by Van Powell
CHAPTER XXIV
SKY TACTICS
Clearly Don saw, as his helicopter wavered, teetering like a dizzy babytrying to stand alone, the venomous purpose behind that air disturbingswoop.
Chick, staring with wide eyes, his heart stopped, felt the sway andquiver of the cockpit and convulsively snapped the clasp of the safetybelt he had released to operate the projector.
Up, in a zoom, after his furious dive, the mail craft's pilot sent hisship. On wingtip, he came around.
Garry saw his intention.
So, too, did Chick and Don.
The dive had sent the angry flyer down a steep dive, past thehelicopter and up, again, in a climbing zoom, to a high point on whichhe turned to come again past the other aircraft.
Garry realized that the man in that ship of doom was beside himselfwith passion, beyond reason. Don's hand pressed the throttle. His ownengine revved up smartly. The upper blades whirled faster.
"Can he climb away in time?" Garry gasped. Mr. McLeod, behind him,shouting, futile, helpless, gave up waving his arms at the mail flyerand watched Garry with wondering eyes as the young and inexpert pilotat the controls of the Dragonfly began also to increase his speed.
Don, opening up his fuel feed, felt the top fan catch in steady air,saw the needle of his altimeter tremble, begin to move forward. Histractor, or pulling propeller, also operating, began to show an effect.
But whether he climbed, at the same time moving forward, or not, themail flyer could so adjust his next dive that it would sweep thehelicopter's air with that deadly, upsetting propeller wash. Garry,too, realizing that, came, as best he knew how, to the rescue.
With his flying speed picking up rapidly, he drove straight across thearea between himself and the mail flyer. His eyes, watchful andnarrowed, caught the instant at which the flyer ahead dropped his nose.
His own ship dropped its nose, and, with throttle, open wide, givinghis engine full impulse the intrepid youth darted straight for the areawhere he judged that the other man's dive would bring him.
Carefully, so as not to spoil Don's own air too much and thus do whatthe mail flyer sought to accomplish, yet making his attack as close ashis inexperience told him was safe, Garry drove for the point where theother diving ship should come.
That dive of Garry's spelled an instant's respite for Don. With a rightfoot slightly pressing rudder bar, Garry swung the Dragonfly in agentle arc, as he went down, so that his path of flight went as far toDon's side as possible: at the same time he would come back, he felt,into a line that must either bring the mail 'plane and his ship close,or the other, disturbed and disgruntled by his unexpected tactics, mustside-slip out of danger.
That was not quite the result.
The mail ship, its control man seeing Garry's purpose, drew up hisnose, kicking rudder and banking--he sent the ship into an upward,sidewise skid.
It accomplished Garry's purpose. Don, climbing and moving forward atthe helicopter's best speed, was out of the danger zone.
The few seconds of advantage he gained meant safety, because he had thehelicopter righted and working under perfect control again.
Garry, cutting the gun, not skilful enough to dare sharp maneuvers,went on for some hundreds of yards before he thought it safe to bankand turn. A swift glance sidewise and backward showed him that the mailship had come out of its skid, righted and again was executing awingtip turn.
"Won't the idiot ever give up?" Garry muttered.
Chick, watching the scene, unable to take part, saw one point ofpossible advantage, if he could only communicate with Garry.
In its climbing, forward position, the helicopter was close to the samealtitude that the mail ship then had. Garry, in his last maneuver, hadlost a considerable amount of altitude, and was, thereby, too low foranything but a climb.
Still, as Chick almost instantaneously thought it out, if Garry droveforward on a straight line, the imminent dive of the mail pilot wouldbring him into danger of a crash with the Dragonfly--if only Chickcould get Garry to fly forward, on a level, at once, to get to thatessential point where he would be in the required position, the mailpilot must turn.
With wildly waving arms Chick tried to attract Garry's attention.
The young amateur, busy watching his controls, the steadying of hisship, planning his next course, did not at once see Chick's movement.
Chick reaching forward, caught the detonating mechanism of the Vereypistol, which he knew Don had told him to load after their last signal.
Chick fired the green Verey light.
That made Garry turn his head.
With the pilots' code, arm movements, Chick beckoned to Garry, as hesaw the youth turn his head that way: quickly, then, Chick held an armstraight out in front of him. Rapidly he repeated the gestures.
As he began again to beckon, Garry, catching his idea, revved up, hisship came on, level-keeled and swift, just as the mail ship began tocome forward, itself on a power-glide of an angle to bring it close tothe helicopter.
But Garry, coming fast, saw the value of Chick's signal.
Full-gun, he used every ounce of power, every hope of his earnest youngchampionship for Don and Chick, to send that craft of his into place intime.
