MOONLIGHT AND MOONSHINE

GEORGE ARLINGTON HEMINGWOOD, OF THE AIR SERVICE, DIDN’T CARE WHAT THOSE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS DID SO LONG AS THEY DIDN’T DO IT TO HIM. BUT WHEN A BULLET IN THE ENGINE OF HIS SOARING PLANE MADE HIM TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO LAND ON TREE-TOPS AND LIVE, HE CONCLUDED THAT IT WAS TIME TO START SOMETHING

Lieutenant George Arlington Hemingwood, of the Hemingwoods of Boston, was wrestling with a problem. Having applied soothing lotions to his freshly shaved and smarting face, and put the last touches to the part in his black hair, he continued to stare into the small mirror and wonder whether he ought to do it or not.

He leaned over until his deeply tanned face was within an inch of the glass and inspected in detail the small, close-cropped black mustache which adorned his upper lip. It was a fairly luxuriant mustache, as those hirsute adornments go, but it did not quite satisfy his critical eye. Was it worthwhile to shave it off in the hope that two hairs would sprout where but one had grown before?

Let it go as it was, he decided.

Having decided this burning question, Hemingwood proceeded leisurely to don his tan serge shirt. He had no further interest in his face, although that, like its principal ornament, was a good enough specimen of its kind. A bit round, perhaps, and certainly very brown, but lighted amazingly by a pair of sparkling brown eyes and a wide, good-humored mouth which was usually curved in either a smile or a grin. If not, it conveyed the impression that it would stretch into one or the other at the slightest provocation.

It was the face of a contented and cheery person, both of which George Arlington Hemingwood was. Being a first lieutenant in the Air Service satisfied him completely and he had little more to ask from fate. The future was pleasant to his mind’s eye. He wasted no thought whatever on his prospects. He could not have told you where he stood on the promotion list, because he did not care particularly whether he ever became a captain or not.

Life, as it was and as he lived it, was a good invention of the Lord’s to his mind. The two rooms he occupied, with walls of beaverboard and a leak in the ceiling, were comfortable enough to live in and far more appealing than the shadowed confines of the Hemingwood residence on Beacon Hill, and, although his father’s bank was a fine big bank and his father’s son could lead an enviable commercial existence therein, the cockpit of a De Haviland airplane was infinitely more desirable.

This despite the fact that George Arlington Hemingwood had led a wild, not to say sensational existence during his five years of flying. From Long Island to the Philippines, and from Selfridge Field on the Canadian border to France Field in Panama he was known as the unluckiest flyer still above the ground instead of under it. He could handle a ship along with the best; that was conceded. However, there appeared to be a conspiracy of motors and the elements against him. He had had more forced landings by half than any other flyer on the list. And almost invariably they occurred over such choice bits of country as the Everglades, the wilder sections of the Mexican border, Chesapeake Bay, the Rockies, and similar traps for unwary airplanes.

He had been rescued thirty miles out at sea during the bombing maneuvers at Langham Field, Virginia; he had laid amid the wreckage of his ship in the Big Bend for two days, without food or water, and been found by a miracle; he had landed in a canyon in Arizona and wandered for a week in the mountains; he had been shot down three times in France, and a list of the injuries he had encountered would include mention of a considerable percentage of the bones of the human body. Always, however, George Arlington Hemingwood bobbed up serenely, cursing his luck with fluency and grinning.

His whole-souled enjoyment of life extended to flying, and was not dampened by the crack-ups thereof.

Having found his big Stetson, he adjusted it on his head at the precise angle which appealed to his liking in these matters. Even with the aid of that impressive twenty dollar chapeau he did not look like a man whose hand had frequently been outstretched to greet St. Peter; who was on speaking terms, as it were, with the life hereafter. He was slightly under medium height, and looked a bit shorter than his five feet seven and a half because of a pair of powerful shoulders. He was impeccably arrayed, as always; he was careful about those things. It was characteristic that the insignia of rank and branch of service on his collar were placed with exactitude.

He strolled out through his sitting room—the shabbily comfortable and muchly cluttered domicile of a carefree bachelor—and down the long hall, emerging into the warm sunlight of a spring afternoon in Kentucky. Springtime in Kentucky is a savory season, and four of the flyers of Goddard Field were taking advantage of it by laying at full length on the grass in front of the barracks.

Directly across the road four corrugated iron hangars squatted in a row, paralleling the line of buildings of which the officers’ quarters was one. On the other side of the hangars was Goddard Field, a small, rough airdrome which sloped down to the great artillery camp which spread out for two square miles at its foot. Like the buildings of the flying detachment, Camp Henry’s barracks and stables had never been painted, and the big cantonment looked aged and infirm, which it was.

“What is the subject of discussion?” enquired Hemingwood as he ignited a cheroot.

“Snapper is trying to justify the fact that he possesses a new fiancée by spacious arguments in favor of marriage,” returned big blonde Morrison.

“Of course, looking at it impartially and without prejudice, marriage is a sucker game from a man’s viewpoint,” stated Hemingwood weightily.

“What do you mean?” enquired Snapper MacNeil belligerently. The wiry, redheaded little flyer was a heaven-sent victim for serious persiflage, and was very much in love.

“Aside from the temporary state of insanity known as love, the state has no arguments in its favor from a man’s viewpoint,” pursued Hemingwood. “Look at the expense, for one thing. However, cheer up, Snapper, even marriage has its points. Don’t think I consider it an unmitigated evil. You can’t—”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said a voice at Hemingwood’s elbow. “Major Williamson’s compliments and will the lieutenant report to headquarters immediately?”

Tall, gaunt Private Rose, perpetual orderly of the officers’ barracks, stood at rigid attention and spewed these words forth as though in mortal fear of forgetting one if he stopped.

“Be right over, Rose,” nodded Hemingwood. So saying, he turned on his heel and left them spellbound.

He strolled toward headquarters, wondering what was up. Some new job, probably. As photographic officer his duties were by no means onerous, and consequently he had a great fear that lightning would strike, at any moment, in the form of an order assigning him to some prosaic task in addition to his other duties.

However, his fears were groundless. He found Major Williamson enthroned behind his desk, arguing acrimoniously with Gobel, the sandy-haired and excitable adjutant. The C. O. fought frequently with Gobel for the purpose of prodding the adjutant until he started pounding the desk, which he frequently did.

“Washington has at last discovered that there’s a photographic section hidden away here,” the major told him. “You’re due for a sojourn in the back hills of Kentucky, where moonshine grows on bushes and rifle bullets flow like water.”

The orders were brief and to the point. Hemingwood was to make a mosaic of the Salters River between the villages of Laport and Herkimer. That would be about thirty miles, Hemingwood reflected. The mosaic was to include all the territory for five miles on each side of the river. Three hundred square miles, which was several days’ work. It was for the use of the geological survey, according to the order, and was to be accomplished without delay.

