Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

AIR ADVENTURER 103 felt the grip tightening and again heard Walsh’s excited shout. “Get the ring! The ring!” Then he knew that Walsh must have had a faint divination of—something. Regardless of what it was that Walsh had divined or suspected, what he could not fail to know and see was that the ripcord for the back pack was on Har- per’s left side, almost under his arm; that stockily built Harper had short arms that just could reach around in front of the emergency pack to get hold of it; that Harper usually slid his arm in behind the riser straps of this pack to grasp and pull it; and that Harper, expert though he was, might have a very difficult task in doing this one way or the other once he had left the wing and was being flung sprawling, over and over, downward. The grip tightened still more, pinning Harper’s arm so firmly to the side of the cockpit that he would have had to fight to free it. He raised his right arm, slid it in behind the riser straps, reached through to his left side and grasped the ripcord ring. The grip relaxed. “Go!” shouted Walsh. Harper glanced down, flexed his knees further, and hopped off the wing. Down he shot, but even as he saw the tail being swished out of his way and before the sound of the airplane’s mo- tor had left his hearing, he let go of the ring and flung both his arms wide. He saw the earth coming slowly up to meet him and felt himself turning over. Then he saw sky and a cloud and the sun in that peculiar position it often took when he was doing a delayed drop. Then suddenly the earth again, nearer. Four! He was counting men- tally, from force of habit. Five! Sky again, then the earth. As of old, he thrilled to the friction of the air on his hands and face. Six! More sky. Again, a cloud. More earth—nearer. He was turning over and over more rapidly now. “Getting revolutions,’ he had once humorously put it. Seven! The earth was very near. He distinguished many things belonging to the field. And then In a fleeting instant he saw them— the fools! Eight! Right under him! Right in the way—damn them! Nine! He couldn’t do it! He must stop! He must try! Ten! He drew both. his arms in, found his body, groped in front of him, found the rough canvas of the emergency pack, and shuffled his hands quickly over its.surface until one found the ripcord ring, the fingers clos- ing about it instantly. He tore it from its elastic pocket and pulled with all the strength he could command. : A white shadow shot away beyond his hip and shroud lines flipped his arm. He heard a flapping then a billowing oO CON) Ghook CO