Chapter 2 Salters River

At precisely six-forty-five next morning Hemingwood was commencing to look for the Salters River, which was his principal landmark to aid in finding East Point. For a half hour he had been flying over the mountains. As far as the eye could see, even from the airy perch of three thousand feet, low rolling, heavily wooded hills rolled away to the skyline. It was not difficult to believe the bloody history of those thousands of acres of unkempt wilderness as one looked down on the grim fastnesses which hid in their depths a strange breed who lived and fought and died in a shadowed, primitive world of their own. George himself had had a sample of the suspicious mountain people when he had been forced to land in the hills a few months before.

Another flyer would have been taut with the strain of flying continuously over a wilderness which presented no possible landing field. The failure of two or three cylinders of the twelve-cylinder, four hundred and fifty horsepower Liberty meant crashing into the trees at seventy miles an hour. But no worry bothered George Arlington Hemingwood. His untroubled eyes scanned the glistening instruments, and he enjoyed the ride. He couldn’t be worried until disaster actually overtook him. The specially built ship, carrying a hundred and thirty-five gallons of gas, roared along over the mountains at a hundred miles an hour. To offset the extra weight of gas, oil, and electric cameras, it was streamlined to the last possible degree, and it was a tribute to Apperson’s loving care down to the last turnbuckle glistening in the morning sun.

Finally the tiny stream came in sight, and he swung southward. It twined along between the mountains, sometimes in deep gorges and sometimes level with tiny fields on its banks. Herkimer came in sight, and he instantly vetoed the one field near it. It was ploughed land and the furrows were high and soft.

He sped along over the village, and deeper up into the mountains. Herkimer was lost to sight almost immediately. There was a three-minute interval when he only picked up one cabin.

Then East Point came in sight, and proved to be a pleasant surprise. It was larger than Herkimer, despite having no railroad, and the wide main street was shaded with towering trees. It was set at the base of a mountain, and for a half mile westward small cleared fields occupied the tiny valley floor. There were small ploughed fields on the mountainsides, too, gleaming white against the green of the woods.

Hemingwood, scrutinizing the ground closely, finally found a field, although it was not as near town as he would have liked. It was a long, narrow grass clearing just below the crest of the mountain behind East Point, on the slope opposite the town. Four miles east of the clearing there was a small settlement which was not on his map.

He throttled the motor to a thousand revolutions a minute and dropped down for a look. He could see the residents of East Point popping forth from their houses for a look at the visitor from the sky. There would be some excitement down there, he soliloquized. He noticed a solitary horseman toiling up the road from East Point to that settlement, whatever its name was. The road led past his prospective landing place, which would make transportation of gas and oil a simple matter.

The field lay north and south, with an eastern slope. It was surrounded by towering trees on three sides, but to the north, where the road skirted it, there was a good approach.

He swooped down within ten feet of the ground and flashed across it for a detailed inspection. It rolled slightly and the grass was four or five inches long. A few rocks protruded from the vegetation, but the middle of the clearing seemed to be without obstacles.

He decided immediately to try it. As he zoomed upward and turned northward to land over the road he looked around at the imperturbable Apperson. He pointed down at the field, and Apperson removed his pipe and nodded. Not in approval; merely understanding. Apperson considered everything in the photo section as his business, except flying. This he left entirely to Hemingwood. If his chief had indicated the Ohio River as a landing place, Apperson would have nodded.

Hemingwood came in low over the thin fringe of trees, cutting the motor gradually. The heavy ship had almost lost speed when it was over the road, and was mushing downward. Hemingwood stabbed the throttle ahead for a second as the DeHaviland settled over the fence. The spurt of power held the nose up a second more, and the stick was back in his lap when the ship hit on three points in a hard stall landing. It rolled with slackening speed up a small hump in the field, picked up again as it rolled down the other side, and stopped at the top of the second fold, a safe hundred yards from the southern boundary. It was flying as perfect as it was unconsciously skillful.

Hemingwood gave it the gun and taxied to the fence. He turned off the gasoline feed, ran the motor out, and clicked off the switches.

“I’ll take a constitutional down to the city, Apperson, and see where we sleep and eat, if any. Likewise where we get gas and oil, and how. I guess you’d better stay here. There’ll be the usual mob of people show up, I suppose.”

