A Viking of the Sky: A Story of a Boy Who Gained Success in Aeronautics

by Joan Clark

  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  At last the heavily-loaded Wind Bird began to liftgallantly, then zoomed up into the sky.]

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  A VIKING OF THE SKY

  A Story of a Boy Who Gained Success in Aeronautics

  _by_

  HUGH MCALISTER

  _Author of_

  "STAND BY", "THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVER SHIP", "STEVE HOLWORTH OF THE OLDHAM WORKS", "CONQUEROR OF THE HIGHROAD", "FLAMING RIVER".

  THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

  AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK

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  A VIKING OF THE SKY

  Copyright, MCMXXX _by_ The Saalfield Publishing Company

  Printed in the United States of America

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  CONTENTS

  I NIGHT HAWK II WINGS III FLYING HOPE IV WINDS OF CHANCE V CHALLENGING THE AIR VI ON THE WING VII A ONE-SHIP CARNIVAL VIII RIVER OF THE WIND IX GROUND WORK X SAFETY AND DANGER XI AN AERIAL MESSAGE XII QUICK ACTION XIII VISION XIV DOWN THROUGH THE AIR XV TWO ROADS TO FAME XVI ABOVE THE CLOUDS XVII FIGHTING THE TORRENT XVIII TO THE RESCUE XIX WHEN LAND CRUMBLED XX PRISONED WINGS XXI CALL OF THE WINDS XXII WINGING WESTWARD XXIII FIGHTING DEATH XXIV NIGHT XXV HIS NAME ACROSS THE SKY

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  A Viking of the Sky

  CHAPTER I

  NIGHT HAWK

  "Oh, how I wish I was up there!" muttered Hal Dane to himself as hecocked an eye upward into the far heights of the moonlit sky.

  In mind, Hal Dane was already just below the stars, riding the clouds ina winged ship; before him, on imaginary instrument board, ticked thelatest thing in indicator, controller, tachometer. And all the while,like the other half of a dual personality, his hands and feetmechanically guided his rattletrap old truck along the ruts of thelonesome country road. On the downgrades Hal's left hand with skill oflong practice chocked a brakeless wheel with a wooden block, and on theupgrades his right foot judiciously kicked a wire that let on extra"juice" for the pull.

  In Hillton, Hal's home village, folks laughed considerably over theWestern Flyer, which a green daub of paint on the sideboards flaunted tothe world as the ancient truck's title. But folks didn't laugh at theboy who persistently patched up the rattletrap and drove it. Anyone knewthat it took genius of sorts even to hold the contraption to thestraight road.

  For all its decrepitude, Hal had to hang on to the old truck. Itfurnished his living--and a living for his mother and his great-uncleTelemachus, who was "stove-up with rheumatism." The weeks when haulingwas brisk, the truck even earned a few strange luxuries such as queerHal Dane would want--bottles of odd-smelling glue, old wire springs andbits of metal from Kerrigan's junk pile, and now and then a preciousbook full of diagrams of aeronautical engines.

  Usually Hal got a chance to make at least one trip a day, hauling gardentruck over the thirty-mile route from Hillton to Interborough, thenearest city. On the return trip he'd bring supplies for the littlestores in his home village and other villages beyond Hillton.

  Sometimes he had the luck to land a second sixty-mile round of haulingin one day--like the present occasion that was bringing him rattlinghomeward in the night.

  Night hauling was wearisome work, and if it hadn't been for Hal's livelyimagination he would have been tempted to doze on his job. But HalDane's air-minded brain was seething with spirals and Immelmanns andthree-point landings. One of the great events of his life, the State AirMeet at Interborough, had been over for a week, but every flight andentry was still fresh in the boy's mind. He lived them over again. Bytwist of the imagination old man Herman's two milk cans rhythmicallybanging against Grocer Kane's crate of lard buckets seemed almost theroar of a stunt plane warming up for action. Hal could almost thinkhimself into seeing in that empty stretch of sky above the host ofplanes that had formed the "flying circus" of last week. There had beenRex Raynor, famous pilot who stunted upside-down; there had been aerialrope-swingers and ladder-climbers. There had been--

  "Bang--bong--scre-e-eak!"

  With a snort of dismay at the clattering outspilling of his load and thescrape of his truck as it careened sideways, Hal chocked his wheel andleaped for the ground.

  "Jumping catfish!" moaned the lanky, long-legged blond young trucker ashe raced madly down the road he had just rattled up. "Ought to havelooked back once in a while 'stead of always up at the sky--wouldn'thave happened then!" And onward he sped, chasing a runaway wheel.

