Chapter XVII: At Risk of Life

Though the three young adventurers fully appreciated the chances they were taking, their hearts were high and their souls undaunted. They had counted the cost before they had embarked on their enterprise, and they were willing to pay that cost, if an unkind fate should demand it of them.

On they went over the wild sea, flying at an altitude of three thousand feet.

An hour of this, and Slim Tyler relinquished the control of the plane to Jerry Marbury, while he snatched a little sleep.

"How is she going?" he asked, a couple of hours later, when he came to relieve his companion.

"Not very well," returned Jerry uneasily. "She doesn't answer as she should. I was just going to call you and have a talk about it. I'm afraid there's something wrong with the stabilizer."

"The stabilizer!" exclaimed Slim quickly, for all the meaning of that disaster flashed upon him at once. "Here, give me the control and let me get the feel of it."

It took him less than a minute to realize that Jerry was right. The _Hope_ was tossing and bucking like a balky mule.

"I know what it must be," declared Slim, after he had run over in his mind all possible reasons for the _Hope's_ eccentric behavior. "The streamlined cable brace on the right side of the stabilizer has parted."

"Parted!"

To an experienced airman like Jerry, the word was like the crack of doom!

The young aviators looked at each other. The blood had fled from their faces.

"Unless we fix it, we're goners," declared Slim.

"Of course we are," agreed Jerry. "But how are we going to fix it unless we can come down?"

"I don't know how, but we've got to," affirmed Slim.

"I don't believe it's ever been done on an airplane while in flight," groaned Jerry. "Looks to me, Slim, as though the jig is up."

"What's all the shooting about?" asked a sleepy voice, and Dick Mylert, roused by the excited conversation, came forward and joined the pair.

"Plenty," returned Slim. "The stabilizer brace has given way."

"And that means?"

"It means that unless we fix it promptly we'll get a ducking," replied Slim grimly. "I can't explain it to you now. Let me think."

He needed to think and think quickly, for none knew better than he what was meant by the parting of that brace that put the rudder in jeopardy.

One plan after another chased itself through his mind, to be rejected as impossible.

At last he fastened on one that offered some glimmer of hope, though it was beset with manifold dangers.

"Dick," he commanded, "you'll find some rosin in a bag back there. Break it out."

Mylert hastened to obey.

Slim turned to Jerry.

"Get me a spare brace, Jerry," he directed. "You know where we keep them."

In a minute Jerry was back with the brace, a steel strut about a quarter of an inch thick, an inch wide, and about three feet long.

"Here it is," he said. "What's your plan, Slim?"

"We're going to smash the rear bulkhead," explained Slim. "Then I'm going to crawl to the tail of the ship through the fuselage. I'll take a sharp knife along and slit the fabric on the top of the fuselage. Then I'm going to push my head and shoulders through the hole, so that I can have my arms free."

"But you'll be in the full blast of the propellers!" cried Jerry, aghast. "It will tear you to pieces!"

"I guess not," replied Slim. "Anyhow, I've got to take the chance."

"Let me do it," pleaded Jerry. "My life isn't worth any more than yours. Why should you take all the risk?"

"No," said Slim. "I've got the whole thing mapped out in my mind. I won't be blown away. That's one reason why I asked Dick for the rosin. I'm going to spread it over my suit, so as to give a better grip on the fabric. You stay at the controls, Jerry, and try to keep this bucking broncho steady until I've finished my work. In a little while we'll either be riding pretty or we'll be at the bottom of the sea."

He rubbed his clothes with the rosin that Dick brought, and with the latter's aid broke through the rear bulkhead and slit the fabric until his head and shoulders could emerge.

It seemed that the blast of the propellers, as he came into its full force, would blow his head from his shoulders.

It would have been a delicate piece of work to do, even under the most tranquil circumstances. In this wild roaring and tumult it seemed impossible.

One end of the brace was bent into a hook with a sharpened point. A hole had been drilled below the point of the hook. In the shaft of the strut opposite the hole in the hook was a corresponding hole. At the end of the shaft was another hole, larger than either of the other two.

Slim pulled the hook of the strut through the fabric of the stabilizer so as to hook the outside tubing, which was just on the other side of an interior steel brace.

Then he put a bolt through the two holes and screwed the bolt tightly into place. That proceeding clamped the strut permanently to the stabilizer.

With a heavy pair of pliers he drew the end of the broken brace through the big hole in the end of the shaft of the new strut as tautly as he could. Then he lashed it securely.

It had been a fearful task that would have daunted a lesser soul. The blast of the propeller was tearing at him, taking away his breath, searing his eyes, threatening at any moment to wrench him from his precarious hold and hurl him into the raging waters beneath. His lungs were laboring to the bursting point with his terrible exertions. His hands were so numbed by wind and cold that they had scarcely any feeling left in them.

But he had triumphed! He had saved the plane! The brace was not quite as rigid as he would have liked to have it, but amply so for their present needs.

That it was working well was evident from the fact that the bucking and balking of the plane had ceased. She was once more answering her helm without protest.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Slim Tyler drew back into the fuselage, got back into the cabin through the broken bulkhead, and made his way to the control.

Jerry fairly hugged Slim in his delight at his safe return.

"You did it, old boy! You did it!" he exclaimed. "It was a hundred to one chance, but you won! A thing I don't think has ever been done before by a flyer--repairing a stabilizer while in flight. Didn't I tell you this fellow could work miracles?" he demanded of Dick Mylert.

"I'm beginning to believe you," replied the young newspaper man warmly. "Gee, my heart was in my mouth while you were out there, Slim! It looked as though you were up against a hopeless task."

"Nothing is hopeless, unless we admit it is," replied the young pilot. "I'll take a turn now at the controls while you boys finish the job. You'll need a curved needle to sew up the slit in the fabric and then you can repair the broken bulkhead. That will make everything O.K."

Jerry and Dick set to work busily and soon had the repairs made, pending a more complete job when they should be able to land.

It was bitterly cold, and grew still colder as they progressed toward the Greenland coast.

Below them the sea was dotted here and there with huge icebergs, great masses that had broken off from the ice cap and were now floating in stately majesty toward the warmer waters of the south.

With the moonlight reflected from a thousand jagged points, the bergs resembled gigantic diamonds. It was like a scene from fairyland.

But the aviators had not long to enjoy it, for great masses of clouds gradually obscured the moon, and gusts of wind, growing ever fiercer in intensity, presaged a coming storm.

"Something brewing," remarked Jerry. "Looks as if----"

The sentence was never finished.

A terrific blast struck the plane with such irresistible force that it turned turtle!