“Quite so,” nodded Apperson, raising his yellow tinted goggles deliberately. “Ye’ll have transportation to get the hags into town, no doot.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be back in a couple of hours—by the time the sun gets right for pictures, anyhow.”

He climbed out, lit a cigaret, and surveyed the cloudless sky with satisfaction.

The mosaic would be taken from eleven thousand feet, and even a few cumulous clouds would mean great gaps in the pictures. It looked like a good working day.

Apperson was busy in the back cockpit, unwiring divers articles he had packed away there. He could fit anything up to an automobile into the cockpit of a ship. Article after article materialized from the mystic depths, until it was a problem where the sergeant himself had ridden.

Hemingwood took off his flying suit and made off without further ado. It was about three miles over the mountain to East Point, he estimated, and it would be a phenomenon if he did not meet a procession of cars, one of which would be delighted to turn around and give him a lift.

He had proceeded up the dusty road for a half mile, and had just reached the crest of the hill when a horseman hove in sight. The one he had seen from the air, probably. He did not seem in a hurry, for the horse was ambling along at pretty much his own gait.

Suddenly Hemingwood’s dark eyes lighted with interest and he became conscious that his face was undoubtedly spotted with oil. That was a woman on that horse, riding astride. Furthermore, she was a young woman. A big, white Panama hat, shaped like a man’s, shaded her face, and her costume consisted of khaki riding trousers, leather boots, and a white blouse.

In a few seconds he was able to state with conviction that not only was the rider a young woman, but that she was also a most remarkably attractive specimen of her sex. And George Arlington Hemingwood was not a man who allowed opportunity to knock at his door without an answer. He stopped a few feet in front of the horse and smiled up at the girl.

“I beg your pardon, but could you tell me the name of the town that seems to be at the end of this road?”

Her piquant face, framed by the Panama and bobbed hair, dimpled slightly as she pulled up her horse.

“Which end of the road?” she enquired.

“The one I’m headed for—it seemed to be the biggest.”

“East Point,” she informed him. “Did you have a forced landing?”

“You talk like a flyer!” grinned Hemingwood. “No, I came down on purpose. I thought I was near East Point, but it’s hard to tell from the air. Particularly in such thickly settled country,” he added.

She chuckled, a peculiarly infectious performance as she accomplished it. She was a tiny little thing, Hemingwood thought, and her small, oval face with its saucily tilted nose and rather wide mouth possessed a charm which far transcended the mere beauty of more regular features. She did not look as if a resident of the mountains.

“You know, pretty lady, I’ve read a few flying stories in some of our magazines, and in every one some beautiful girl always materializes as soon as an airplane lands,” he remarked. “They just pop out of bushes in the wilderness or from behind sand hummocks in the desert. But in five years of flying it’s the first time I’ve seen it happen!”

“Well, this is the first time you’ve ever landed anywhere near me,” she returned, mirth in her gray eyes.

“My mistake!” laughed Hemingwood.

“I wonder if you could give me some information. I expect to be in your village, or above it, for a few days, taking pictures of this flock of mountains. If they rolled Kentucky out flat it would be bigger than Texas.”

She laughed aloud this time. Her face had an out-of-doors look about it, just a hint of golden tan and red cheeks with the color underneath the skin instead of on top of it.

“The main things I want to know are as follows: where can my trusty sergeant and myself procure beds and boards for ourselves? And is there any garage in town where we can buy gasoline and oil?”

“That last remark is an insult!” she said severely. “I ought to ride off and leave you standing here after that insinuation against East Point. However, you’re a stranger. My uncle has practically the only store in East Point. He sells gasoline and oil.”

“He must be a good business man, judging by his choice of salesmen,” commented Hemingwood.

“That’s the secret of his success,” she confided smilingly. “About the boarding house, I don’t know. We have no regular hotel or even boarding house, but I guess my uncle could tell you where to go.”

“And your uncle’s name is—”

“Mumford. You can’t miss the store. There’s a big sign on it.”

“Do you think you could stand it if I introduced myself?” enquired Hemingwood.

“I might.”