Hemingwood was delighted. He was whistling cheerfully as he made off to interview Apperson and get things in readiness for a week’s stay in the wilderness.

He found Sergeant Apperson, his chief non-com, in the photo hut. Apperson was a gray-haired veteran who was as reliable as a tax collector and knew more about cameras than the inventors thereof. Anything from a pocket machine to a motion picture outfit was in his professional bailiwick. He was a wiry, weather-beaten little Scotchman who retained a trace of the brogue of his youth.

“We’ll have oor base oot yonder, no doot?” he queried. “We’ll be ready in the mornin’, sir-r-r!”

The invaluable Apperson was likewise an excellent mechanic in addition to his other praiseworthy talents, so Hemingwood told him to have the ship warmed and ready by six in the morning. Whereupon he dismissed everything from his mind. Apperson never failed.

CHAPTER II

At precisely six-forty-five next morning Hemingwood was commencing to look for the Salters River, which was his principal landmark to aid in finding East Point. For a half hour he had been flying over the mountains. As far as the eye could see, even from the airy perch of three thousand feet, low rolling, heavily wooded hills rolled away to the skyline. It was not difficult to believe the bloody history of those thousands of acres of unkempt wilderness as one looked down on the grim fastnesses which hid in their depths a strange breed who lived and fought and died in a shadowed, primitive world of their own. George himself had had a sample of the suspicious mountain people when he had been forced to land in the hills a few months before.

Another flyer would have been taut with the strain of flying continuously over a wilderness which presented no possible landing field. The failure of two or three cylinders of the twelve-cylinder, four hundred and fifty horsepower Liberty meant crashing into the trees at seventy miles an hour. But no worry bothered George Arlington Hemingwood. His untroubled eyes scanned the glistening instruments, and he enjoyed the ride. He couldn’t be worried until disaster actually overtook him. The specially built ship, carrying a hundred and thirty-five gallons of gas, roared along over the mountains at a hundred miles an hour. To offset the extra weight of gas, oil, and electric cameras, it was streamlined to the last possible degree, and it was a tribute to Apperson’s loving care down to the last turnbuckle glistening in the morning sun.

Finally the tiny stream came in sight, and he swung southward. It twined along between the mountains, sometimes in deep gorges and sometimes level with tiny fields on its banks. Herkimer came in sight, and he instantly vetoed the one field near it. It was ploughed land and the furrows were high and soft.

He sped along over the village, and deeper up into the mountains. Herkimer was lost to sight almost immediately. There was a three-minute interval when he only picked up one cabin.

Then East Point came in sight, and proved to be a pleasant surprise. It was larger than Herkimer, despite having no railroad, and the wide main street was shaded with towering trees. It was set at the base of a mountain, and for a half mile westward small cleared fields occupied the tiny valley floor. There were small ploughed fields on the mountainsides, too, gleaming white against the green of the woods.

Hemingwood, scrutinizing the ground closely, finally found a field, although it was not as near town as he would have liked. It was a long, narrow grass clearing just below the crest of the mountain behind East Point, on the slope opposite the town. Four miles east of the clearing there was a small settlement which was not on his map.

He throttled the motor to a thousand revolutions a minute and dropped down for a look. He could see the residents of East Point popping forth from their houses for a look at the visitor from the sky. There would be some excitement down there, he soliloquized. He noticed a solitary horseman toiling up the road from East Point to that settlement, whatever its name was. The road led past his prospective landing place, which would make transportation of gas and oil a simple matter.

The field lay north and south, with an eastern slope. It was surrounded by towering trees on three sides, but to the north, where the road skirted it, there was a good approach.

He swooped down within ten feet of the ground and flashed across it for a detailed inspection. It rolled slightly and the grass was four or five inches long. A few rocks protruded from the vegetation, but the middle of the clearing seemed to be without obstacles.

He decided immediately to try it. As he zoomed upward and turned northward to land over the road he looked around at the imperturbable Apperson. He pointed down at the field, and Apperson removed his pipe and nodded. Not in approval; merely understanding. Apperson considered everything in the photo section as his business, except flying. This he left entirely to Hemingwood. If his chief had indicated the Ohio River as a landing place, Apperson would have nodded.

Hemingwood came in low over the thin fringe of trees, cutting the motor gradually. The heavy ship had almost lost speed when it was over the road, and was mushing downward. Hemingwood stabbed the throttle ahead for a second as the DeHaviland settled over the fence. The spurt of power held the nose up a second more, and the stick was back in his lap when the ship hit on three points in a hard stall landing. It rolled with slackening speed up a small hump in the field, picked up again as it rolled down the other side, and stopped at the top of the second fold, a safe hundred yards from the southern boundary. It was flying as perfect as it was unconsciously skillful.

Hemingwood gave it the gun and taxied to the fence. He turned off the gasoline feed, ran the motor out, and clicked off the switches.

“I’ll take a constitutional down to the city, Apperson, and see where we sleep and eat, if any. Likewise where we get gas and oil, and how. I guess you’d better stay here. There’ll be the usual mob of people show up, I suppose.”

“Quite so,” nodded Apperson, raising his yellow tinted goggles deliberately. “Ye’ll have transportation to get the hags into town, no doot.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be back in a couple of hours—by the time the sun gets right for pictures, anyhow.”

He climbed out, lit a cigaret, and surveyed the cloudless sky with satisfaction.

The mosaic would be taken from eleven thousand feet, and even a few cumulous clouds would mean great gaps in the pictures. It looked like a good working day.

Apperson was busy in the back cockpit, unwiring divers articles he had packed away there. He could fit anything up to an automobile into the cockpit of a ship. Article after article materialized from the mystic depths, until it was a problem where the sergeant himself had ridden.

Hemingwood took off his flying suit and made off without further ado. It was about three miles over the mountain to East Point, he estimated, and it would be a phenomenon if he did not meet a procession of cars, one of which would be delighted to turn around and give him a lift.

He had proceeded up the dusty road for a half mile, and had just reached the crest of the hill when a horseman hove in sight. The one he had seen from the air, probably. He did not seem in a hurry, for the horse was ambling along at pretty much his own gait.

Suddenly Hemingwood’s dark eyes lighted with interest and he became conscious that his face was undoubtedly spotted with oil. That was a woman on that horse, riding astride. Furthermore, she was a young woman. A big, white Panama hat, shaped like a man’s, shaded her face, and her costume consisted of khaki riding trousers, leather boots, and a white blouse.

In a few seconds he was able to state with conviction that not only was the rider a young woman, but that she was also a most remarkably attractive specimen of her sex. And George Arlington Hemingwood was not a man who allowed opportunity to knock at his door without an answer. He stopped a few feet in front of the horse and smiled up at the girl.

“I beg your pardon, but could you tell me the name of the town that seems to be at the end of this road?”

Her piquant face, framed by the Panama and bobbed hair, dimpled slightly as she pulled up her horse.

