Daring Wings

"Some of our biggest news stories will break above the clouds. The skyways are going to unfold great tales of romance, of daring, possibly of banditry, but whatever it may be, we must have the stories. Do you want the job of getting them?" George Carson, the sandy-haired managing editor of the Atkinson News, fired the question at the reporter standing at the other side of his desk.

"Do I want the job?" There was amazement in Tim Murphy's voice. "Give me a plane and I'll bring you some of the best yarns you ever printed." His clean-cut features were aglow with interest.

"All right Tim," said Carson. "This afternoon the News will announce the first flying reporter. I thought you'd like the job. That's why we sent you to an aviation school--so we can have the jump on the Times and the Journal. They can hire plenty of aviators but it will take them time to train a first class reporter to fly."

Tim grinned and his blue eyes snapped. Even though he was one of the star reporters on the staff he liked the managing editor's indirect compliment.

"We've got a plane all ready for you at the municipal airport," went on the managing editor. "It's one of those new Larks with a Wasp motor that will take her along at 150 miles an hour. She's all ready to go. The sky's your assignment--go the limit to get your stories."

Tim hurried back to his desk where the half completed story of a down-town fire was still in his typewriter. He picked up a pad of notes beside his machine and turned to the reporter at the next desk.

"Finish up this fire story for me, will you Ralph? Here's all the dope and the city editor wants it for the noon edition."

"What's the big idea?" Ralph Parsons wanted to know.

"Big idea is right," fairly exploded Tim. "I've got a new job--flying reporter. Carson has just bought a dandy new plane and I'm going to pilot it and write the stories."

"Good, Tim. I don't blame you for being excited. It's a great chance. I'll finish up the fire story for you. Will you give me a ride if I run out after I'm through this afternoon?"

"Sure, Ralph, a dozen if you want them," and with that Tim seized his hat and dashed through the door of the big news room, down the stairs and into the street where he found one of the flivvers used by the reporters.

Fifteen minutes later Tim tucked his elongated legs into the cockpit of the trimmest little plane he had ever laid eyes on. He ran the motor up and down the scale, then gave it the gun, darted over the surface of the field, flipped the tail up--and the flying reporter was in the air.

It was a glorious feeling to be in the air--to be free of the smoke and smell of the city and for an hour Tim circled over Atkinson. High, then low, he dived, banked, zoomed and looped--did everything to test the flying qualities of the little plane. At the end of the test flight he was more than pleased. It was perfectly rigged.

Tim, an orphan who had joined the News after school days, had worked up from cub reporter to the police run and then up to special assignment writer. He had been sent to an aviation school three months before and while there had written a series of Sunday features on learning how to fly. Tim hadn't dreamed of being given a flying assignment but he had mastered the intricacies of an airplane with the same wholesome enthusiasm which characterized everything he did. That was one of the reasons why he was a star reporter in spite of his comparative youth, for Tim had just turned twenty-one.

The Lark was still swooping over the field when one of the cars used by News reporters dashed through the main gate of the big airport. Tim cut the motor, made a three point landing, and climbed out of the cockpit.

Ralph Parsons hopped out of the car and ran toward the plane. He shoved an extra into Tim's hands.

"TRANSCONTINENTAL AIR MAIL ROBBED; $200,000 TAKEN." The headlines, in heavy, black type, fairly screamed the story at Tim. In brief clear sentences he read how the eastbound mail plane, which had left Atkinson at midnight, had been found a hundred miles east near Auburn, a village in the valley of the Cedar River. The plane was a mass of tangled wreckage, its pilot dead, the registered mail sacks looted.

"Carson says for you to hump yourself and get over there before dark," said Ralph. "He wants a lot of copy for the early editions tomorrow. The roads over that way are practically impassable and we can't get enough of the details over the telephone. The air mail people are sending out a ship but we don't know when they'll be back. It's bad country to fly over, Tim, so be careful."

Ralph's well meant warning was lost on Tim. Calling a mechanic, the lanky young flyer swung his ship around, opened up the powerful motor, and sped down the field and into the air. The flying reporter was off on his first assignment.

The air was smooth and cool. The late winter sun glinted through the lazy clouds in the west and flashed off the crimson wings of the little plane. Tim headed straight east. Far behind him the Great Smokies reared their heads in a dim outline while a hundred miles ahead of his whirling propeller the Cedar River carved its way.

