Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

MEN WITH WINGS “Quaking, the youth retreated to the elevator shaft and started the motor, but he did not descend far. He lowered the machine just enough to allow his eyes to be on a level with the roof-floor. So noiseless was the well-oiled machinery that the man in the cape did not hear. Later the operator reported what he had seen. The man had already crossed to the girl’s side and said something to her that the closed door of the lift muffled, but the boy saw her smile bravely, Then the strange man tossed off his cape! “The boy had to rub his eyes to make sure of what he had seen. The man was standing in a close-fitting costume of white that seemed skin- tight, decorated with a snow of colored. feathers— bright and glistening. However, that was not the strangest part of him. He was winged! On his back pressed against his shoulder blades were a pair of wings, wings such as a condor might have. The boy swore they were easily five feet in length from the shoulder blades to within a few inches of the man’s heel, wings with long glossy feathers of golden brown intermingled with yellow and darker shades of brown. For joy of being free from the binding cape the wings seemed to stretch them- selves and there was easily a spread of twelve feet from tip to tip! “Smiling kindly the winged man had turned to the girl who tried to draw away from him in fear. The Irish boy admitted that the man was hand- some, with his bird-like features and his dark wavy hair and sea-blue eyes that had the distance of the sky in their depths. He walked toward Miss Berkenhart and as gently as a mother picked her up, settled her comfortably in his arms and with a great surge of those gigantic wings arose straight up ifito the heavens with his burden. ‘Bor several moments the boy watched the flight, and on the streets below were people who were staring in wonder, for they too had seen the take- off, When the youth reached the hotel lobby his eyes were rolling. He reported what he had seen. A great roar took hold of the city. The boy’s word was not doubted. Others had seen. Rather the fellow was looked upon as a saviour. At last there was something tangible to work on. A winged man had carried off Miss Berkenhart. A winged man had carried off Miss Hally! Winged men had carried off women in South America for two hun- dred years. It was all explained. Latin America is satisfied. The mystery is solved!” “Ts the mystery solved?” asked Brent in con- cluding. “Surely it has just begun. What are these men with wings? Who are they? From whence have they come? What sort of beings are they? Has Science overlooked something? Is Darwin right? What have evolutionists to say? Does this prove or disprove? And what has become of our women, our girls that have been carried away? For what?” Brent then went on to question the possibilities. Had South America given birth to a new race of men? Was there some Lost World in that half- explored continent? Were these new creatures birds or men? 61 A Strange Tale fl ete next day the papers came out with edi- torials concerning this new man, this new menace. Had a new race actually been evolved? Was this to change the entire theory of evolu- tion? Where would Darwin and his monkeys be now: Could it be true that the Pterodactyl, the flying reptile, was our ancestor instead of the ape? Was South America a new breeding-place of man? New tales of abductions appeared. It looked as if this alated race had come out of their two cen- turies of seclusion and were deliberately making war upon humanity, on white women! A pilot flying over a section of the Brazilian jungles came back with the tale of his sighting a winged man and giving chase. He tells of having caught up with the fellow, and he estimated that the flying creature was traveling at the speed of about eighty miles per hour! Seeing the plane draw alongside of him the bird- man waved and before the pilot realized his in- tention he had risen above the machine and then as lightly as a bird alighted on a wing, as close to the pilot as he could. Pedro Mureno, the pilot, described the fellow as a young chap of perhaps twenty-two with fair hair and blue eyes. His wings were snowy white. He smiled brightly and appeared very curious about the plane, his eyes darting about and taking it all in, The speed of the machine evidently intricued him for it was doing a hundred and fifty miles an hour. He crawled through the struts to the pilot’s side and attempted to converse with him, but the noise of the engine prevented that. Mureno turned a loop for the edification of the youth and performed several other maneuvers and stunts, and the boy laughed with pleasure. Mureno thought of taking him back to the base a prisoner, but, as if divining his purpose, the other laughed again, crawled to the edge of the wing and dropped from the plane. Mureno circled him for several minutes chagrined that he was unable to make his capture. Taking the opportunity to show off, the winged youth now did stunts, Rising rapidly above the plane he suddenly closed his wings so that he fell like a stone for almost five hundred feet and as suddenly opened his wings halting his fall as abruptly as he began it. He gave a pretty demon- stration of a bird chasing insects, darting, banking, soaring, whirling and plunging with the sun ashine upon the beauty of his snow-white plumage. He turned somersaults, lay on his back with his wings spread under him, circled, turned sharply at tight angles, climbed straight upwards and sailed, then came tobogganing down again. At last tired of play and wanting to be rid of his spectator with a wave of his hand he commenced rising straight upward again and before Mureno realized his in- tention, headed into the bright glare of the sun that was soon to set. To Mureno, it was as if he had actually flown directly into the heart of the flaming star. Later that same trick of the flying men was going to prove rather trying to aviators giving them chase, for once in the full glare of the sun it was impossible for the pilots to make them out, blinded comnliclooolkks. coin