  This, though, was no unheard-of performance. The Western Flyer flungsome piece of its anatomy to the winds on at least every other trip.

  With a grunt of satisfaction young Dane fell upon his miscreant wheel asit thumped to a standstill in a ditch. Methodically he trundled it backalong the road, jacked up the ancient truck on the side where itsprotruding axle had ploughed the ground for some forty yards, and set towork repairing damages.

  An hour later the boy had his wheel cotter-pinned and hub-capped backinto place. As he slid under the steering gear, he determined to keephis eyes and his mind out of the sky, and to concentrate all energies onnavigating the Western Flyer safe into her garage by dawning.

  But farther along the road his imagination began playing him falseagain. Rhythmic thump of his load of cans seemed to simulate whir andzoom of an air engine.

  Imagination! Was it imagination?

  All in a quiver of excitement, Hal Dane silenced his own engine andcocked a listening ear towards the skies.

  There it was again--faint hum of a motor high in the air. An airplanewas winging its way across the forest-covered hills that lay betweenInterborough and the railroad gap at Morris Crossing. No air mail routelay that way. This must be something out of ordinary; an importantmessage to be dropped at the railroad crossing, perhaps.

  "Gosh!" ejaculated Hal to himself. "Speaking of dreaming things till youreally see 'em! Listen at her coming in!"

  The plane was swooping nearer; was now practically above him. Staringupward, Hal caught a glimpse of the spotlight focused on the hillsbelow. It was turning from side to side. The boy looked on with anguishbeginning to clutch at his heart. The motor of the plane was missing inan alarming manner. It sputtered and coughed--ran smoothly for a fewseconds, then sputtered again.

  "Trouble!" muttered Hal. "In trouble and looking for a place to land.There's no place--unless--"

  Above him the plane sl
id crazily on its way. Now it seemed to hang inthe air at a mere crawl, now it shot onward. At a spot which Hal judgedwas a couple of miles distant, the light became stationary for aninstant, then tipped sharply downward and was swallowed up by the pineforests on the hills.

  "A crash!" whispered Hal Dane. He shut his eyes, then opened themquickly, staring hard at the moonlit landscape to impress location onhis memory. That jagged pine, that spur of the hill--it was somewherebetween these that the plane had crashed.

  Next moment the boy was on the ground and cranking up his old truck likeone possessed. As it roared into life, he swung aboard and let her outfor all she was worth. In the case of a human pinned under wreckage inhorrible certainty of fire or suffocation, speed of rescue must mean thesaving of life. So down the woods road shot Hal, his ancient truckgallantly riding roots and ruts and snorting to the charge with abackfire like gattling guns. A tire blew out and nearly careened Hal,truck and all into a bank. But the boy held to the wheel, wrenched hernose straight to the road and bumped onward. A second tire burst, andthe bumping went on more evenly.

  Then the headlights showed an opening through the trees where greatwhite wings lay flattened to the earth.

  "He made it down--in the only landing place for miles!" jubilated Hal ashe leaped from the truck and raced toward the grounded plane.

  As he reached the scene of the crash he saw that the plane really hadmade a marvelous landing, merely slightly down-tipped as to nose, andframe intact save where a sapling stub had torn a jagged hole throughone wing.

  Minor injuries to the plane--but the man! The aviator hung limp againstthe supporting belt. As the boy loosed buckles and lifted the pilot out,he felt blood dampen his hands.

  Hal raced to a stream he remembered crossing. With his hat full ofwater, he was back and kneeling beside the aviator, splashing water inhis face.

  It was like a ghost rising from the dead when the prostrate man flickedopen his eyes, then suddenly--as though some valiant pull of powerwithin urged him--staggered to his feet, made a few steps and leanedheavily against his plane.

  "Why--" Hal Dane's mouth dropped open in amazement as he stared at thefigure picked out whitely in the moonlight, "it's--it's Rex Raynor,famous--"

  "Yes--yes! Don't waste time gawking at me. Need help--got to getthis--this packet on the train--at crossing!" He touched the bulge ofthe packet beneath his coat. His eyes were wild with pain, but somehowhe forced his voice to be steady, even as he forced his body to stayupright. "Can you help--patch things--get me off--"

  "Yes," Hal Dane answered, "yes!" At first he had thought to offer thetruck, but two tires were down and the back axle had steered in astrangely crooked fashion towards the end of that wild dash over stumpsand boulders. It might take hours, days, to get the truck back intorunning order. The plane--maybe there was a chance there!

