il give you plenty of money—you can come down to Camp Henry by train, and all I said goes. T’ll turn over your uncle to the authorities down there, and you two can be witnesses along with me. All right?” “I reckon hit is,” saeldedl Mark com- prehendingly. “Now help me carry a couple of those small tree-trunks down to the edge of the field.” The two men had soon placed three of the trimmed trees which Hemingwood had noticed on the edge of the woods along the lower edge of the field, about ten feet from the end of the cleared land. The timbers were small—not more than five or six inches in diameter. *‘Now we'll try the motor. If she doesn’t hit on all twelve, I’ll go with you and we’ll take Uncle Lafe along.” Hemingwood crawled into the front cock- pit, turned on the gas petcocks, pumped up the air, and set throttle and spark. Then he gave the motor some stiff shots with the primer. “Grab hold of that propeller and swing Adventure it around a few times, will you?” he called to Mark, and the sturdy Kentuckian obeyed promptly. “All right—now get away from it.” The pilot snapped on both switches, and climbed out. He glanced at the rocks under the wheels to make sure they were all right, and then gave his aid brief instructions about swinging a propeller. The old man in the rear cockpit did not open his lips, but in his small eyes was the fear of the unknown. The girl watched with lively, if uncomprehending, interest as Mark set himself, Hemingwood’s hand gripping his wrist firmly. With Hemingwood doing the counting, they swung at the count “three.” The motor sputtered as the pilot jerked his helper out of the way, but did not catch. On the third try it did, however, and ran smoothly at idling. Hemingwood took a chance on letting it run for a moment without his hand at the throttle. ‘“Here’s sixty dollars—that will get you there all right. Come right up to Goddard Field and ask for me, and from that time on don’t worry. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir. And we’re appreciatin’ hit, Liz and me. Hit?s——” ‘Appreciate nothing. It’s little enough return for what you did for me, and you’re going to enjoy it, too. Why say, sister, when you get all dolled up down there half the men in cam . The girl’s eyes dropped shyly at his laughing insinuation. Hemingwood became serious again as he surveyed the darkening sky. It would be totally dark in ten minutes, and there was as desperate a trip ahead of him as he had ever had in his eventful flying career. " Good- by for a few hours—I must be going.” Mark and his sister stood aside as Heming- wood carefully inspected the stones which were acting as wheel-blocks. He climbed into the ship without moving them. Dusk was creeping over the quiet, deserted valley as he inched the throttle farther and farther open. Twelve hundred revolutions was as high as he dared run it on the warm-up, for fear of jumping the blocks. To his great satisfaction the motor ran perfectly on both switches. The trouble had evidently been the loosened distributor head, plus the effect of water getting in touch with the DOOLK (©