Part 3

Motor full on, he sent the frail D.H. hurtling downward in a power dive which made the wires shrill madly and the ship tremble from nose to tail. He was without fear, and his hand was steady as a rock on the stick.

In that brief moment, with the roar of the overspeeding motor dinning in his ears and the peril of the storm surrounding him, he kept his eyes on that wreck below, and saw himself for what he was. He realized what he had done when he had forced Dumpy into this mad trip.

He was calling himself a murderer as he leveled his ship above the water. He was a hundred feet back of that sinister mass, floating so peacefully. He was possessed of a great calm, and he handled his great ship with a sureness he had never known before.

He cut the throttle, and nosed the D.H. upward. It lost speed, and as the stalling point came he threw it into a steep bank, left wing down. He jammed on right rudder at the instant when flying speed was about to disappear, and the De Haviland shot downward on one wing, with scarcely a mile of forward speed.

He gathered himself as the water rushed up to meet him and the airblast flayed his left cheek. The left wing cut the water five feet from Scarth’s wreck. The motor plowed into the river, and the ship flipped over, half on its back, as the left wingtip smashed into the bottom of the shallow stream and the entire structure of linen and wood crumpled in a series of ripping, tearing reports.

He was unhurt, and he had unsnapped his belt buckle at the instant of crashing. He was out, wading through the water, which was to his armpits. He took a long breath, and plunged under the other ship.

His groping hands found the body, hanging limply, head downward. His lungs bursting, he heaved upward on the unconscious Scarth, to keep the weight from the belt, and tore at the buckle. It was an eternity before it unfastened, and as he got Scarth above the water he fell limply against the soaked fuselage.

For a moment he had to stay there until his laboring lungs and bursting head grew more normal. Then he stumbled through the water toward the shore. He had scarcely laid Dumpy down when three riders came galloping madly through the mesquite along the river bank.

It was Crosby, with two Mexicans. The customs man took in the situation at a glance, and went to work on the unconscious Scarth with no comment other than a curt:

“If anybody was comin’ across tonight they won’t now. They’ll have heard the ships.”

The crude first-aid methods did their work, and Dumpy revived. When his nausea was over Crosby put him on his horse.

“José here can give you a bed to dry out in,” the customs man told him cheerily. “Here, Moran, get on José's pony. We’ll walk alongside.”

As they started slowly up the trail alongside the river Moran ranged his pony alongside Scarth’s. There was a great peace within him.

“Scarth,” he said slowly, "I was a ---- fool tonight. We had no business trying to fly and I--just horsed you into it because we hated each other, I guess. I--”

“’T’sall right,” Dumpy mumbled awkwardly. "I was a bigger fool than you. I didn’t have to come. And--thanks for pulling me out.”

But Moran would not be headed off. He felt that he had to talk, to explain himself to someone.

“I wasn’t myself,” he went on doggedly. “I got kind of scared of these D.H.s in that wreck, and I was so yellow I just had to fly. I was so scared I wasn’t scared, if you get me. I never flew D.H.s before, but razzing you into pretty near a sure accident was--”

“Huh?” grunted Dumpy, his eyes probing Moran’s with a curious glitter in them. “You never flew D.H.s before you came down here, you mean?”

Moran nodded.

“I hated to admit it--I wanted to stay, and so I lied and bluffed. I’m just telling you this so that you’ll know I wasn’t--I didn’t mean all that stuff. I was just cuckoo, between one thing and another.”

“Well I’ll be ----,” Dumpy repeated softly, as if musing to himself. He shivered, and seemed to rouse himself from reveries.

“It’s all right. Couple o' things got under my hide too, I guess.”

“Thanks. Just wanted to--sort of let bygones be bygones before I leave. That’ll be in a day or two, I guess.”

They relapsed into silence. Moran’s face was serious and composed. He did not notice the continuous looks which the impulsive younger man threw at him. He was wrapped in his thoughts. He had burned his bridges behind him in admitting his amateurishness as a flyer, he knew, and any lingering hope that he might stay on the Border was gone. Nevertheless, the bitterness had been purged from him, and he was glad.

* * * * *

At McMullen the next afternoon Dumpy, who had been very thoughtful all day, was first to report to Kennard. Moran changed his clothes, and went to headquarters later. The little captain had one dusty boot on the desk, and he cocked a keen, gray eye at Moran, while he dragged on a cigaret.

“I learned all I had to know from Dumpy,” he stated in his husky voice. “Still breaking up my ships, huh?”

Moran’s lips widened a trifle in reponse to the twinkle in the C.O.’s eyes.

“So you tried to put across a bluff down here, eh? What a ---- fool you are! Well, I’ll tell you, Moran. I sometimes like guts more than experience, and I guess if you want to stick around the Border that much, we can stand it. You can get experience here.”

Moran’s dry mouth opened, but no words came as he saluted and walked out into the flooding sunshine which had followed the storm.

[Transcriber's Note: This story appeared in the August 1, 1927 issue of Adventure magazine.]