“Which end of the road?” she enquired.

“The one I’m headed for—it seemed to be the biggest.”

“East Point,” she informed him. “Did you have a forced landing?”

“You talk like a flyer!” grinned Hemingwood. “No, I came down on purpose. I thought I was near East Point, but it’s hard to tell from the air. Particularly in such thickly settled country,” he added.

She chuckled, a peculiarly infectious performance as she accomplished it. She was a tiny little thing, Hemingwood thought, and her small, oval face with its saucily tilted nose and rather wide mouth possessed a charm which far transcended the mere beauty of more regular features. She did not look as if a resident of the mountains.

“You know, pretty lady, I’ve read a few flying stories in some of our magazines, and in every one some beautiful girl always materializes as soon as an airplane lands,” he remarked. “They just pop out of bushes in the wilderness or from behind sand hummocks in the desert. But in five years of flying it’s the first time I’ve seen it happen!”

“Well, this is the first time you’ve ever landed anywhere near me,” she returned, mirth in her gray eyes.

“My mistake!” laughed Hemingwood.

“I wonder if you could give me some information. I expect to be in your village, or above it, for a few days, taking pictures of this flock of mountains. If they rolled Kentucky out flat it would be bigger than Texas.”

She laughed aloud this time. Her face had an out-of-doors look about it, just a hint of golden tan and red cheeks with the color underneath the skin instead of on top of it.

“The main things I want to know are as follows: where can my trusty sergeant and myself procure beds and boards for ourselves? And is there any garage in town where we can buy gasoline and oil?”

“That last remark is an insult!” she said severely. “I ought to ride off and leave you standing here after that insinuation against East Point. However, you’re a stranger. My uncle has practically the only store in East Point. He sells gasoline and oil.”

“He must be a good business man, judging by his choice of salesmen,” commented Hemingwood.

“That’s the secret of his success,” she confided smilingly. “About the boarding house, I don’t know. We have no regular hotel or even boarding house, but I guess my uncle could tell you where to go.”

“And your uncle’s name is—”

“Mumford. You can’t miss the store. There’s a big sign on it.”

“Do you think you could stand it if I introduced myself?” enquired Hemingwood.

“I might.”

“Hemingwood—George Hemingwood, hailing at present from Camp Henry.”

“How do you do, Lieutenant Hemingwood,” she smiled. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Be a nice day if the weather doesn’t change, Miss Blank,” agreed the flyer.

“I’ll let you substitute ‘Morgan’ in the blank. Are we ordinary people on the ground to be allowed to look at your airplane?”

“I’ll show you the sights myself.”

She glanced down at the tiny gold watch on her wrist.

“Ten minutes of nine! I’ve got to hurry. I’m a hard working school-marm, you see. But I do want to see your plane, lieutenant.”

“What time do you get through for the day?”

“Four o’clock.”

“Are you riding to school? Come back this way?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be waiting at the ship for you. I want to be present when you see it, because it all sounds so much more impressive as I explain things.”

“I will be supposed to worship in silent awe, perhaps?”

“You be interested, and I’ll do the worshipping,” grinned Hemingwood.

“You don’t appear to be of the reverent sort. However, I’ll look forward to it. Good-by until this afternoon!”

She threw him a smile and urged her fat white horse into a lumbering gallop.

“She’s no East Point girl; she’s just out of college and getting a year’s experience or something!” soliloquized Hemingwood. “Must be some little schoolhouse up at that settlement I saw from the air. Cute kid, and she knows what it’s all about too.”

He resumed his pilgrimage to East Point, musing contentedly on the prospect before him. He had not proceeded five hundred yards, however, before loud clanking and rattling announced the fact that there was a vehicle approaching. A battered Ford truck bounced into sight and clattered up to him, slowing gradually. Loose tools in the rear were responsible for the weird combination of noises given forth by the flivver. Two men were in the seat. The truck stopped alongside the flyer, and the fat man at the wheel hailed him.

“Mornin’! Git down all right?”

“Yes, thanks. Nothing the matter. Landed on purpose.”

“I see. Lookin’ fur anything special around hyar?”

The driver’s round, red face was the setting for a pair of small, green eyes encased in rolls of fat. He was dressed in greasy mechanic clothing and a battered felt hat. His companion was a gaunt man of middle age, boasting a drooping mustache and a melancholy look.

“I’m going to town to look for gas and oil and a place to sleep right now.”

“Climb in hyar, and I’ll take yuh t’ town,” offered the fat man, who seemed to be making a determined effort to be genial.

Without a word his companion uncoiled his long length and languidly transferred himself into the rear of the truck. He was dressed in a black shirt and dirty khaki trousers and his felt hat was in as decrepit a condition as the driver’s.

The Ford had barely turned around when the vanguard of the sightseers passed in two flivvers, both loaded to the guards with coatless men of all ages. They peered at Hemingwood with concentrated attention as they dashed by.

“I keep the garage hyar an’ I c’n let yuh have all the gas yuh want,” offered the driver.

“Well, I’ve made arrangements in advance with Mr. Mumford,” lied Hemingwood.

Just why he had said it he did not know. It was an impulse, but a sensible one. He intended to buy the gas of Mumford because of the girl, and he might as well avoid antagonizing anyone in East Point if he could.

The driver grunted. He was plainly disappointed.

“Gettin’ right out?” he enquired.

“No, I’ll be here several days.”

The man glanced at him quickly, and the flyer felt instinctively that the man behind him was staring at him steadily and listening closely.

“What fur?”

The forthright question was like a blow.

“I was sent here to take a lot of pictures from the air,” Hemingwood explained.

He felt the tenseness in the atmosphere, and was well aware of the attitude of mountaineers regarding any stranger, particularly a Government man. Consequently he went to some pains to describe his mission exactly. Apparently he did not satisfy the fat garage man entirely, though. Hemingwood was somewhat puzzled. It would have been more explainable if the man had been a mountaineer. Perhaps he was, and had graduated into a business in town. No reason why a man couldn’t make moonshine just because he lived in town, either, he reflected.

Several more cars passed them, all filled with passengers. Three men on horseback and two buckboards were included in the procession. When they turned into the wide dirt street of East Point there were knots of people, mostly women, talking on the sidewalks. They were plainly curious, and Hemingwood was the target for severe inspection and several pointing fingers.

Most of the houses were small frame buildings, neatly painted, and interspersed with several tumble-down shacks. The business section was half-way down the street, and consisted of a tottery wooden shed labeled “Garage,” a small drug store with fly specked windows, and a big, square building with a false front, modern show windows, and a big sign reading:

A bright red gasoline pump stood in front of it, and a rolling oil tank. Four old men were in conversation in front of the store, and there was a group of younger men whose meeting place was evidently the garage. A few wagons were drawn up along the stone sidewalk, the horses tied to hitching posts. Evidently all the available cars had been driven out to the field.

