Evening Star Newspaper, November 8, 1931, Page 89

I,-D. C, NOVEMBER 8, 1931 e et e n hping Story of a #ild Ride—By John Angus MacKaye S story is the second of a series of first-run fiction, picked om the cream of thousands of manuscripts. Each story ill be complete in The Magazine of The Sunday- Star; hch will be distinctively illustrated; each will be a prize-win- Waltch for the story in The Magazine of next Sunday’s ‘With & roar the plane leveled out and headed straight “toward the bed room window. his watch at the house. The inspector glad of the suggestion and a reserve was at in Terry’s place for the night. The alarm general throughout the city and especially ere officers in outlying sections, toward the , warned vo watch for the fugitive. The row of houses, in one of which Helen yed, faced railroad tracks on the other side the street. Beyond was an open space that intled down to the river bank. A storehouse ood beside the tracks and in the shadow of s’ Terry took his position. From this point had a view of the entire block. The night sounds began to grow fewer but ore emphatic. From the river, far away, me the long drawn, hoarse, three-toned note a stern-wheeler’s siren, mournful with warn- It fitted his mood. Locomotives panted hd hissed past with long strings of clanking jght cars. Hourly there was the metallic ngle of the night trolley. Near and far he ught the hoot or screech of auto horns. But wer the “clop, clop-clop, clop” of a passing se. No passer-by, bold or furtive, suggested e to the watchful eye of the policeman. Came at last that short, almost audible, hush h precedes the first faint rumble of the liest morning traffic, as if the world waited, thless, for the dawn. There was a pleasant olness and on- the steps of the storehouse y, drowsily, planned to get Helen away pm her home during the coming day. It puld be safer. nost imperceptibly, at first, intruded into silence what might have been the far-off m of some giant bee. It died away. After an interval it came again, beating into crescendo of sound that gradually filled the as with drumming. Terry roused. It was e to call the station house again. s he started across the street the drumming pntified itself. An airplane was roaring from direction of the river. most as he turned he saw it, not 500 feet It went eastward, following the course of water. The sound of it faded. Terry won- d and turned again toward his telephone. he reached the corner, suddenly, as if call- g to him, blaring a warning of danger, came distant shrieking of a police cruising car. tensed every muscle in him. He tried to bate the direction. i y unhooked his phone and reported. Ilmly came the operator’s voice: ‘An airplane was stolen about 3 o’clock from Laurel Hill Flying Field. A plane has been ng downtown just a few minutes ago. It ght be the guy who got away from the bug nse yesterday, There’s a general alarm out.” His ear again caught the bee drone, rising d falling. It was a mile away, coming back. a minute—and in that time the ship d swallow the mile. Jake would be in the before Callan could rouse Helen! He ran as if the plane were pursujpng him, led himself at the door of Helen's home, he plane roared, circling, overhead. It ~e the police car was shrieking westward again, trying to follow the strange ship. The smile on Helen’s calm face faded as she saw the agony on the uplifted countenance of Callan below her. She had not caught his words, but every movement of the officer showed that he wanted her to make speed. HEN Jake got to the window, on the shadowy side of the hangar, he opened it easily. As soon as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness inside, he began to explore, painstakingly. He found two ships housed and, then, the fastening of the big front door. Fumbling around, his trained fingers - discovered many things, a flashlight most important of all. With it as assistant he was able to go about his work thoroughly and the torch enabled him to decide that the lighter ship was the one he wanted. That “lJuck” which is proverbial for drunken men, children and silly folk, and is, really, absence and disregard of consequences, was _Opening wide the great doors, he . .~ Feeling sure nobody _he explored the field, on foot, to of his start. - Returning to the plane, of & quick trip home, Jake's once more to the subject of s widower. He got out his gun and ammunition. Curiously, in all his stealthy approach to the hangar, he had never thought of the gun as a means of getting what he might want or of stiiking down opposi- tion. Murder only ran in one direction for him. He would kill at home. Glancing at the wind-stocking, to be sure of his take-off, he taxied easily to the western end of the field, to gzt into the wind. Then, with a roar that awakened the nearby country- side, he went racketing eastward and was off and up. Taking off on the crest of the mountains and keeping his altitude, he was soaring high when, an hour later, he was above the lights of the city. It was that veiled, gray, breath- less intcrval between darkness and the first, far-off streaks of sunlight. Twice he swept the circumference of the downtown area. He would take his bearing from the river. Jake knew that stream. Close to it, in the suburbs, his home snuggled cozily among others. The bridges were landmarks to him. Dropping to 500 feet, he followed the channel eastward. Flashing along, he was able to identify the row of dwellings in one of which he bad lived, so happily, with Helen. He had thought of landing on the railroad tracks. But these same tracks had been unlucky for him once. So he went zooming up the river. He could not hear the police car spreading the alarm below. The roar of his plane engulfed all other sound and he never dreamed that this same roar had just electrified his nemesis, “Red” Callan, tensed in every nerve to block him, to take him and to keep him, at all hazards, from Helen. Calmly controlling his ship, Jake inwardly was jiggling with emotion. In a few minutes he would be facing H:len and smiling. He had bgaten them all and he laughed. He turned and came back toward his home. “Hurry, girl, bhurry,” said Callan as Helen came to the front door. He grasped her by the hand and ran with her toward the store- house where he had kept watch. “Jake’s in that plane and God knows what'll happen.” As he got her under the projecting rcof of the freight loading platform, he ordered, “Stay here, whatever happens, until I get back. He won't sec you here.” The careening ship had straightened out again and was off to the South, across the . river, climbing, and the ncise of her engine died to a low growl. “He's picked a landing and he’ll be here in 2 minute.