E-text prepared by Roger Frank and Sue Clark
Transfixed, rooted to his tracks, Chick gasping, stared.
THE GHOST OF MYSTERY AIRPORT
CHAPTER I
A PILOT WHO LIKED SPOOKS
“Scared?”
“Not a bit!”
Garry Duncan, just behind the pilot who hadasked the question, answered it in his usual,cool manner.
Behind him in the three-place open cockpitbiplane, his thirteen-year-old chum displayednone of his calm.
“I’m scared!” Chick cried as the pilot cutdown his throttle. Chick raised his voice to atremulous shout, “Scott—turn back.”
The man at the controls laughed.
“Don’t be a baby!” he counseled. “Just becauseyou see a cloud begin to look shimmery—thefirst sign of the ghost, according to all thepilots 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’tyou t-turn and go out on the bay?”
“No. I cut the gun too much and the enginedied. We have to glide in, dead-stick, to thebest landing we can.” There was no regret inthe pilot’s voice. He proposed to carry throughhis purposes.
“But—” Chick was hopeful as he offered anargument, “in the dark here, the swamp is dangerous—youmight miss water and you’d getthe wings torn in the grass.” He added quickly,“or you may get our pontoons bogged—” Asthe airport searchlight made a cloud glow hecried, “Yes—bogged down in the ooze.” He expectedto see the ship bank, indicating that hishint was being acted on.
Instead the ship’s nose went down. Scott,with a little laugh of amusement at ChickeringBrown’s fears, found additional terrors for theyoungest of the pair with them.
“Yes,” he agreed, “and then the spectre thatalways appears in the clouds might fly down onus and say ‘boo!’”
He turned, as they glided, high above theswamp.
“How about it, Garry? Wouldn’t that beawful?” Garfield Duncan, fifteen-year-oldstudent-pilot and assistant to an airport manager’snephew, answered seriously.
“Terrible!” he agreed, “but it would beChick’s own fault. He was so interested in themystery that he vowed he wouldn’t be scared.”
“Well!” Chick hoped for one means of allayinghis fears—light. “