As they drew up in front of the store the fat driver offered to wait and transport Hemingwood back to the field, which offer the Bostonian accepted with thanks.

He went into the crowded little store and looked around at the counters.

“Mumford sells everything from pills to plows,” he soliloquized, and then spotted a short, broad, baldheaded man emerging from a cubbyhole in the rear. It proved to be Mumford.

Hemingwood introduced himself, explained his need of a hundred gallons of gas delivered at the field every flying day, and learned that Mumford owned a truck with which it could be delivered. The storekeeper also opined that he could undoubtedly find a place for the flyers to live if they would wait for definite information until the afternoon.

The flyer studied his man a bit, and decided to take him into his confidence to a slight extent. He told him about the casual meeting with his niece that morning, and went on to say: “I came down here with Ballardson. He wanted this gas business, so to keep him from being sore I told him that I had made arrangements in advance with you. I don’t know anything about East Point, but I figured it might save unpleasantness. Will you bear me out in my story, if necessary?”

Roundfaced Mr. Mumford chuckled.

“How come you figured Ballardson that way?” he enquired.

“He didn’t seem particularly friendly,” Hemingwood returned.

“If there’s any unpleasantness, prob’ly he’ll have something to do with it,” stated Mumford. “These mountain people are funny, you know.”

On the way back to the field Ballardson’s questions and something in the attitude of both men showed plainly that they were not satisfied as to the precise purpose of the pictures Hemingwood was to take. There were fifty or sixty people in plain sight near the ship, and as many more men, women, and children lurking half-screened in the surrounding forest. They watched the transfer of thirty gallons of gas with consuming interest.

Knots of roughly dressed men conversed in low tones, while other more conventionally arrayed, made no mysterious motions. Hemingwood caught a phrase: “The control wires go through the fuselage hyar, and work these hyar elevators.” He looked around—he was up on a wing, holding the funnel over the main tank—to find out who knew so much about airplanes in that benighted town. It seemed to be a scrawny, red-headed chap wearing a nondescript felt hat, hickory shirt, and overalls. A moment later Hemingwood noticed Ballardson in conversation with him.

The slow job of straining the gas through the chamois was about over when the flyer heard voices raised in anger. He looked around and saw two men standing close to the tail surfaces of the ’plane, surrounded by a half dozen others, including Ballardson and the airplane expert.

“I say you’re a liar!” shouted a gaunt, rawboned mountaineer who was one of the pair. The other, short and powerfully built, retaliated with a resounding slap. The next second they were locked in each other’s arms.

Hemingwood leaped to the ground while the onlookers watched breathlessly. Those men were perilously close to the ship. If one of them put a foot through the frail linen of the elevators or rudder—

As he ran toward them, followed by Apperson, he saw the taller man deliberately kick his foot toward the drooping elevators. In a flash Hemingwood took in the details. Their faces were not those of two fighting men temporarily hating each other. And that kick had looked deliberated, even if it had missed. As he got within a foot of them they were poised directly over the tail assembly, straining mightily. Another second and they would have crashed together over the ship and would have put one De Haviland airplane totally out of flying condition for several days.

It was a frame-up, Hemingwood thought as he hurled himself at the contestants. He hit them like a human cannon ball. And, for the moment, he was one. Characteristically, he was totally unimpressed by the odds against him. With fists and feet he drove the astounded battlers back. After they had recovered, they commenced to retaliate. No one else took a hand, for a moment, and Hemingwood fought entirely alone. He seemed to be a dynamic ball, bristling with feet and fists from every angle. He was in a cold rage at the unwarranted interference of the mountaineers, and he gloried in the opportunity to vent some of it on them. He fought furiously, and for a few seconds actually had the best of it. A sweeping kick sent the stocky man to the ground, and George took a clumsy swing on the side of the head in order to sink his fist in the taller man’s belly. That put that personage out for a second or two, so he was able to meet the rising gladiator with a wild flurry of fists that cracked home to the jaw and sent him down again.

But he knew it could not last. He leaped back, and jerked out his Colt.

“Stand still, you!” he snapped, and his glinting eyes were hard and keen and his smile had more than a touch of grimness about it. Subconsciously he noticed Ballardson’s amazed, slightly scared face, and the taut expectancy, half fear and half enjoyment, of the spectators. Apperson was at his elbow, his gun also out.

“Listen, all of you!” Hemingwood shouted. There was utter silence. “There’s at least one man here that knows airplanes. This framed-up fight was for the purpose of putting this ship out of commission. If another soul gets anywhere near it he’s going to be filled so full of lead it’ll take a block and tackle to lift him into the hearse.

“You’re fooling with the United States Army if you knock me off. And you won’t get away with it. I’m here to take pictures, and nothing else. I don’t give a damn who or what you are, but by God if you two birds or anyone else looks crosseyed in my direction or starts anything else as funny as this, I’ll commence to get damn interested! Now get the hell out of here, you two, and the rest of you get back and stay back!”

Which they did. They were thoroughly awed, and well satisfied to remain at a distance. It was significant that not a soul seemed to take Hemingwood’s part. Evidently the mountaineers had the village business men somewhat under their thumbs.

“Nice start I’ve got,” soliloquized the untroubled flyer.

CHAPTER III

He wasted no time in taking off—no telling when fleecy cumulous clouds would form in the sky and spoil the continuity of the strips. Apperson had everything in readiness; the camera was set in the floor of the rear cockpit, in which an opening was cut to fit it. The electric motor was connected, and spare batteries and plenty of film for the day’s work were in a specially built recess behind the seat.

After a few circles of the field Hemingwood set out for Herkimer, climbing steadily.

In a half hour the altimeter was reading eleven thousand feet, and the long grind began. He was flying his strips over the short ten mile course, east and west.

It was hard work to fly continuously with every faculty concentrated on keeping the ship absolutely level and flying a straight line, making sure that the strips had plenty of overlap and that the speed of the ’plane was kept constant. In the rear Apperson was devoting all his attention to the huge camera and the motor. The camera was geared to shoot a picture automatically at intervals of a few seconds. When he wanted to reload he signaled Hemingwood, who thereupon flew around, killing time until the change had been made.

Four hours of it left even the nerveless pilot very tired; he was heartily glad when it was time to drop earthward again. They had covered the first six miles of the terrain they were to shoot. He hoped devoutly that there were no gaps to make retakes necessary. No way to tell that, though, until the thousands of pictures had been developed and laboriously put together in the completed mosaic.

Mumford proved he was on the job by having the next day’s supplies delivered at the field within a half hour after they had landed. By the time the big tanks of the D. H. were full, a few spectators had arrived and were looking in awed wonder at the gigantic bomber. Close on their heels came Miss Morgan.

Mumford seemed distraught and ill-at-ease, referring to the fight only slightly. Hemingwood decided that the merchant did not dare take sides openly against the mountaineers and that he was considerably worried because of his business connection with the hated Government man. His niece, however, did not follow his lead. She beckoned Hemingwood to one side, and her eyes were dark with worry.