The mail ship's control man saw that if he continued to come at thehelicopter he must come also into a line of flight that would intersectthat of the Dragonfly.
Unafraid, determined, if need be, to risk all to save Don from thevicious doom intended by the infuriated, senseless man who had tried toavenge a mistaken idea of the helicopter's purpose, Garry held on.
The mail ship swerved away long before it came near Garry and theDragonfly. Don, its pilot saw, would be above any safe dive he couldmake, and he suddenly changed his tactics, swerved and then, kickingrudder and banking--but in the wrong direction with respect to making aturn--the mail ship following its controls, skidded upward, straightfor the helicopter.
But its pilot did not want a crash.
He thus got into a position where his sudden restoration of balance puthim just forward of the helicopter.
There, revving up to full speed, he sent back over the tail of his shipthat most terrible of all man-made winds--the straight, hard fury ofhis propeller blast.
Don felt the helicopter stagger.
With all his hope gone he felt sickish, as the blast came. Not alonehis own, but Chick's life, too, was about to be the payment for animpulsive plan.
But that Power above and beyond man's puny hates, sometimes calledLuck, oftener known as a good "break," had caused the mail pilot toneglect to return his elevators to neutral; slightly raised, the tailsurface caught the full effect of his own deadly slip-stream, sendingthe nose sharply upward, and thus making that fury of disturbed airpass only the tractor propeller of Don's craft--so that its upperblades at their best speed were able to draw him up beyond the dangerof worse than an instant of horrifying danger.
Stalled, the mail 'plane fell away, and its pilot had his work cut outto avoid a bad stall. Over the bay, although the clouds concealed it,the mail 'plane, without pontoons, must quickly get flying speed, orplunge.
Don, still rising, and Garry, flying toward the swamp, saw anotherairplane, with the unmistakable markings of the Government service,come swooping from a higher altitude.
Two red Verey lights, the imperative order to land at once, flashed outfrom the newcomer's signal firing apparatus.
That new craft meant business, was commanded by some one in authority.
Going, on his glide, below the cloud scud, Garry circled out over thebay, came around to face the light breeze, took the water with hispontoons and shot toward the landing stages.
As he skittered over the surface he saw crowds rushing about in thewide area covered by the landing lights; evidently everyone drivinghome from late picture shows and dances had heard the bellowing siren;the airport day force was on hand; feverishly they worked to get thefirst mail craft off
the runways, as the second came in.
Two handlers caught the Dragonfly's wing as Garry drifted it to thelanding stage. Further out on the bay, Don set down the helicopter, toChick's intense relief, without a jar. Shutting off the top blades theyoung flyer used the tractor prop to draw him to the place vacated byGarry.
On the landing wharf Don, as he made sure that Chick was again inpossession of his normal color, saw Garry, in the lowered rays of thespot and other lights, surrounded by a group.
Doc Morgan was there, he saw. So, he was surprised to see, were the twoIndians, old Ti-O-Ga and his son, John.
Cars were parking everywhere they could find space. Excitement was inthe air.
"We've got a lot of company waiting for us to come home," Chickwhispered, with an uneasy grin.
"I don't like it much," Don responded. "Especially not the man in thatship that ordered us down. He looks angry, from here."
"Well!" Garry pushed past the crowd assembling around Don and Chick,"Don, do you hear what they're saying in the crowd?"
"Yes," admitted Don, looking around.
"We're elected," muttered Garry. "They say the Ghost of Mystery Airportis caught!"
Mr. McLeod, behind him, frowned.
"I wish you boys had shown some sense," he told the trio. "It's allvery fine to discover methods, and to tell others how mysteries areworked; but it is pretty dangerous to show off when mail is beingbrought in. That man in the other 'bus is a postal inspector, by hislooks--or an army man out of uniform."
"I know we were hasty," Don said ruefully, "but--we will have to facethe music."
"I don't think we'll like the tune very much," Garry observed.
"No," agreed Chick, "Garry's pretty sure to lose his flying license, atthe very least."
The curt summons delivered by the man who came to them from the lastland 'plane to set down, shoving his way through the crowd withoutceremony, proved that there was basis for their uneasiness.
"Well, young man," the newcomer snapped, "you and your scapegracefriends will come with me, unless there is some one here, in authoritywho will guarantee your safe arrival before the New York Chief of mydepartment at nine in the morning. You can't fool with mail, tryingyour tricks and stunts to delay the mails--especially air mail!"
While Mr. McLeod conferred, sponsoring Don and his chums, Chick put ahopeful look on the face he turned to his comrades.
"We'll have the real ghost by morning!" he whispered.