A sick feeling of thwarted purpose came over him.  He knew it was not fear.  He felt as though he could not possibly be afraid in an airplane, however much reason he might have for fear.  He felt betrayed, as though this wonderful piece of mechanism, for which he had paid so dear a price and which he worshiped in proportion, had suddenly turned traitor.  It was failing him, just when his need of it was so vital.  Just when he had so much to retrieve, just when he had counted on its help in re-establishing his self-respect.

Bland turned his head, and gave Johnny a fleeting glance from the corner of one eye.  Bland’s face was a sallow white.

Johnny laid down his rifle and carefully placed feet and hands on the controls.  Bland might get scared and lose his head, and if he did, Johnny did not want to be altogether at his mercy.  Anyway, Bland did not know the country.

“How far will she glide?” Johnny shouted above the sputtering cough of the motor.  But Bland only shook his head slowly from right to left and back again.  Bland’s ears were a waxy white now, and the line of his jaw had sharpened.  Johnny believed that Bland would fail him too.

They were gliding down an invisible incline, and it was a long way to Sinkhole.  Johnny began to think feverishly of certain sandy patches, bare of brush and rocks, and to estimate distances.  Now they crossed the line fence and were over the rough country below Red Hill and the plane was lifting and falling to the uneven currents like a boat riding the waves.  Gliding parallel with a dry tributary of Sinkhole Creek, the plane side-slipped and came perilously close to disaster.  Bland righted it, but Johnny held his breath at the way the ground had jumped up at them.

Ahead, and a little to one side, three riders went creeping up a slope.  They seemed to be heading toward Sinkhole Camp, and Johnny signaled Bland to keep off, and so avoid scaring the horses.  But the slight detour cost them precious feet of altitude while the nearest sandy stretch was yet far off.

The earth was rising with incredible swiftness to meet them.  The nearest landing Johnny could think of was farther over, across Sinkhole Creek.  He did not believe they could make it, but he headed for it desperately, and felt Bland yielding to his control.

Rocks, brush, furrowed ditches; rocks, brush.  Ahead, they could see the irregular patch of yellow that was sand.  But the brush seemed fairly to leap at them, the rocks grew malignantly larger while they looked, the ditches deepened ominously.  Over these the frail thing of cloth and little strips of wood and wire and the delicate, dumb motor, skimmed like a weary-winged bird.  Bland flattened it out, coaxed it to keep the air.  Lower, lower—­a high bush was flicked by a wheel in passing.  On a little farther, and yet a little.

She landed just at the edge of the goal.  The loose sand dragged at the wheels, flipped the plane on its nose so suddenly that Johnny never did know just how it happened.  Bland had feared that sand, and braced himself.  But Johnny did not know.  His head had snapped forward against the rim of the cowl—­a terrible blow that sent him sagging inertly against the strap that held him.  Bland got out, took one look at Johnny, and sank down weakly upon the sand.