  First, though, Hal slit open the bloody sleeve of Raynor's coat andshirt. From torn strips of clothing he made bandages over a bullet woundin the lower left arm, and tightened a tourniquet above to stop furtherbleeding.

  With iron grit Raynor held on to himself--sheer will power must havekept him from fainting a dozen times. In his harsh, steady voice hebarked out his orders.

  The impaling sapling was cut away below the plane wing. Then the upperlength of wood was worked gently out of the jagged hole it had torn inthe fabric. With quick, deft fingers Hal Dane whittled repair sticks outof pieces of pine. Wire from his tool chest slid in tight coils overwood, under wood, binding breaks together. Except for his overalls, Halhad very little clothing left. What hadn't gone for tourniquet was nowmasquerading as wing fabric. Tire glue had to do duty as "dope" tolacquer smooth the patched wing.

  Rex Raynor, flyer, was too pain-dazed for his mind to give even passingthought to the strangeness of his finding, out here in the pine woods, along-legged youth whose nimble fingers seemed expert at splicingframework and patching wing fabric. The trouble he was in tensed hisnerves to breaking point. His one idea was, "The packet must go on--thepacket must reach the safety of railroad officials at Morris Crossing."

  In between directions for repair work and frantic urgings for haste,Raynor muttered broken details of the disaster that had befallen him.

  Blue prints--aerial engine designs for the Nevo-Avilly contest--finishedtoo late to submit even by air mail--rushing to get packet aboard mailcar at crossing. Nobody supposed to know of his engine designs. AsRaynor crossed level by forest ranger's hut, a red rocket, distresssignal, had shot into the sky, signaling him to a landing. Knowing thatthe ranger, a former flying pal, had been disabled by illness, Raynorhad answered the silent call by gliding to earth to render aid in someemergency. Instead of the ranger, a masked bandit had leaped upon theaviator, demanding the packet, even before switch could be cut or motorthrottled. In the ensuing fight Raynor had got winged in the arm by aclose range bullet, but had managed to shake off his assailant, and hadrisen to the safety of the airways in his plane.

  Knowing that one such daredevil attack would likely mean furtherpursuit, Raynor fought off bodily pain and strove to keep his mind fixedto one purpose--getting the packet aboard the U. S. mail train.

  The flyer completed examination by electric torch of landing-gear,engine, wings, Hal's last improvised piece of patchwork that washardening miraculously under its spread of tire glue.

  "You have done well--it is good!" exulted Raynor, as with the boy's helphe trundled the plane backwards to get room for the take-off. "We havetwenty minutes--we will make it." He motioned Hal to climb into thefront cockpit.

  For a breath Hal Dane stood rigid. At last it had come--his chance toride in a real plane! But he stood motionless. This man Raynor--feverburned like delirium in his eyes, he fairly staggered from weakness. Arisky pilot to ride with! And yet the courage in that iron set of jaw,the determination that drove a pain-weakened body to serve the will!Raynor had come this far--Raynor would carry on to the end. And Hal Danewould be in at that ending.

  A thrill shot through the boy as he made his lightning-quick decisionand climbed breathlessly aboard.

  Raynor cranked the motor with his one good hand, kicked aside a woodchunk that had blocked the wheels, and scrambled heavily into the rearcockpit. With a roar the plane moved across the clearing, gatheredspeed, lifted within two hundred yards of the tree line. They were upand off, a thousand feet above earth!

  Hal Dane's blood pounded, he gasped for breath. Then he relaxed into afeeling of keen delight.

  Hal Dane actually flying! The boy knew instinctively that from now onflying was to be his real life. He had managed this one time to skim theclouds. Somehow he would manage it again and again.

  Raynor had ascended rapidly. Two thousand feet below them the pineforests lay like flat dark carpets. Little rivers and streams were likesilver threads reflecting the moonlight. In the distance a row of small,swift-moving lights must be the east-bound mail train they were racing.

  Looking earthward from the heights stirred no qualm, no dizziness in theboy. He felt at ease, in his own peculiar element. Turning his mindbackward, it seemed that every event in his life had culminated in thisengine-powered flight with wings.

  Even as Hal's serene gaze sought the pinpoints of trees and the silverdots of water on the earth below, the great plane shot higher, loopeddownward, aimed her nose at the stars again. After that came a sensationof falling, then a careening, tipping of wings from side to side.

  Rise, fall, dip--all consumed mere space of a breath.

