Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

AIR ADVENTURER across his gun sights to lure him lower. As the enemy pilot dove on Sandy, Bill came down on his tail and forced him even lower. The long, rolling country of West- chester was under them now. Baill de- cided that here was a likely place to force the man to land. He knew they might injure or even kill Shorty, but he had to take that chance. They would probably do worse than kill him if they got him off alone and tried to make him talk. He was probably lying bound and helpless in the back of the biplane. Buill’s blood seethed through his body as the thought came to him that Shorty might already be dead. Sandy was still flaming back and forth across the sky with the enemy pilot trying desperately to use his guns effectively. The pilot of the biplane could handle his ship. His desperation had added to his skill. He was whip- ping his snarling plane through the air like a madman. Bill fired burst after burst just over the top of the swirling plane. Suddenly the ship stuck its nose toward the earth in a terrific dive. A golf course spread out directly below him. Bill groaned as he saw the biplane diving closer and closer to the earth. Sandy was riding almost on its tail. Then the rugged gray ship flattened out. Its nose came up. It was only a hundred feet from the ground. Bill’s mouth opened wide and a roar escaped him as he saw the wings of the ship fold back against the sides of the fuse- lage. The ship seemed to whirl around like a circular disk. Its nose went down again and it plummeted toward the ground. Smoke and dirt shot high in the air as the plane struck the ground and half buried its nose in the green fairway of the golf course. Smoke came billowing back from the engine housing as Bill set his Snorter down, kicked his rudder and taxied as close to the ship as he 29 dared. He was over the side of his cockpit in one leap and running toward the plane as Sandy rushed in from the other side. Flames were beginning to lick back along the fuselage as Bill ripped open a bent door. He stuck his head into the suffocating cabin. smoke and flame were coming back through the twisted instrument board. The pilot and the man beside him were smashed beyond recognition. Their bodies sprawled grotesquely across the two forward seats. Behind the one seat in the rear Bill could see a dim form lying on the floor. He called Shorty’s name and received no answer. He pulled the rear seat to- ward him and got hold of Shorty’s bound feet. Gently and carefully, as though he had all the time in the world, he pulled Shorty toward him. He lifted him over the two mutilated bodies in the front seats and passed him to Sandy. Carrying Shorty between them they half staggered from the gray plane that had now become a fiery furnace. When they were barely fifty feet away the fuel tanks of the biplane exploded. Gusts of hot air and flame seemed to take the very skin off their faces. Another fifty feet and they put Shorty down on the ground. As they bent over him his eyes fluttered open and closed «gain. “Are you all right, fella?” Bill asked, his voice tight and unnatural. Shorty’s eyes came open again. He stared at them for a moment with glassy eyes. Then the semblance of a weak smile flashed on his lips. “T’m a tough guy,” he said. hit me?” His gaze wandered to the burning plane. He looked at Bill questioningly. “Some one—two men—went in your room, blackjacked Red and you. They left Red, but tried to take you away in that plane over there. We drove them down and-they crashed. Are you hurt?” oO Corll Ghook CO