Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

AIR ADVENTURER and his quitting jumping. The mental anguish professedly felt by each as a sweetheart when the other was in the air, had instigated the debates. The in- nate stubbornness of each had precipi- tated the quarrel, for both were moun- tain grown. : She had obstinately refused to give up solo flying unless he gave up jump- ing, which he obstinately refused to do on the grounds that it was a not-to-be- slighted means of earning a better liveli- hood and a most tmportant part of his profession, which was the handling, re- packing, repairing, testing, demonstrat- ing, and selling of these life preservers of the air. The rift had widened with the advent of the ardent social attentions of Jack Blayle, Gloria’s instructor, and their seeming agreeableness to her. But there had been something more added to all this that caused him to draw into a shell and shun the world and his contem- poraries, even his closest friends. He turned his head away to efface the image with a stern finality. Then he felt Walsh, the pilot, tapping him on the shoulder. He looked behind. His bosom pal was grinning broadly and pointing down at the little farmhouse. Mocking him—even up in the air! ~ That was it—the mockery most of all —that was driving him to this act, and the merciless gibing, and the endless, grinning, insincere expressions of sym- pathy, all coupled with the soul-killing sense of utter defeat that weighed him down after seeing his well-laid plans for a BUSES SN future cruelly undone. THEN there was that other, humili- ating physical defeat suffered in fistic combat with Blayle. A fight that came as a result of Blayle’s having charged Harper with formerly trying to cause him the loss of Gloria Emory as a pupil and having suggested that Harper was so fieatly out of the picture as to make 101 it foolhardy and dangerous to further meddle with Blayle’s affairs or, for that matter, even to speak to the girl. The battle took place right on the field be- hind a hangar. It had been only Blayle’s braggadocian manner and crowing implications that had enraged Harper, though the crowd of onlookers that had quickly gathered thought otherwise. Allowing himself to be carried away by his wrath, Har- per had begun the engagement with a mad rush and a wild swinging, and was knocked down twice before he had struck a blow. His humiliation had been further heightened by Gloria’s driving her roadster in upon the scene to stop the fight and give both of them a vigorous tongue lashing, before he had time to get to his feet and back at Blayle. And thereafter Blayle had continued his crowing, even though it might not have been directly in the presence of Harper. Gloria had continued to be seen more and more in Blayle’s com- pany. On ail sides the grins, the innu- endoes, the jeers, and the fake sym- pathy had continued. The two who had long been talked about and admired by every one connected with the field as the most charming and best-matched couple, continued separated and talked about. And Freddie Harper had con- tinued to seek more seclusion from the world and sink deeper into the black if. : The airplane climbed steadily higher, flying in a wide circle around the field. They had reached an altitude of about two thousand feet when next they were over the main entrance and grand-stand corner of it. Instead of continuing in the wide circle, Walsh banked around steeply at this point and climbed north- ward away from the field. They soon reached the three-thousand-foot altitude that Harper desired and, after they had turned again and were heading on a straight course toward that same cor- oO COMmicloo S CO