Atkinson, with its bustling streets, its busy factories and 200,000 inhabitants, was soon left behind. For almost an hour Tim held to his course. When he sighted the silver ribbon that was the Cedar River, he swung south until he picked up the village of Auburn. It was little more than a cluster of houses on the right bank of the mighty river.

There was no regular landing field at the village but Tim found a pasture a mile back from the river that looked large enough for his purpose. He stalled down, taking his time. There was no use risking a crackup with his new ship. The pasture was cuppy and there was a slough on one side but Tim killed his speed quickly after he set the Lark down and pulled up less than twenty feet from a fence.

Tim had sighted the wreck of the air mail in a timber patch half way to the village. After landing his own craft it took him less than ten minutes to find what was left of the mail. There was little in the pile of wreckage to resemble the sturdy, silver craft which had left the Atkinson airport the night before. It was just a heap of tangled wires and struts, scraps of canvas and twisted rods. It looked like a crackup, with the mail looted after the smash, but to Tim's carefully trained news sense there was something more. He couldn't have defined his feelings in so many words but he played his hunch and examined the remains of the big plane. He had almost completed his examination when something on the motor caught his attention. He bent over it and when he straightened up there was a new gleam of interest in his eyes.

With the aid of a farm boy Tim managed to get a fence post under the motor and half rolled it over. A few minutes more of hard work and he succeeded in removing several parts from the engine.

By the time the flying reporter had completed his task the light was fading fast and, satisfied with his survey of the wrecked plane, Tim hurried toward the village.

Auburn was small but friendly and he soon found out what little the residents of the valley knew.

The east bound mail usually roared over the village about 1 o'clock in the morning, speeding through the night at better than one hundred miles an hour. But that morning the mail plane had failed to go over. That, in itself, was not unusual, for occasionally bad weather forced the cancellation of the trip. Tim, by careful inquiries, learned that one old man, living about two miles from the village, had heard the sound of a motor. His attention had been attracted by the high-pitched drone for the song of the mail was a heavy throbbing that once heard is seldom forgotten.

It had been mid-day before a farmer had found the wreckage of the mail, its pilot trapped in the cockpit, the registered mail sacks, with a big shipment of currency, looted.

Tim had enough material for his first story. Using the one long distance telephone wire in the village, he got in touch with the News office in Atkinson and dictated a detailed story. To spice it up, he added a hint about a mystery plane. It would make good reading.

The flying reporter had scarcely finished telephoning when the heavy throbbing of the motor of a plane echoed from the clouds. Hurrying out into the street from the telephone office, Tim could discern the riding lights of a mail plane as the pilot, hunting for a place to land, circled over the village.

Tim hired a car and sped toward the make-shift field where he had managed to land his own plane. When he reached the pasture he hastily piled some brush at one end of the field and set it afire. Then he raced for the other end and swung the car around so that its headlights outlined the far boundary of the pasture.

The roar of the mail plane's motor lessened as its pilot cut his throttle and brought his craft down to earth. The big ship bounced and swayed, threatening once or twice to nose over, but the mail flyer jammed his wheel brakes on hard and succeeded in stopping before he crashed into the fence.

Tim left the car and hurried to meet the newcomer.

"That you, Tim?" boomed a deep voice from the cockpit of the mail ship as the new arrival shut off his motor.

Tim smiled. The voice was familiar and Tiny Lewis, who weighed some 250 pounds, eased his bulk gently to the ground.

"Thanks a lot, Tim," he roared. "I was sure in a pickle. Figured on getting here before dark but made a forced landing about 50 miles back when two of the spark plugs fouled and I had to replace them."

Before starting for the village, Tim and Lewis put tarpaulins over the motors of their planes and staked them securely lest some freakish wind upset their craft.

When they reached the little hotel and had ordered their dinner, Tim told Lewis all he knew about the wreck of the air mail. When he had completed his story, Tiny whistled.

"Looks bad," he admitted, "and I guess there isn't much that I can do except make arrangements here for them to crate up what's left of the plane and ship it in to Atkinson. The post office inspectors will be here sometime tomorrow and they'll take charge of the investigation."

"I expected they'd be on hand," said Tim, "but I've got a little hunch all my own I'm going to see through to the finish. If it works out as I hope, it will be a real scoop for the News."