The Old Lady flies
It was the only thing to do. I’d heard about Conant. He was an
aggressive chap, and he knew his air. He’d flown during the war, and
then he’d quit, which showed me that he had brains. It was his job
now to get crash scenes for “War Aces”--and he was up against it. It
isn’t easy to crash a ship, and get away cheerfully.
Donnelly had done it--for about three crashes, wing-overs and stalls.
And then the engine had come back on his chest--and he was through.
“War Aces” was a thriller--I knew, because I’d read it. It wasn’t
exactly highbrow, and it wouldn’t take much acting, but it would take
some crashing, and some bang-up air stuff. If the movie bunch were
working--and I had a hunch that they were--Conant would grab Russ and
the Old Lady. And Russ was so sore that he’d forgotten all about
himself. That was a cinch. He was like that.
It took me five minutes to get somebody at the picture outfit that
knew about the shoot. And they gave me a straight answer. Conant had
five cameras out at the field, in the hills back of Hollywood. He had
two ships. He was shooting stuff. And the company was still looking
for a thrill-man. Did I know of one?
I groaned and hung up. When I got back to the dead-line the ships were
out, and being tested at the blocks. I gave Bob the cheerful news. He
swore a couple of times.
“When we hit the field we’ll set our ship down,” he explained. “Look out
for holes--they may have been doing some war-time shell-hole stuff. Mac
and I will go after Russ--and hang on to him. You fellows get down as
soon after us as you can, in case this fellow Conant gets rough with us
for breaking up the party. I’ll do the talking. If things look tough,
you ease up to the Old Lady--and break a connection, Duke.”
Duke Conroy grinned. “I’d rather talk with this Conant, but you’re the
boss.”
“Well--let’s get up and over there!” Bob said. “I started this mess and
I’ll finish it! And believe me, when I get Russ Healy back here----”
“I’ll feel a lot better!” I interrupted--and meant it.
Then we climbed the five ships, and taxied out. Sixty seconds later
we were off the earth--and heading for the field from which they
were shooting the “War Aces” stuff. As the D.H. climbed, and I held
the joy-stick back a bit from the neutral position, I shook my head
slowly. Knowing Russ Healy as well as I did, I could figure trouble
ahead and below.
“Unless we wreck things generally,” I thought to myself, “the Old Lady
flies!”
CHAPTER IV.
READY TO FIGHT.
It wasn’t hard to spot the field on which they were making “War
Aces”--or at least a part of it. It was a level stretch, between
rolling hills. There were shell holes, home-made but real warlike,
at one end. At the other end of the stretch there were three ships.
Two of them were small, single-seaters. One, I guessed, was a baby
Nieuport. Ed Seeley had one of those, but he wasn’t doing any crash
stuff with it, I knew that.
As we circled over, I saw that they were working on the Old Lady.
Probably they were rigging up a couple of dummy guns, or trying to
make her look like a D.H. or a bomber of some type. It was hard to
figure just what they could make the Old Lady look like--but they do
queer things in the movies.
I cut the throttle, and glided down. Bob Brooks yelled at me above the
whistling of wind through the flying wires: “We’ll be in time! They’re
trying to camouflage the Old Lady!”
I nodded, and brought the D.H. down into the wind. We made a fair
landing, and I taxied around and rolled back toward the three planes.
The crowd was watching me come up, and some of the bunch on the field
were staring up at the other boys.
We rolled fairly close to the parked ships, and I cut the switch. Bob
and I climbed down, and we were met at the wing tip by a scowling Russ
Healy. Beside him was this fellow Conant, short and stocky--and dolled
up as though he were going to play a round or two of championship golf.
Brooks grinned. “Hello, boys!” he greeted them. “Just paying you a
little visit. Sort of a social call. How’s the picture coming along?”
Conant smiled. “It’ll be all right now,” he said cheerfully. “Healy’s
going to do some crashes for us--and some war air stuff. If we could
work you boys in----” He stopped.
Bob Brooks was shaking his head slowly. “Russ isn’t going to do any
crashes for you--not in the Old Lady! And you can’t work us in, Conant.”
Russ Healy swore softly.
Conant looked sort of amused.
There was a crowd of picture people around us by this time, but the
other boys were setting their ships down on the field. I wasn’t worried
much.
“If it’s a matter of money----” Conant said.
“It isn’t,” Brooks interrupted him. Then he grinned.
I could see that Brooks was trying to get out of it peaceably, if he
could, and I had my doubts about that.
“You see,” Brooks continued, “we sort of like Russ around the outfit.
Sometimes he has careless ideas, but he’s not doing any crashing for
you--get that straight!”
Conant stiffened and smiled in a rather superior manner.
Just then Al Rodgers and Dave Simmons shoved their way to our side.
Bob Brooks grinned. “Did Duke go over to the Old Lady?” he asked
Simmons.
Simmons nodded. “With his best pair of pliers,” he said cheerfully, and
I saw Russ Healy straighten up and his face get hard.
Brooks nodded. “Russ,” he said slowly, “suppose you come along back with
us. You can ride me back in the Old Lady. Maybe I was a little hasty
about that ship. Maybe we can frame some way of taking her----”
“Not a chance!” Russ interrupted hotly. “You fellows clear off this
field. If they don’t clear off, Conant----”
Conant nodded his head slowly.
I looked at the director, but I spoke to Bob Brooks. “I’ll take this
little runt,” I told him. “And I won’t need that set of brass knuckles
unless they get to piling on me too thick.”