“Tell me about this morning,” she commanded, and Hemingwood obliged, giving a more or less ludicrous account thereof.

“Apperson and I are going to stay out here and guard the crate,” he concluded. “I guess they won’t monkey with us any more. I notice that the wild eyed mob here are keeping their distance pretty well.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take it so lightly,” she protested. “You have no idea how they are when they’re aroused or frightened. With your ship flying around over them all day they’ll feel hunted, and—”

“I tried to explain this morning that I’m not interested in their private crimes,” Hemingwood told her with a grin.

“I know, but the poor dears have been hunted so much for things like moonshining, which they consider perfectly all right—you know they can’t see for the life of them why they should be taxed, or be breaking the law, because they make some corn mash out of their own corn and distill it—”

“I know. But the poor dears give me a pain in the neck when they try to bust up my ship. But let’s not worry about it, eh?”

Whereupon, in a very presentable baritone, he burst forth into a song:

“Snap your fingers at care!

Don’t cross the bridge ’till you’re there—”

The girl hesitated, smiled, and finally laughed. She became serious again very soon, however.

“That’s fine, but please be careful and try not to alienate them any more, won’t you?” she begged him.

Hemingwood assented, and he was aware of a curious feeling of warm satisfaction that she took so much interest in the situation. He himself simply couldn’t be worried about it. He was an unusual type. He could not be said to be brave, because he was really unacquainted with fear. It was a strange paradox, that a man who loved living so much should hold life itself so cheaply as did George Arlington Hemingwood, of the Hemingwoods of Boston.

“I’ll bring you your supper,” she offered.

“I’ve got to go to town and see if I can rustle some blankets and perhaps a tent from your uncle. He just told me he had some.”

The noise of a motor became clear, and George looked up to see the Mumford truck on its way homeward.

“I intended to get a ride back to town, but I see I missed out,” Hemingwood observed. Mumford apparently wanted to spend no more time than he needed to in the vicinity of the flyers.

“Don’t blame him, please, Lieutenant Hemingwood,” the girl said in a low voice. “You have no idea what a difficult position he is in because of the trouble this morning. The mountain people—”

“I understand. There’s no reason why he should risk being mixed up in it,” nodded Hemingwood.

“I’ll give you a lift home on Pegasus,” she offered, and so it came about that Hemingwood had a hilarious ride back to East Point on the rear deck of the venerable Pegasus. He got off a little way out of town although the girl did not suggest it.

“I can’t call on you tonight, which I intended to ask permission to do,” he told her, smiling up into her own mirthful eyes. “You have no idea what an angel from heaven you’d seem if you passed our palatial pasture home this evening, though.”

She hesitated a moment, and then laughed.

“I am invited out so little here that I miss no opportunities to take part in the social whirl,” she smiled. “Aunty and I will accept with pleasure, and supply a better picnic supper than you can get out of cans, too!”

He got his supplies from Mumford, including the tent, and likewise a letter, addressed in pencil to Lt. Hemingwood in care of Mumford’s store. The script was all but illegible. He opened it in Mumford’s presence, and read:

Take my advise and git out of town quick or youll be sorry I know what Im talkin about

A friend

Hemingwood’s mouth stretched in a wide grin. He thrust it into his pocket and said nothing about it to the patiently curious Mumford. He showed it to Epperson, back at the field, and that wily Scot shook his head.

“’Tis no such a bonny country,” he remarked, sucking at his pipe.

“Funny people, wild as March hares,” assented Hemingwood. “They’ll think several times before they really try to harm us, though. The most we’ve got to look forward to is another attempt to harm the ship, I imagine. Our hides will stay intact except under unusual circumstances. Let’s pitch the bungalow so I can catch a nap before dinner arrives.”

Which they did. And Hemingwood, entirely unaffected by the note in his pocket, fell asleep immediately. He had much more interesting things to think about than crazy mountaineers. Miss Morgan, for instance.

His awakening was very pleasant, being brought about through the medium of Gail Morgan’s far from unmusical voice. He thrust his tousled head through the flaps of the tent and smiled through the fog of heavy slumber.

“I hope I’m awake and that this isn’t a dream,” he greeted her.

“I brought you large sections of food which may be a little more appetizing than you could have found,” she told him, smiling down from her throne on Pegasus. “If urged, I might even toy delicately with some of it myself. My aunt couldn’t come.”

She wore no hat, and her piquant face was framed in flying brown hair. Hemingwood smiled appreciatively at the picture she presented.

“Where’s Apperson?” he inquired.

“Asleep in the ship.”

That worthy was awakened for the meal, which did not conclude until after twilight. Gail leaned back against one wheel of the ship in comfort. Hemingwood lay lazily at full length. Apperson went for a walk. He was a tactful man, was the sergeant.

“Your uncle was a bit mysterious about this Ballardson bozo,” Hemingwood remarked. “There’s no love lost between them, is there?”

“Oh, they get along all right,” Gail responded carelessly. “Uncle Ed doesn’t exactly approve of Ballardson, though?”

“Why not, if I’m not too curious?”

“He’s from the mountains, you know, and everybody knows that his garage business doesn’t amount to anything. His real occupation is transferring moonshine by truck into various towns—Covington and Cincinnati, principally.”

“I see.”

It was probably Ballardson who had sent that note, Hemingwood reflected. The garage man did not cotton to the idea of a ship flying above the mountains several hours a day, taking pictures which he would figure might be for the purpose of locating stills. He had taken a chance that the letter would scare the interlopers away. Hemingwood did not anticipate any more extreme measures, when the note failed to work. It had been his experience that the uniform of the United States Army aroused respect enough to make any wearer thereof immune from actual personal violence, under ordinary conditions. He had seen the effect of it on the border and likewise in these same Kentucky mountains. Except under unusual provocation, an army man was much safer than any other stranger could possibly be.

“Has East Point got any minion of the law?” he asked.

“Just Ballardson,” returned Gail, with that little chuckle that Hemingwood so enjoyed hearing.

The pilot laughed aloud, and Gail joined him.

“So the prominent bootlegger is peace officer, eh?” chortled Hemingwood. “That’s what I call a real tight corporation.”

“He’s pretty good at the job, aside from the moonshine, too,” the girl told him.

The stars winked into being, and before long a thin moon rose above the mountains. They talked casually of many things, with an undercurrent of friendly understanding that seemed like the result of long acquaintance. Hemingwood learned that his estimate of her was correct. She had finished college the year before and was spending a year in East Point because of the ill health of her aunt and likewise because her own rather drawn condition as a result of hectic college years.

“I tried to study all day and dance all night and it didn’t work,” she admitted. “But I had a good time! I haven’t minded it so much up here, but I’ll be glad to get back. Week-ends in Louisville once or twice a month have been about all that kept me from dying of dry rot this winter. Flyers don’t drop in every day.”

