The Ghost of Mystery Airport (Interesting Ebooks)

Example in this ebookCHAPTER I A PILOT WHO LIKED SPOOKS“Scared?”“Not a bit!”Garry Duncan, just behind the pilot who had asked the question, answered it in his usual, cool manner.Behind him in the three-place open cockpit biplane, his thirteen-year-old chum displayed none of his calm.“I’m scared!” Chick cried as the pilot cut down his throttle. Chick raised his voice to a tremulous shout, “Scott—turn back.”The man at the controls laughed.“Don’t be a baby!” he counseled. “Just because you see a cloud begin to look shimmery—the first sign of the ghost, according to all the pilots who have seen it—don’t lose your nerve.”“But—this ghost hunt might be dangerous,” Chick began to plead. “C-can’t you—Scott, can’t you t-turn and go out on the bay?”“No. I cut the gun too much and the engine died. We have to glide in, dead-stick, to the best landing we can.” There was no regret in the pilot’s voice. He proposed to carry through his purposes.“But—” Chick was hopeful as he offered an argument, “in the dark here, the swamp is dangerous—you might miss water and you’d get the wings torn in the grass.” He added quickly, “or you may get our pontoons bogged—” As the airport searchlight made a cloud glow he cried, “Yes—bogged down in the ooze.” He expected to see the ship bank, indicating that his hint was being acted on.Instead the ship’s nose went down. Scott, with a little laugh of amusement at Chickering Brown’s fears, found additional terrors for the youngest of the pair with them.“Yes,” he agreed, “and then the spectre that always appears in the clouds might fly down on us and say ‘boo!’”He turned, as they glided, high above the swamp.“How about it, Garry? Wouldn’t that be awful?” Garfield Duncan, fifteen-year-old student-pilot and assistant to an airport manager’s nephew, answered seriously.“Terrible!” he agreed, “but it would be Chick’s own fault. He was so interested in the mystery that he vowed he wouldn’t be scared.”“Well!” Chick hoped for one means of allaying his fears—light. “Why don’t you throw over a landing flare, Scott! It’s pitchy-black down in the marsh.”“Scott will get us down, even without power.” Garry voiced his confidence in the test pilot who knew the channels and open water spaces like a book. “Great Scott,” as they had nicknamed him, made many test flights for the American branch of a foreign seaplane manufacturer; of late, since an airport had been inaugurated in connection with the seaplane “base,” Scott had flown over the marsh at night, conducting tests of new lighting equipment, spotlight, searchlight and beacon.“If you’re afraid,” he added, “try whistling, Chick, my boy! I’ve heard that ghosts won’t come around if you whistle.”Usually Garry did not tease his younger chum; but Chick had been so confident of his own bravery, had so insistently begged to be one of the “spook trappers,” that Chick’s terror in the face of darkness—and of nothing worse, so far—prompted him to be a little sarcastic.“It’s all very well to sneer,” said Chick. “I wasn’t scared, back in the design room—but here—” he stopped. They had been filing blue-prints in the plant of an Italian aircraft building company when Scott, its test pilot, had come quietly into the blue-print room where Garry made the multitudes of blue-prints from pen drawings for the many detailed parts of the company’s product.The secrecy of his entrance had fascinated Garry’s more youthful companion, who filed the blue-prints and sketches. Chick had caught a hint of something secretive about Scott; it had fired his ready imagination and he had been so eager to hover close that Scott, after a moment of hesitation, had included him in the proposal he had made.To be continue in this ebook..................................................................................

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