~Stay here, safe. Helen, I love you, I love you so much I can’t think of harm coming to you. Jake's going to try a landing on the tracks or in the streets. He's crazy to get you an'—an’ I'm crazier to see that he don’t. It's my job to stop him, but I'd do it, job or no job. He's coming back. You stay here, safe.” And Callan jumped down to the street. AKE, circling above the row of houses, one of which had been his home, picked out the dwelling. On the second circle, as he strained his eyes, be siw a light pop into one of the upper windows. Helen's bedroom! His bedroom! He could see the sash raised and his wife hang out. . Helen's bedroom! Awnother clandestine meet- ng! An inspiration! He knew what to do now. Damn such useless things as guns and hatchets. Jake started to climb over the river, up and up. Then, turning and with the increasing light to guide him, he gave her everything and came straight toward the railroad tracks, in a long downward swoop. As he came roaring to 50 feet, a train rushed into the center of his course. The plane al- most seemed to vault over the locomotive. It straightened out at the level of the house. With a roar that ended in a splintering crash, as if a small volcano had blown up, Jake drove the nose of his ship straight into Helen’s bedroom window. That day, a very respectable lawyer, read- ing the news, reflected that Helen was a widow now and did not need a divorce. “Why is it,” he wondered, “that it is always the throaty- voiced women who escape?” He was not aware of the fact that at the moment a similar trend of thought was passing through the mind of Officer “Red” Callan. (Copyright, 1931.) NO JOBS, NO NEWS BY WILL ROGERS : ELL all I know is just what I read in the papers. News is awful slack. Depression is on in the news world. We had quite a run of news up till a year or so ago. But everything seemed to fail us at once. Good many lay it to Coolidge getting out. He was always news. Every new picture he had made, every different hat he wore, every pan- cake he ate for breakfast, every sausage, all was news. Mr. Hoover does just as much, maby more, eats just as much, maby more. But when depression is on its just on and you cant do nothing about it. You cant make news out of nothing, no more than you can make work out of no jobs. There just aint no news and now some of our big men predict that there will be a turn for the better, that there will be news coming our way any day now. They claim that news is just around the “corner and that it will be on us before we know it. They claim that there has been times like this before, and the Press has come out of it, and that it will do it again. But never has there been as general a shortage of news all over the World as there is now. Now in the old days when there might not be anything doing in the United States, why over in England there would be some big news in parliment, or an argument with Ire- land, or the Prince of Wales would be doing something. Or they would be ruling the Sea somewhere, or over in France they would be argueing with some Tourists, or down in Italy Mussolini would be either making a speech or getting shot at or something, or both. But Lord we cant even depend on him any more He has fell down on us like Sister Aimee. Since the King left Spain it was just lke a little Circus having their only Elephant leave. The Show just dont do no more business. Argentine and Brazil and Chili all used to be good for some news, but now the Tango is as dead as the Charleston, and the Gigilos they furnish this country aint much improve- ment on the home grown. Australia not only can't afford any Adds, but they can’t even send us in any “Personal Items.” They are as dead as Austria, who havent made the front page since the Merry Widow Waltz. Germany here a short time ago made a little spurt for news, then died right back out again. Russia has been a sort of a partial life saver. They put on a Five Year Plan that sounded front pagey at first, but then we dont under- stand it and the more we have it explained the less interesting it becomes. It will take us five years to even fathom it, so its not news any more. Had & series of Aeroplane flights, but they all come so thick that we got em mixed up and we couldent tell who was flying which Ocean, or what was the names of the ones that did. Post and Gatty helped us out mighty nice for & week or so there. Lindy and Anne sorter stirred things up. Then some other Boys started to go round the World and traded their compass for a Camera away off over there and started in taking Pictures for a sideline. Was just getting a focus on * the Revolution business back where it fush dont pay to loot. The Earthquake was the last news we had from Nicaragua. Since Smedley Butler left the Marines you cant hear - much from them. Navy is resting on its Oars. The Army Fliers awhile ago was given s~ Boat to sink, and they dropped everything on it but their Parachutes, but they couldnt sink it. Finally it rotted. G Mayor Walker was over in Germany looking for the Child Slayer Bandits. Mr. Hoover anybody any- more, for no one the other. There is no fighters on ei They both want a Tariff on what of the Country raises, and free is raised in other parts. But the d part of it is that I don’t see much hope of an; 3 news coming anyways soon. Out of these news depressions something big has happen to get em some news. Its generally been war. Nothing revives interest in the Pri like a good war. It dont necessarily have be local, it can be foreign if its a good one. You see the trouble nowadays is that no one can think of anything new to do. Everything that is done has been done before, so there is no news in it. Murders have just been done to death. You got to have a mighty good murder to get on the front page. Peeple just lost interest in em Automobile accidents they just list them over in the personal column. We just in a bog slump and we gradually got to read ourselves out of it. We got to make less news do us. We got to get back to the old times when we was satisfled with reading just what had actually happened, and not just laying for the Big things to read. Everybody has just got to buckle down and say, “Her o there is no news, but we are going to stick to the ship and keep reading and be satisfied with what little there is that happens.” Thats the only spirit that will bring back the news. We just had an Orgy of news, and now when its not coming why we are yelling. Those times never will come back. We got to just reconcile ourselves to that, so buckle down and be satisfied with less. It may be years before there is much news. Its going to take a new generation of people to make new News. For there just aint any interest in the old bunch now. (Copyright, 1931.) Home Gardener Aided O the non-chemically minded the labels ‘on confusing. The vifrious percentages of ammon= jum phosphate, nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia have given the home gardener only a vague idea of just what the fertilizing values of the compounds in use might be. Under new