“They don’t know you’re here,” he told her. “After I spread the news they’ll be flying in here in coveys.”

Apperson came back and disappeared into the tent. Hemingwood was to take the first watch. At nine o’clock Gail got to her feet and announced that she must be going. Hemingwood walked over to the fence with her. Pegasus was tethered there.

As their hands clasped in parting and he looked down into her upturned face he obeyed an irresistible impulse and leaned over to kiss her.

She slipped away, laughing.

“We’re getting along wonderfully, but not that well,” she chuckled, and swung aboard Pegasus. “Good night. And if you have any more fights I hope you win them!”

He stood and watched her as Pegasus ambled along the moonlit road. Just before they entered the deep shadow of the trees she turned in the saddle and threw him a parting smile and waved. She seemed, at that moment, like some little goddess disappearing from mortal eyes into the impenetrable darkness of the forest.

He walked back to the ship slowly and sat in the cockpit. His Colt was ready to his hand, and the shadowed mountains clustering around him seemed doubly mysterious, even menacing, under the blanket of the night. They seemed to be whispering with all the bloody legends of the mountain country and to be vibrant with some of the passion and untamable wildness of the people whom they sheltered.

And yet George Arlington Hemingwood, a lonely watchman in the midst of all-pervading silence, was thinking, not of what might happen with his enemies, but rather of what the future might hold forth for himself and Gail Morgan.

CHAPTER IV

According to instructions, Apperson awakened him at eight o’clock. At nine they had consumed coffee and bread, and were ready to take off.

It was a delicate job on the rolling field, but again it was accomplished safely, and the ship cleared the surrounding trees by a good fifty feet. As it roared out over the forest Hemingwood held it low, pointing for the little schoolhouse where Gail presided. It was on the outskirts of the mountain settlement called “The Hollows.” As he passed over it he jazzed the throttle twice. He saw Gail thrust her head out of a window and wave her handkerchief. He returned the greeting with his free arm. There was a pleasant warmth in his heart as he circled back and left the schoolhouse behind.

The ship was barely three hundred feet high, so he nosed up in a steep climb. His right arm was draped carelessly over the side of the cockpit, and his eyes swept the ground idly.

Suddenly he felt a jerk at his ankle. He dropped his eyes, and in utter surprise saw a clean gash on the inner side of his right boot sole. He moved his foot slightly and saw a hole in the wooden flooring of the cockpit. The next second he saw gas jetting forth from a jagged hole in the small copper tube which was the gasoline feed line between main tank and carburetor. The Liberty’s roar died away into sputtering, and then silence. And down below there was nothing but impenetrable forest into which to crash.

Hemingwood reached automatically for the mainline petcock, and turned off the gas. Then he turned on the petcock which released the gas from the emergency tank, holding the ship in a dive to maintain flying speed.

For agonizing seconds the motor did not catch and the ship was diving like a comet for the earth. Hemingwood cursed steadily, fluently. He had been shot at from the ground and, by dumb luck, they had hit the fast moving target. There was nothing for it but to crash. What the hell was the matter with that gravity tank? If he could get his hands on the blankety-blank marksmen!

Then he saw them. There were five of them, partially hidden, and they were still shooting. He could see the smoke from their rifles. Unseen and unheard above the whining wires, there were bullets zipping through the air around him.

There was two hundred feet of altitude left. With his usually boyish face suddenly grim and hard, Hemingwood swooped around and made the dive more steep. Might as well use that last little margin to teach those birds a lesson!

His finger was on the machine gun control as he pointed the ship at them. And at that second the gravity tank got working and the motor cut in. There was thirty minutes’ gas in that tank, plenty to get back to the field with.

Hemingwood came to himself. Even his unemotional soul revolted at the thought of pouring a hail of death on the five would-be murderers below. But he did dive down at them, carefully aiming a bit beyond them, and his machine guns spouted fire and a hail of bullets which ripped up the trees a few dozen yards away from them.

He barely brought the quivering, strained ship out of the dive in time to clear the treetops. He turned again, and for the next five minutes terrorized the hiding mountaineers with showers of lead all around them.

“Now let ’em see whether they’ve got any stomach to keep fiddling around,” he grinned, as he swept back toward the field.

His rancor was all gone, now that he was safe. It was something of a game to him.

They fixed the mainline by means of a spare rubber connection they had brought along, and got in a good five hours of work, landing shortly after two o’clock. Apperson, seemingly entirely unshaken by the events of the morning, had a suggestion to make. He led Hemingwood to one side, so that Mumford, there with the gas, could not overhear anything, and said:

“Let’s dispense with lunch, sir-r-r. This is bonny weather. And it may be the mornin’s events’ll scare ’em off, or maybe they’ll try again. So the queecker we get through the better, to my mind.”

To which Hemingwood assented. There were but a few onlookers this time, and seemingly the sound of the shooting had not been noticed. Mumford did not mention anything about the events of the morning, either, so Hemingwood decided that it was a secret between himself and those five men on the ground. Which was just as well, he reflected. He did not particularly care for the news to spread that he had attempted to shoot up five mountaineers.

They worked until after four o’clock, and once again Mumford was waiting with a new supply of gas. He seemed a bit more openly friendly now, and announced that Mrs. Mumford and Gail would again oblige with supper.

They arrived in due time, along with Pegasus, the buckboard, and a big basket of provender, but left almost immediately after the meal was over. Mrs. Mumford, it appeared, was president of the Mental Improvement Society of East Point, which was to meet that evening to weigh the merits of English poetry from Chaucer to Masefield, and Gail was to sing.

Hemingwood did not mention the incident of the morning to Gail. There was nothing of the grandstander in him and he did not want her to worry about it. After they had gone he and Apperson smoked and talked and watched the moon come up. At ten o’clock Apperson, who was to take the last watch again, was knocking out his pipe preparatory to retiring when Hemingwood became aware of the fact that a horse was undoubtedly galloping toward them, and coming fast. They waited by the fence, hands on their guns.

It was Gail Morgan, and Pegasus was a badly winded steed as she guided him up to the fence.

“Did you shoot anybody this morning?” she asked breathlessly.

Hemingwood, a tingle of excitement running up and down his spine, told her briefly what had happened.

“You hit Jim Calley!” she told him. “He must have been one of those men—they’re all Calleys over there. Jim must have been a little away from the others so that you got him. Anyway, they are coming over tonight to get you!”

“May I ask how you know?” Hemingwood asked easily.

Apperson was listening quietly, his empty pipe upside down in his mouth.

“Mrs. Tuttle, a woman I nursed when she was sick, sent her little boy to tell me. To these people, the fact that you and I have been friendly means that we must be sweethearts, so she wanted to warn me. She isn’t a Calley herself, although she’s kin to them.”

Gail was talking with breathless speed, as though laboring under almost unbearable tension. She went on: “I came right up, without telling a soul. You’d better start for East Point right off.”