“Hemingwood—George Hemingwood, hailing at present from Camp Henry.”

“How do you do, Lieutenant Hemingwood,” she smiled. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Be a nice day if the weather doesn’t change, Miss Blank,” agreed the flyer.

“I’ll let you substitute ‘Morgan’ in the blank. Are we ordinary people on the ground to be allowed to look at your airplane?”

“I’ll show you the sights myself.”

She glanced down at the tiny gold watch on her wrist.

“Ten minutes of nine! I’ve got to hurry. I’m a hard working school-marm, you see. But I do want to see your plane, lieutenant.”

“What time do you get through for the day?”

“Four o’clock.”

“Are you riding to school? Come back this way?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be waiting at the ship for you. I want to be present when you see it, because it all sounds so much more impressive as I explain things.”

“I will be supposed to worship in silent awe, perhaps?”

“You be interested, and I’ll do the worshipping,” grinned Hemingwood.

“You don’t appear to be of the reverent sort. However, I’ll look forward to it. Good-by until this afternoon!”

She threw him a smile and urged her fat white horse into a lumbering gallop.

“She’s no East Point girl; she’s just out of college and getting a year’s experience or something!” soliloquized Hemingwood. “Must be some little schoolhouse up at that settlement I saw from the air. Cute kid, and she knows what it’s all about too.”

He resumed his pilgrimage to East Point, musing contentedly on the prospect before him. He had not proceeded five hundred yards, however, before loud clanking and rattling announced the fact that there was a vehicle approaching. A battered Ford truck bounced into sight and clattered up to him, slowing gradually. Loose tools in the rear were responsible for the weird combination of noises given forth by the flivver. Two men were in the seat. The truck stopped alongside the flyer, and the fat man at the wheel hailed him.

“Mornin’! Git down all right?”

“Yes, thanks. Nothing the matter. Landed on purpose.”

“I see. Lookin’ fur anything special around hyar?”

The driver’s round, red face was the setting for a pair of small, green eyes encased in rolls of fat. He was dressed in greasy mechanic clothing and a battered felt hat. His companion was a gaunt man of middle age, boasting a drooping mustache and a melancholy look.

“I’m going to town to look for gas and oil and a place to sleep right now.”

“Climb in hyar, and I’ll take yuh t’ town,” offered the fat man, who seemed to be making a determined effort to be genial.

Without a word his companion uncoiled his long length and languidly transferred himself into the rear of the truck. He was dressed in a black shirt and dirty khaki trousers and his felt hat was in as decrepit a condition as the driver’s.

The Ford had barely turned around when the vanguard of the sightseers passed in two flivvers, both loaded to the guards with coatless men of all ages. They peered at Hemingwood with concentrated attention as they dashed by.

“I keep the garage hyar an’ I c’n let yuh have all the gas yuh want,” offered the driver.

“Well, I’ve made arrangements in advance with Mr. Mumford,” lied Hemingwood.

Just why he had said it he did not know. It was an impulse, but a sensible one. He intended to buy the gas of Mumford because of the girl, and he might as well avoid antagonizing anyone in East Point if he could.

The driver grunted. He was plainly disappointed.

“Gettin’ right out?” he enquired.

“No, I’ll be here several days.”

The man glanced at him quickly, and the flyer felt instinctively that the man behind him was staring at him steadily and listening closely.

“What fur?”

The forthright question was like a blow.

“I was sent here to take a lot of pictures from the air,” Hemingwood explained.

He felt the tenseness in the atmosphere, and was well aware of the attitude of mountaineers regarding any stranger, particularly a Government man. Consequently he went to some pains to describe his mission exactly. Apparently he did not satisfy the fat garage man entirely, though. Hemingwood was somewhat puzzled. It would have been more explainable if the man had been a mountaineer. Perhaps he was, and had graduated into a business in town. No reason why a man couldn’t make moonshine just because he lived in town, either, he reflected.

Several more cars passed them, all filled with passengers. Three men on horseback and two buckboards were included in the procession. When they turned into the wide dirt street of East Point there were knots of people, mostly women, talking on the sidewalks. They were plainly curious, and Hemingwood was the target for severe inspection and several pointing fingers.