He was out of his bunk at once. Had it appeared in the papers—his story?
He threw up his window and sent a coin rattling to the pavement below.
“Bring one up,” he shouted. The boy pocketed the coin, waved and disappeared.
He reappeared almost at once by the bunkroom door, with a cheerful:
“Here y’are, mister. All about the Air Mail robbery.”
Curlie dropped down on his bunk and stared in amazement. There it was, on the front page of the afternoon scream-sheet. Two planes in mid-air; this drawn by a staff artist. His own plane on the ground; a real photograph. And his picture in the oval inset.
He read the story breathlessly. There was much there that he did not know. His plane, so the story ran, had been rescued and brought into port. No damage had been done. The number of mailsacks taken was not yet known.
The story made him out quite a hero. He flushed when he thought how he had bungled matters in the end.
“_No clue as to the assailants_,” he read on. “_An unlicensed radio station, surprised and overhauled in the vicinity of the attack, offered no real clue._
“_One thousand dollars reward offered by the air transport company for return of the missing package._”
“Kind of them to make the offer,” he thought. “But that’s one reward that will go unearned.” Little he knew!
The picture that interested him most was one running entirely across the top of the second page. In this were shown the smiling, happy faces of scores of crippled children.
“_Their concert saved_,” was the caption.
“That,” he said with conviction, “is even worth going to jail for.”
Of a sudden he recalled his engagement with Grace Palmer to visit that island. He looked at his watch.
“Time to dress and have a bite to eat,” he told himself, as he began hurrying into his clothes.
As he stepped out of the airport on his way to the lunch room across the street, he all but collided with an old time pal.
“Johnny Thompson, as I live!” he exclaimed.
“Curlie Carson!” Johnny gripped his hand.
The invisible threads of silken dreams that had been drawing them closer and closer had brought them together at last.
They talked for a moment or two of old times and far-away places.
Then all of a sudden, Johnny started. “But I can’t talk any more now.” He turned about. “Came here to find an Air Mail pilot.”