“No, I guess we’ll have to guard the old ship, Gail.”

“But you don’t know these Calleys! They’re bad! What chance will you have against six men? I didn’t know what to do. All the men in East Point are either with them or afraid of them. It would be suicide for anyone like my uncle to take a hand in it, Lieutenant Hemingwood. But you could come down to East Point for the night, and—”

“No! We’ll stay. And there’s nothing to worry about,” declared Hemingwood. “Gail, you’re a brick. You’re a whole mansion of bricks. Now you turn right around and gallop home before you get mixed in it yourself. I’ll thank you later.”

“You can’t stay!” she said, the hint of a sob in her voice. “I tell you those Calleys—”

“Please run along, Gail. And I tell you we’ll be all right. If I didn’t think so. I’d light out. I’m not hankering to commit suicide.”

Finally, after Hemingwood had outlined his plans, she did go, but not before she had exhausted every means of persuasion at her command. Hemingwood had a hard time to keep her from staying nearby to see what happened and then she announced that she’d tell her uncle and that they would both be back, which Hemingwood likewise vetoed.

“Please be careful!” she whispered finally, leaning over a trifle. “And if there’s any way you can, will you let me know that everything has come out all right? I couldn’t close my eyes until I know—”

“Sure. Now for the love of Mike, pretty lady, beat it!”

She had not disappeared from sight before Hemingwood and Apperson were busy. A big rock, protruding two feet above the ground, was the cornerstone of their defense. The ship was standing by the fence, the tent thirty feet away from it and ten feet from the edge of the forest. The rock was in a corner of the field nearest the road, perhaps forty feet from both tent and ship.

They worked with breathless haste, carrying the fence rails over to the rock and constructing their barricade. In a half hour they had a small, three sided fortification of which the rock formed the apex facing the tent, where Hemingwood figured most of the action would take place, if any. The machine guns were useless—there was no time to dismount them.

He was right about the scene of battle. Less than half an hour from the time they had ensconced themselves in their shelter, lying flat on the ground, they heard a rustling in the bushes behind the tent. Although the moonlight was flooding the world in silver radiance, they could see no signs of the men they knew were there.

For taut minutes there was utter silence. Hemingwood wondered whether the low structure of rails and rock behind which they were hidden would catch the marauders’ eyes and scare them off. He hoped it would, but the chances were against it.

It was fully ten minutes before six ghostly figures, long rifles in hand, slipped out of the bushes and started to surround the tent. Hemingwood acted before any of them went out of sight behind it.

He shot his Colt in the air, and shouted, “Drop your guns! Hands up!”

“Quick!” bellowed Apperson, to let them know there was more than one gun trained on them.

For an instant six men, vague in the moonlight, stood like statues. Hemingwood shot again, shouting at the same time: “Next shot I’ll get someone! Drop those guns!”

The utter surprise of it and the terrifying effect of those two shots from unseen marksmen did the trick. The mountaineers were a bit too far from the shelter of the forest to risk a break for it against unknown odds. Their rifles dropped to the ground and six pairs of hands thrust slowly into the air.

For a moment Hemingwood was up against a problem. He knew in his heart that if those mountaineers had the nerve they could make their escape against two Colts. The darkness and the distance between the opposing factions made accurate shooting almost impossible. The most sensible procedure was for either him or Apperson to go out and make sure they were thoroughly disarmed, though the presence of one or the other in the vicinity of the six silent Kentuckians meant that the other man could not shoot without risking the wounding or killing of his ally. But it was the only possible chance. And which part should he take? Should he approach them and leave Apperson to cover him, or vice versa? He was a better shot than Apperson—and possibly the Scot might hesitate to shoot.

He put the matter up to the sergeant bluntly. Apperson silently climbed out of the barricade and circled widely to approach the line of captives from the rear. If they were unarmed, except for their rifles on the ground, he and Apperson might get away with it, Hemingwood reflected. Then a thought occurred to him, and he called Apperson back. He heard whispers pass between the mountaineers.

“Keep quiet! No talking!” he called sharply. Then: “If they make a move, drop to the ground so I can shoot!” he told Apperson. “Wait a minute! Get in here! I’m going out there myself!”

Afterward Hemingwood figured that the mountaineers, sure that they were opposed to only two men with revolvers, got the courage from the fact to make a break for liberty. As always among the mountain people, they were undoubtedly desperate at the thought of capture. For, just as Hemingwood was climbing out of the barricade the six men made a concerted leap for their rifles. Like a flash Hemingwood dropped, and both Colts barked in a fusillade of shots. The flyer saw one man drop, and another screamed with pain. A hail of bullets poured from their rifles, and he heard Apperson groan.

“They got me!” he said weakly.

Hemingwood shoved another clip into his gun and emptied it into the woods wherein the Kentuckians had disappeared. He could hear them running through the undergrowth. When Hemingwood was really mad it was a sort of cold, calculating fury. That was his condition as he examined Apperson. It was a rather nasty looking wound in the hip, but apparently it was only a deep flesh wound. As he bound it with handkerchief and belt he said tersely: “Think you can move at all?”

Apperson tried, winced, and said: “I could hobble in an emergency, sir-r-r. What’s in your mind, may I ask?”

Hemingwood explained quickly. If there was a way to get those men he’d do it, and he did not figure the odds against him.

The self-starter worked the second time he spun the booster magneto. The ship was already in position for the take-off. With utter recklessness he shoved the throttle full on and the ship hurled itself toward the dense blackness of the trees behind a cold motor. At the last second he zoomed the De Haviland across the menacing wall, and the matchless Liberty did its work. Half a minute later he had spotted the fugitives below, like ghosts slipping through the shadows.

He gave them one chance. The first burst from his guns was close to them, but not aimed exactly at them. Then he swooped so low he was scraping the tops of the trees, and motioned them back toward the field with his arm. They must realize that he held their lives in the palm of his hand!

They did. He saw them ostentatiously drop their guns and, with their hands in the air in token of surrender, start walking back toward the field. Apperson was waiting for them. Hemingwood rode herd on them from the air while he watched the crippled Scotchman supervise while one man tied up his fellows with safety wire from the ship.

They knew that the best they could do would be to kill Apperson—and then all succumb themselves to that withering blast of death from the air.

For the next thirty seconds Hemingwood flew as he never had before. It was a rare feat of airmanship to land his De Haviland in the darkness on that field, but he did it.

He climbed out and looked their captives over. One of them was a gaunt old man, with a gray, tobacco stained beard. Three of them seemed to be middle-aged, and there were two young fellows. One who had fallen seemed little more than a boy. Apperson was binding his wound. The bullet had drilled through his thigh. Another man was wounded in the shoulder. Neither wound was mortal.