Dave Simmons chuckled. Dave’s about the biggest pilot in captivity,
and he likes a good, uneven scrap. “I’m glad we came over,” he said
cheerfully. “Better shoot this stuff, Conant. It’ll make good war
stuff.”
CHAPTER V.
SOMETHING UP.
I could see, by that time, that Conant wasn’t a scrapper. He just smiled
in a sort of apologetic way.
“If it’s any of your business,” he said, addressing Brooks, “perhaps it
might be advisable to talk things over.”
Healy didn’t like that. He glared at Bob Brooks, and said: “I owe him
fifty dollars, Conant. Give it to him, and take it off my stunt pay.”
I expected that.
So did Bob. He shook his head. “I’ll have to look up some papers,” he
replied. “Don’t know the exact amount, and, anyway, Healy is under a
contract to fly for me--not for himself. We’d have to----”
“I’ve busted the contract!” Russ Healy exclaimed. “I’ll fly any way that
I want to fly. The Old Lady’s my ship. You say she’s no good. I’ll show
you how good she is--and you’ll pay money to see her in the movies----”
“Steady!” Bob interrupted him. “Maybe we’d just better grab him,
Mac--what do you think?”
I looked at Russ. He was pretty white around the ears, but he was still
able to use his head.
“Better come along, Russ!” It was Simmons who spoke. “If you and your
friends hop us, Duke’ll clip a few wires with his pliers, and you never
will get the Old Lady off--not for a few days, anyway.”
Healy glared at Simmons. Then he looked at the director. Conant was
smiling cheerfully. There was a peculiar expression in Russ Healy’s
eyes suddenly. He shrugged his shoulders.
“All right,” he said. “But I’ll be back in a few days, Conant--just as
soon as I work out fifty bucks’ worth of air stuff for the old miser,
here.”
Conant nodded. “We’ll shoot some other scenes in the meantime,” he
replied, and kept right on smiling. “Don’t get hurt, Healy.”
I laughed out loud at that one. Conant telling Russ not to get hurt! It
was pretty rich.
“I’ll ride back with Russ, Mac,” the boss told me. “You boys stay down
here until we take off.”
I nodded and lighted a pill.
Russ followed Bob Brooks along toward the Old Lady.
Conant shrugged his shoulders. “Just one delay after another,” he
declared. “It’s beastly!”
“Sure it is,” I agreed. “Times are getting tough when you can’t get
fellows to kill themselves by crashing planes for a few hundred
dollars.”
But Conant didn’t get sore. He kept right on smiling. And remembering
that expression I’d seen in Russ Healy’s eyes, I figured that something
was up. I tried to dope out just what it would be, as I walked over
toward the D.H., but it had me buffaloed.
The Old Lady’s appearance sidetracked me. They hadn’t had much time,
but already they’d mounted two guns on the old Jenny, and there was
camouflage paint on her--not yet dry. There wasn’t very much of it,
but enough to make her look like a different ship. She’d do for a
crash, anyway.
Russ was climbing into the front cockpit, and as he squirmed into place
back of the stick, he looked at me. He was grinning. Bob Brooks was
already seated in the rear cockpit.
I waved a hand and went on toward the D.H. The other boys were already
in their planes, or moving toward them.
I hadn’t more than snapped the self-starter and let the prop turn over a
few times, when the Old Lady, gaudy in her new disguise, took the air. I
stared at her. The dummy guns were still in place. I wondered why Bob
hadn’t raised the devil about that, but I figured he was glad enough to
get Russ away so easily.
“He’ll have to do _some_ talking to keep Russ from coming back!” I
thought, as I advanced the throttle a few notches and taxied out into
the wind. “_Something’s_ funny in this deal. I’m sure of that!”
I’d heard a lot about this fellow Conant, and I _knew_ a lot about Russ
Healy. Neither of them, from the way I figured it, had run true to form.
They’d let us set the ships down there, and deliberately bust up their
little party.
They’d taken it pretty calmly, too. Then, there had been that exchange
of glances between Conant and Russ Healy. That had counted for
something. As I lifted the De Havilland off the field, following the Old
Lady, I shook my head. “Something’s up--besides some joy-hopping ships!”
I said to myself. “But _what_?”
CHAPTER VI.
TRICKED INTO A CRASH.
The answer came when I got up to four thousand feet, and it came so
suddenly that I almost let the D.H. slip into a tail-spin. We’d been
climbing in a wide circle--the five ships--following the Old Lady.
And I guess we’d all been getting a kick out of those two dummy guns
and the slapped-on war paint.
All of a sudden the Old Lady stood right up on her tail in a sweet
zoom--and laid over on her back! Then she came down in a pretty fair
loop!
I had the D.H. out of her way, banking off vertically. As I came around,
in a position to get a good look at things, I saw plenty.
There were about a dozen ships in the air. At least four of them were
stunting--looping, doing wing-overs, Immelmanns, and spins! From two
of them came sulphurous trails of yellow, streaming off at an angle.
They had guns--and were shooting them!
The Old Lady was going down in a spin, and two planes were following her
down, both streaming out yellow trails from their exhausts and spitting
red from guns shooting between the synchronized propeller blades! Diving
near by was a fourth ship, with a bird standing in the rear cockpit--and
turning a crank in a boxlike affair!
Then I got it. Conant and Russ Healy had framed us! They were shooting
from the air and from the ground--shooting stuff for the picture! And
they were using our five ships!
A screaming, wire-whistling shape dove past the D.H. on the right, and
instinctively I banked away. But even as I did so, I got a glimpse of
a helmeted figure using a camera. He wasn’t cranking it--but I guessed