Chapter VII: A Hazardous Landing

During the days directly following Dave Boyd's departure for the North, news came in daily regarding the Greenland expedition and its whereabouts.

Dave Boyd and his co-pilots had met with favorable weather; they had made even better progress than they had anticipated. So far, so good.

Slim Tyler and Jerry Marbury kept in close touch with the progress of the _Flying Cloud_. Though neither of them had fully recovered from the disappointment of not having been included in the party, they nevertheless drew a vicarious excitement from the story of the doings of Dave Boyd and his distinguished company.

They flew daily, not only because they loved it, but to keep in practice and to test occasional new devices that were constantly coming up for trial in aviation.

"If we get smashed up," said Jerry jokingly, as they were taking a spin one day over the country surrounding North Elmwood, "Dave Boyd will be sorry that he didn't take us along. Two of his most enterprising young aviators gone to waste!"

"You must think we're going to land in the ash heap," laughed Slim.

"That's the chance we're taking every day," said Jerry.

They had made a wide circuit and were returning to the North Elmwood field when, looking down, they saw some of the mechanics and pilots looking up at them and gesticulating wildly.

"What's all the shooting about, I wonder?" asked Jerry in some surprise.

"Search me," replied Slim. "They seem to be urging us not to come down. Don't you see that they're pointing to the sky?"

"I'm not an expert at the sign language," said Jerry. "Why shouldn't we go down? No cops waiting to nab us, I hope."

"I don't know," replied Slim, his bewilderment increasing. "All the same they have some reason. What's Cusack doing there with that big paint brush?"

"Spilling a lot of paint, anyhow," observed Jerry. "Marking down a lot of big letters. Henry's all stirred up about something. And there's Tom Ellsworth running toward his plane. What in thunder is up?"

They saw Tom jump into the cockpit, while Cusack handed to him a bespattered sheet of canvas. Tom gave her the gun and shot up into the air until he was nearly abreast of Slim's plane.

He held out the canvas strip, on which Cusack had painted in sprawling letters:

YOUR LEFT WHEEL IS GONE

Slim Tyler and Jerry Marbury started as though from an electric shock. For the message spoke of terrible danger.

They would have to land on one wheel, and that was a thing that could not be accomplished one time in twenty without a crack-up! Even Dave Boyd himself would have had hard work to do it.

Slim Tyler felt all the blood leave his face. Then he gritted his teeth and set himself to his task.

There was no more gesticulating from the field. The men below stood in anxious silence. They knew that Slim Tyler had read and understood the message. Now it was up to him. No one could help him but himself.

"Think you can make it, Slim?" asked Jerry soberly.

"Can tell better when we hit," returned Slim grimly. "But I'm going to do an awful lot of trying."

He figured that they would hit the ground at the rate of about thirty miles an hour. Then they would have to run along for several hundred feet on that one wheel.

If the wheel were only in the center of the plane, it would be fairly easy to maintain an even keel. But it was on one side, and the tendency of the plane would be to turn over on the unsupported side. That would mean that the wing would strike the ground on that side and the whole thing would crumple up, while the occupants would probably be maimed or killed in the crash.

"Throw everything in the plane that you can move over to the right side, and keep yourself over there too," directed Slim. "We've got to get all the weight there we can."

Jerry did as directed, and Slim, moving in great, sweeping spirals, drew gradually nearer to the ground.

Down, down, he went, seeming to do scarcely more than float.

Down still lower, until the one wheel touched the ground. It dipped a trifle toward the unsupported side, and a groan went up from the anxious spectators.

With a lightning turn of the wrist, Slim Tyler righted her, at the same time throwing the weight of his own body as far as he could to the right. By the most delicate manipulation and balancing, he kept the plane upright on the one wheel until the momentum of the run had spent its force.

The plane came to rest quiveringly, and only then yielded to the force of gravitation and sank gently over on the left wing, so gently that it would not have broken a pane of glass.

A roar of relief and delight went up from the watchers and a rush was made for the plane. Slim Tyler, drenched with perspiration from the awful strain of that struggle, was pulled from the plane and pounded and mauled by his enthusiastic friends until he begged for mercy.

"Gee, that was a wonderful landing!" exclaimed Henry Cusack. "I've been on this landin' field for years and never seen anything like it. Shouldn't wonder if Dave Boyd was right when he said that you were the greatest flyer for your age in the world."

"Great work, Slim!" declared Tom Ellsworth. "I thought you were in for a crack-up, sure. I wouldn't have given a plugged nickel for your chances."

"Such judgment! Such balancing! Such stick work!" applauded Jerry Marbury. "Slim, I take off my hat to you. I was already figuring up whether I had money enough to pay for my funeral expenses."

"Just sheer luck," returned Slim Tyler modestly. "But you bet that the next time I go up, particular attention will be given to the wheels. A few experiences like this would give me gray hairs."

He was leaving the grounds half an hour later when he was accosted by one of the mechanics.

"A couple of letters over at the office for you, Slim," he said. "Better get them before the old stick-in-the-mud in charge there tries to read them through the envelopes."

Slim thanked the young fellow and made straight for the office.

He was looking eagerly for mail these days. Since the notebook containing the entries by High Hat Frank had fallen into his hands, he had written to several places concerning Hugh Garrabrant and Cameron Flood, but so far had received no word in return.

He was exceedingly anxious to hear from one or both of them, for he was hotly embarked now on Nat Shaley's trail and hoped the miser's other victims could aid him in his search for facts.

He waited with scarcely concealed impatience for Anthony Litwell, the gossipy clerk in charge of the affairs of Boyd's office, to sort over the mail and find his letters for him.

He got them at last. One was postmarked from a city in California, where he had written for news of Garrabrant. The other was from a town in Ohio, where he had hoped to obtain information concerning Cameron Flood.

Back of the hot dog stand where some time before he had perused the greasy, thumbed notebook of High Hat Frank, Slim Tyler opened one of his two letters.

This was from the Garrabrants' lawyer and proved a distinct disappointment.

Hugh Garrabrant was dead and had left no heirs as far as could be ascertained. He had left, however, a claim against the Mt. Sunwa Lumber Company which had operated in Oregon and was, Slim felt sure, the one with which Nat Shaley had been connected.

The fact that Garrabrant was no longer living was a sharp setback to Slim's hopes in that quarter. To get into touch with Hugh Garrabrant himself, that was what he wanted, not a talk with a lawyer or an unsatisfactory delving into long past facts.

He put the letter back into its envelope and shoved it into his pocket.

"One lead gone," he said to himself. "Now I'll see what news the other letter gives me. If Cameron Flood is dead, too, I might just as well give up the investigation."

Almost in the first sentence of the letter he was informed that Cameron Flood was indeed dead. However, he had left a son, Cameron Flood, Jr., who would, the lawyer surmised, be glad to meet Mr. Tyler and discuss this matter of mutual interest.

"This is better," crowed Slim. "Now I'm getting somewhere!"

He read on for a paragraph or two and his jubilant expression died.

"Now what do you know about that?" he muttered. "Isn't that just rotten luck?"

The news that had caused Slim's swift change of expression was to the effect that although Cameron Flood, Jr., was alive, he was unfortunately no longer in his home town, but had left the city for upper Canada, where he was about to join an exploring expedition by airplane.

The expedition, the writer went on to explain, was bound for Greenland.

"Can you beat that?" muttered Slim. "He must be one of those two scientists slated to join Dave Boyd in Canada."

Now his disappointment at not being a member of the party was redoubled.

"What a talk Flood and I would have had!" mourned Slim. "We'd have had plenty of time to compare notes and map out a plan of campaign. I sure am the original hard luck kid!"