CHAPTER I.

THE ARMY FLYER.

The tall, sun-browned man whose active sinewy figure belied his fifty years closed the switch, whipped off the headphones and smiling fondly turned to his visitor.

“Let’s go out to the field, Captain Cornell,” he said, “and you’ll see as pretty a landing as any flyer in the Southwest can make. That was my boy Jack. Radioed he’d be here in ten minutes.”

The uniformed army flyer from the Laredo flight of the Border Patrol smiled and nodded. Younger than Mr. Hampton by many years, in fact but half his age, he yet found his host a congenial spirit. Since his forced landing that morning on the terrace which the Hamptons had cleared on their Southwestern ranch, the two men had found much in common to discuss. Already they were fast on the way towards becoming real friends.

Together they stepped from the radio shack into the hot sunshine. After the comparative coolness of the interior with its whirring electric fan, the outdoors was like a furnace. League on league the mesquite covered plains stretched away to the distant needle-like peaks of the westward range, unbroken by building of any sort; by tree or moving object.

Behind them, however, lay the group of ranch buildings. There was the long low main structure, built of timbers and ’dobe, thick-walled, with cool interior and a shaded patio built about a spring. To one side rose a spindling tower at the foot of which crouched the radio shack. On the right was the corrugated-iron hanger, radiating heat like an oven in shimmering heat waves; and towards this the two men made their way.

“You certainly do yourself well here,” said Captain Cornell, looking from the beautifully levelled landing field, with its hanger and piped gas flares for night lighting, to the radio tower and the comfortable ranch house. The stables and corrals were out of sight in a draw, hidden by the dwelling.

Mr. Hampton nodded.

“Why not?” he asked. “I have all the money I need and more. Besides, as I told you, Jack is out here experimenting for the radio people, and they paid for doing over my little station and equipping it anew.”

By now they had reached the landing field, and Mr. Hampton raising his voice shouted: “Ho Tom.”

A figure, followed by another, rounded the corner of the hanger. Tom Bodine and his new assistant had been lounging on the shaded side.

“A great old-timer,” commented Mr. Hampton in a low voice as Tom Bodine approached in response to his beckoning wave of a hand. “Tell you some time about how he saved the lives of Jack and his pals, Bob Temple and Frank Merrick. It was down in old Mexico, when the boys were all several years younger.”

The flyer noted with approval the sinewy muscular figure of the ex-cowpuncher who approached without self-consciousness, alone, his assistant having dropped back. Grizzled, sun-browned, walking with the rolling gait of the man who had spent a lifetime in the saddle, Tom Bodine looked what he was—an outdoor man of the wide open ranges.

Mr. Hampton introduced them, and the two men shook hands. Each noted with a pleasurable thrill the firm grip of the other.

“Jack radioed he’d be landing soon,” said Mr. Hampton.

Through puckered eyelids his sharp blue eyes swept the sky to the south. A haze which had filled the sky for days, telling of sand whipped off of the Mexican desert hundreds of miles away by a wind storm, obscured the air.

“There he comes,” he said suddenly, pointing.

The gaze of the others followed. Heads nodded. They, too, saw the distant speck which betokened the approaching plane.

“Guess I left him plenty of room for landing,” said the army man, casting a glance towards his own De Haviland near the hanger.

“Yes, suh,” said Tom, not withdrawing his gaze from the sky. “I wasn’t here when you come down, but afterwards I wheeled yo’r bus to the south end. See? She won’t be in Jack’s way. Besides, that boy could land on a nickel a’most.”

There was such obvious pride in his voice that again Captain Cornell smiled discreetly. To himself he said that he wished people felt that way about him. But he did not do himself justice. He was one of the best-liked men of the Border Patrol.

On came Jack, the thrumming of his motor clearly heard by the watchers below. When almost overhead, the tune of the motor changed, and Captain Cornell’s practised ear could tell that Jack had throttled down to eight or nine hundred revolutions. He was nosing down. His plane was shooting earthward.

When little more than a thousand feet up, the plane was thrown into a tight spiral. Then Jack began circling downward.

“Pretty work,” muttered the army flyer. And Mr. Hampton overhearing could have gripped the other’s hand in his pleasure. The way to his heart lay through praise of his motherless son.

At two hundred feet the plane was seen to straighten out, and then Jack leaned overside and waved a greeting. He dropped down within fifty feet and then, with wide-open motor, roared along above the field towards the north end. There he turned for the landing.

“Always a ticklish task for a young flyer,” commented Captain Cornell, as the three men stood grouped and motionless, watching, while waiting beside the hanger could be seen the figure of the mechanic. “But he certainly handles himself like a veteran. Look at that,” he commented, as Jack shot downward in a shallow glide. “Beautiful.”

Jack levelled off a foot or so above the ground. Then tail-skid and wheels dropped to the hard-packed sand for a three-point landing.

“Beautiful,” the army flyer commented again, as he and Mr. Hampton started forward, with Tom Bodine rolling-leggedly alongside.

Tom and the mechanic who approached from the other side took the wings and guided the idling ship towards the hanger, but Jack waved them away.

“Let her go boys,” he said. “I want to run the motor out of gas.”

Obedient they stepped back. Then in a few moments, Jack snapped her off, and stepped out of the cockpit.

“Hello, Dad,” he called. “Got your message about Captain Cornell having honored us, so here I am. But if I hadn’t been taking Isabella for a ride when you radioed this morning, you wouldn’t have gotten me. Their radio’s out of commission. Tell you about it later. But here I am running on and you haven’t introduced us yet. Captain Cornell, I guess,” he added, turning squarely towards the army man, and holding out his hand.

“And mighty glad to meet you,” asserted the other, as their hands met. “Pretty landing,” he added.

Jack flushed under the praise, but so tanned was he like all the others that it would have been hard to distinguish the mantling blood in his cheeks.

“Oh, that was nothing,” he demurred. “But still it’s mighty nice of you to say so. Excuse me a minute while I talk with Tom. Something I want him to fix up.”

So saying, he strode off to where Tom Bodine and his mechanic were now trundling the plane into the hanger.

Captain Cornell saw a square-shouldered lean youth, hard as nails, almost six feet tall, with an open and ingenuous countenance who bore himself with an air of confident assurance. When Mr. Hampton earlier had been elaborating on Jack’s merits and capabilities and had told him somewhat of the confidence reposed in his son by the great radio trust which had commissioned him to carry out experiments in research and engineering problems, the army flyer had been inclined to discount the tale to a certain extent on the ground of parental partiality. But now he experienced an instinctive liking for Jack, and felt that in all likelihood Mr. Hampton had not been exaggerating.

His thoughts were interrupted by Jack’s quick return.

“Whew,” said Jack, tearing off his helmet and letting his damp hair blow in the light wind. “This heat is terrible. Haven’t had a day like this for ages. Big storm working up from the south, I’m afraid. Certainly was cooler up above. Well come on, let’s get out of the sun. Besides, I want something cool to drink. Then you can tell me how you happened to land here, Captain Cornell. And, I’ll have something that will interest a man of the Border Patrol, or else I’m mighty badly mistaken.”

“Why, Jack, what do you mean?” questioned his father, striding beside him towards the house.

“Sounds mysterious,” commented Captain Cornell, on Jack’s right.

“That’s what it is, too—mysterious,” said Jack. “Something brewing down there in the mountains behind Rafaela’s home that I don’t understand. Neither does her father. But let’s get inside where it’s cool, and I’ll tell you all I know about it, which isn’t much.”