  Hal Dane whirled around from his earth gazing, to steal a glance at thepilot behind him.

  There was reason for those wing-dips. Rex Raynor hung in a faintinghuddle across his strap. Almost at the glorious end of his race fortime, the flyer's iron will had lost its fight against pain.

  Raynor's ship was a teaching boat, outfitted with dual controls. BetweenHal's knees rose a stick, mate to the control from which the pilot'shand had fallen.

  Instinctively Hal Dane's hand shot out to grasp this lever. His on
edesire was to shove with all his power on thegear,--forward--back--anywhere, to steady this awful tipping, skiddingroll that was hurling the boat downward. But even as Hal's hand touchedthe knob of the stick, reason surged through his brain like a shout of"Wait, wait! Death lies that way!"

  Reason was right. Hal's fingers clenched into palm to keep from seizingthe gear. He must think it out, know what he must do before he evershoved that lever a hair's breadth. With cold sweat bursting out todrench him, and his brain prickling to the terror of falling,falling,--yet Hal Dane held himself rigid, eyes closed, while in hismind's eye he made himself see again the paper diagram of a Wrightmotor's control board. In his own cluttered old workshop at home he hadmemorized every movement of manipulating ailerons, elevators, rudder.Memory must save his and another's life now.

  When Hal opened his eyes again, his stiff lips were muttering, "Stickpushed forward, manipulates elevators--plane descends; pulled back,plane rises; pushed to right, operates ailerons for right wing bank;left, for left bank--"

  To the boy mere moments had seemed hours of hurling earthward. He feltthat the very tree tops must soon be dragging at the landing gear,crippling the plane for its crash. He longed desperately to look, to seejust what space lay between him and death.

  Instead, for two dreadful seconds, he forced calm eyes to study thecontrol board, forced his hand to hold the fat knob of the stick in afirm grip, to pull back--gently, gently.

  And gently the ship lifted. Descent changed to ascent.

  A sob of relief tore through the boy's throat. They were going up, up!The waving octopus arms of the tree tops could not snare them to deathnow.

  It seemed he could never get enough of going up. He was above the cloudsnow. The ship answered beautifully to every touch on the controls. Aslight pressure on the stick to the right operated ailerons and theright wing dropped to form a right bank that drifted the ship in a wide,lazy circle.

  The response of the mechanism was wonderful. It was like a living thingthat moved at a touch. Hal Dane felt lifted on wings of his own.

  Then he passed beyond the bank of clouds. Two thousand feet below him onthe earth crawled a tiny earthworm thing strung with lights--the mailtrain, the crossing!

  Elation ebbed from young Dane's mind.

  In the sky heights was safety. On the ground below lurked death,awaiting the slightest mischance in landing.

  And yet Hal Dane must come down to a forced landing--now--immediately.He was not here to skim the clouds for exhilarating joy. He must rush awounded man and an important packet to the train crossing.

  Slowly young Dane circled earthward. And each downdrift laid a chill ofterror on his heart. Now that he was coming to earth, earth looked mostunnatural. Morris Crossing should be familiar ground; yet viewed in thewhite moonlight from over a plane edge, all things took on monstrouslystrange proportions. In his terror Hal began to feel that he could notdistinguish a field from a forest, a road from a river. He might smashacross housetops, might hurl himself, plane and all, into the movingtrain before he could stop. No, he could not do this thing, could not!If gasoline held out, he could drift in mid-air till morning.

  In answer to his sudden tense pressure, the elevator was pulled so hardthat the machine all but stalled, then fortunately cleared off andzoomed upward at intense speed.

  High air--safety again!

  But Hal Dane was no coward. Up in the heights, his brain seemed to cool.The train was coming in. It was a matter of seconds. And he must meetthat train with the packet.

  Coolly he began to map in his mind the lay of the ground close to MorrisCrossing. There was the group of small houses, the improvised box-carwaiting-room, a storehouse, behind that an empty, rolling stretch offield. That was his chance. He must somehow land in that field.

  A week ago, at the Air Meet in Interborough, Hal had watched innumerableairplanes cut motors and circle down. He had studied and read everythingon aviation he could lay hands on--he knew exactly what he ought to do.But actually to do it! A terror chill quivered up the boy's spine.

  Then he set teeth, coolly stopped the motor, pressed into a bank thatbegan to drop the plane in great circles. Dane tried to remembereverything at once--best to volplane down in spirals of a certainsize--must flatten off to save a nose dive--must--

  Then the black earth came up to meet Hal Dane.