Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

FOREWORD ‘tT was in examining the precious stack of documents that lay carefully wrapped and ticketed in the old-fashioned vault pee SS] that our ancestors called a “safe” that T came across this manuscript, which in view of its preat historical worth, I feel obliged to publish that all men may read, We, today, being a race possessing wings, know the few facts of our pectiliar evolution. But cold facts like a cold egg do not attract our atten- tion or pique our appetite. And so in order to five more vivid understanding of what actually took place, I am presenting the story of my an- cestor who, to use a quaint idiom of his day “typed” these chapters of the great and most picturesque period of world history. Almost five hundred years have passed and the pages of the manuscript are yellowed by time, but it is possible in reading them for one to re- live the tale in its colorful telling. One has only to lift his eye to the air above him and see his fellow-man flying as the birds fly with wings out- spread, to become thankful that he is not like his ancestors of centuries ago who had to depend upon a poor sort of flying contraption that had been handed down to him. They did not know the pure joy of soaring above the eagles’ heads and adding yoice to that of the meadow lark. And realizing this the world can bow heads in reverence to the Martyred President of America and send up a prayer of thanks to our common ancestor, Howard Mentor! One could write at length on the advantage of having wings, in fact, our literature contains many such extravaganzas. In fact some of our humorous writers have pictured how we would have to live if we reverted back to our poor earth-chained an- cestors of the early twentieth century. They must have lived a pitiful existence. So our story starts in 1945. CHAPTER ONE went begging for space, It was really hard on those concerned. ‘Later, we report- ers, condoled with Annabel Warby because the time was inauspicious for a first-class murder, The American flaunted its news. NORDIC FE- MALES UN- SAFE IN LATIN AMERICA! MANY OF AMERICA’S FAIREST HAVE VANISHED WITHOUT TRACE!! New Race of Men with Wings Believed Responsi- ble for the Strange Disappearances of Visiting White Women! IT IS REVEALED THAT SOUTH AMERICAN OFFICIALS HAVE PURPOSELY SUP- PRESSED WORD OF ABDUCTORS FEAR- ING LOSS OF TOURIST TRADE!!! The newsboys made a bedlam of the streets with their ballyhoo voices interpreting the news as each saw it, and their papers went like hot-cakes. In the editorial chambers of the New York News half-a-dozen or so of us reporters sat about dis- cussing this latest tidbit, lamenting that it was Brent instead of us who had nosed out this de- lectable morsel. The wonder of it was that he had managed so adroitly to keep it all under cover until he had unearthed all the corresponding details and that no other paper had smelled it out. The accounts described the strange abductions in detail, but the signed columns-of Brent’s held the meat of the whole affair. LESLIE STONE “In searching,” he said, “through the re- Alarming News who made the “scoop” and The American came out on one fine morning avith four-inch scare- heads devoting their entire front page to the news relegating the less important de- tails of murders, rob- beries, gang-wars, stocks and floods to in- side pages. The Warby tather-daughter murder L: was Harry Brent HE present story is quite an extraordinary one, and aside from adventure, suspense and interest, it contains excellent science. A well-known evolutionist once said that if it were absolutely necessary for humanity to have four arms and hands instead of two, the extra. members would in time be evolved. Nature always keeps pace with necessity, par- ticularly if this necessity is vital. Once a member is no longer vital, it promptly is dis- carded, such as for instance, tails in human beings, It may not be known generally, that among the human family, there are so-called “throw-backs,’ which still have a prehensile tail. : The author has made use in this tale of an evolution of a most remarkable character and carries the reader on from chapter to chapter with neverending suspense. 09 cords of various South American cities I was startled in discovering that the old files held record of many wun- solyed woman-nap- pings as far back as two hundred years be- fore, and that then, as today, only women of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Scandinavian blood appear to have been the victims! “That fact in itself points to at least one clue, and it is evident therefore that all these comnliclooolks com