Hemingwood was thinking hard as to his next step. Apperson’s wound was practically negligible, although he had to hobble on one foot and it drew a sigh from him every time his other foot touched the ground. Keeping those men prisoners meant a good deal of trouble and red tape. Probably the whole clan would descend on the flyers to revenge themselves if they stayed in the mountains, and very possibly there would be complications of considerable difficulty in even incarcerating them. Besides, his business was to get those pictures.

Apperson was lying on the ground, to relieve his pain. Hemingwood looked down at his captives for a moment in silent appraisal. They darted quick, fearful glances at him, like trapped animals.

“Listen, you Calleys,” he said conversationally. “You’ve tried to kill us twice. Once it was because you were afraid we were after you. That shows you’re up to something. I could have killed you all then; I wounded one of you by accident, in trying to scare you. Then you pull this. I could have killed you all again. You know that.

“Now get this. I don’t give a damn about you. I’m here to take pictures. I don’t want trouble. I don’t care whether you’re making moonshine enough to float the British Navy. I’ve got you now. To show you that I don’t want to bother with you, I’m going to let you take your wounded and vamoose out of here. Go home, lay off me, and behave yourselves. We’ve sniped three of you in exchange for one little wound, and by God, if you lift a finger at me again I’ll mow you all down! Get anywhere near this field and those machine guns’ll start working from the ground.” They wouldn’t know that the guns on the ship were useless on the ground unless dismounted. “And get funny while I’m in the air and the same thing’ll happen. And if you snipe me off some night while I’m here, you’ll have enough of the United States Army combing these woods for you to run you down like rats. All the dope will be mailed in tomorrow, including who you are and what you’ve done. Now I’m going to spank you and send you home like the bad boys you are!”

A long sigh came from the astounded prisoners, followed by a deep chuckle from the old man. Apperson showed no surprise. Hemingwood released them, and they got to their feet slowly. The old man smiled slowly, and it made a great change in his fierce, hawk-like face.

“Yuh can think o’ the Calleys as yore friends, stranger,” he said slowly. “C’mon hyar, you!”

Carrying their wounded, they marched silently off into the forest.

CHAPTER V

Less than five minutes after the Calleys had disappeared into the woods the clatter of an approaching automobile interrupted the reminiscent conversation of the two airmen.

It was the Mumford truck, and it carried Mumford, Gail Morgan, and five other men. One of them, he perceived, was Ballardson. Another was a doctor, who got to work on Apperson immediately.

“Gail told me all about it, Lieutenant,” said Mumford. “Of course we couldn’t let a thing like this go on—”

“Of course not!” interrupted Ballardson. The fat peace officer was ill at ease, and showed it. “I’m glad there wasn’t nothin’ to it.”

“There was something to it, but it ended all right,” Hemingwood told him, and a perverse imp in his eyes was unseen in the darkness. He narrated the night’s events briefly, and then added: “I’m sure grateful to you for sending me that note of warning!”

He was watching closely, and knew he had scored. Ballardson’s mouth opened and closed in fish-like gasps. Hemingwood turned to the other men, who were suddenly interested.

“Got an anonymous note, warning me to get out of town for safety’s sake. Just found out it was from Ballardson here. Thanks again, Officer.”

The men were silent, as though at a complete loss for words. Hemingwood knew, however, that he had put a weapon in their hands which would save both them and him any reprisal from the crooked official for the night’s work. He was aware of how slight an excuse was needed for a mountain feud, and surmised that Mumford and the other East Point men had made a real sacrifice in coming to his assistance.

The men drifted over to the ship to examine it at close range. Hemingwood gave Mumford succinct details about the note and the successful shot he had fired at Ballardson a moment before, and then joined Gail, who had been standing quietly in the background.

“Gail, we never can thank you enough, of course,” he said.

“Don’t try, then. I’ll take it for granted,” she laughed back.

She was elusively lovely in the moonlight, and Hemingwood found himself in the grip of profoundly disturbing emotions.

“Ever since I arrived you’ve been doing favors for me,” he found himself saying. And then to his own surprise, he added: “I wish you’d do me one more favor, and marry me!”

For a second her glorious eyes met his own squarely. Then she turned away quickly, and laughed.

“It might not be a favor!” she said lightly, and slipped away toward her uncle.

The truck carried Apperson back to town, but Hemingwood stayed out at the field. He did not sleep well, either. Hour after hour he examined himself, mentally, and in the end he decided that he was afraid he was in love.

The succeeding week only made him surer of it. While Apperson was convalescing he spent every possible hour with Gail, but never was the subject closest to his heart mentioned. George Arlington Hemingwood, who had never known what it was to be shy or at a loss, was totally unable to nerve himself for the ordeal of a serious proposal. Night after night he tried, only to stutter off into banal nothings.

That is, until the morning when, Apperson being recovered and the pictures all taken, they were about to take off for home. With a crowd around to watch the take-off, his helmet and goggles on his head and the motor idling along on the warm-up under Apperson’s skillful hand, he impulsively bent over and whispered his plea into her ear. She listened quietly, her hand clasped in his. They were in back of the crowd and for the moment seemed to be inhabiting a little world all their own.

“Can’t you possibly say ‘yes’?” he asked her, his eyes holding hers steadily.

“I’m sorry—but I don’t quite know yet,” she whispered. “I like you better than any man I’ve ever known.” She hesitated, and then leaned close to him and said rapidly, “I think I want to say yes—but George, I’m not sure! Perhaps this summer—”

He pressed her eagerly for a definite answer, but she shook her head. Even so, there was a song on his lips and such a leaping light in his eyes as he got in the ship that Apperson took one look at him, glanced at the flushed face of the girl, and smiled an enigmatic smile below his owl-like goggles.

Hemingwood took off, circled the field, and then obeyed an impulse to give the crowd a parting thrill. He swooped down low over the field and waved a farewell. In the forefront of the crowd he saw Gail, and she was beckoning wildly. For a moment he stared. She was signaling him down!

He landed, taxied the ship to the edge of the field, and turned it around. She appeared alongside the ’plane, her hair whipping in the propeller blast and her eyes glowing warmly. The astonished crowd looked on, wondering, as she put her lips close to his ear and said quickly:

“When I saw you leaving I found out that I was sure! Will you be back this week-end?”

George Arlington Hemingwood yelled like a Comanche Indian, and started to climb out.

“Not now—no!”

“All right! Tell all the folks, and I’ll be here Saturday if I have to build a ship!”

Thuswise she sent him away.

Not until Goddard Field was in sight did George Arlington Hemingwood, of the Hemingwoods of Boston, come out of his rose tinted trance. His face was one wide grin as he sent the ton-and-a-half bomber roaring downward in sweeping spirals and graceful wingturns.

“Just before I left I seem to remember some remarks about love and matrimony!” he reflected. “I’ll have to tell these roughnecks some time, I suppose. Won’t that boy Snapper rave! And won’t I get the razz!”

He did. It continued spasmodically long after the quarters of Mr. and Mrs. Hemingwood became a popular gathering place, but Hemingwood bore up under it wonderfully.

THE END