and naturally dour face. Bill's heart fell to his boots when he made his appearance and Bill got a glance at his face.
“I'm glad to be able to tell you,” he said, “that it isn't as bad as it looked at first. He will not lose his arm and we will be able to build up the bone very satisfactorily. It will always be a little stiff, but he will not be a cripple. He is doing very well considering the shock and frightful loss of blood. We will have to keep him extremely quiet for a few days. It is possible we may need a blood transfusion or two.”
“That's where I come in,” Shorty said gruffly. “My blood has been tested for him. They used my blood for him once before.”
“That's a relief,” McCardell said. : “We may need you, Hassfurther.”
“Wing Commander Kestrel has given us quarters on the field,” Bill said. “Will you send an orderly to us as soon as we can see Gleason?”
“I will.” McCardell nodded. “ And I'll keep you informed about any developments. Don't worry about him; that won't do any good.”
“0.K.” Bill smiled. “We know you're doing your best.”
Bill reported to Wing Commander Kestrel before he took the Silver Lancer into the air a half hour later.
“I'm going to look the land over,” he said to Kestrel. “I may see something that will give me an idea.”
“Some one has got to get an idea pretty quick, Barnes,” Kestrel said. “If we can find the place they are hiding those eight planes and where they took the cargo from those seven caravans, we'll be a long way toward a solution. Even my own men are getting jumpy now. They know that somewhere there are traitors. We are like a house divided. Everyone is suspicious of every one else.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief, and Bill saw that his face was white and tense, and strained to the breaking point. “You'll want to go through Douglas' things with Hassfurther?”
“When I come back,” Bill answered shortly. “Hassfurther will remain here on the field. Sanders is going with me.”
Bill whipped the Silver Lancer into the air in a manner that had the grease monkeys and mechanics on the field wide-eyed. As he spiraled upward, they stood in little groups hardly able to believe what they saw.
At five thousand feet Bill leveled off and looked over the side as Sandy's voice came over the inter-cockpit phone.
“Say, Bill,” Sandy said, “I wonder where a fellow would go to buy a horse?”
Bill didn't answer him. He was searching the boulder-strewn desert below with his eyes. Here and there he could see the tents of the nomad Bedouins with their camels grazing near by.
“How much do you think a good Arabian horse would cost?” Sandy persisted.
“How the deuce do I know?” Bill growled. “Why don't you get yourself a harem instead?”
“Not for me,” Sandy said emphatically. “I'd rather have a horse-any day than a lot of women!”
“ All right, all right,” Bill said. “Now shut up. I didn't come up here to talk about horses. Keep your eyes on your altimeter. I'm going to cut north over the Dead sea.”
They raced the length of the Dead Sea into the Jordan Valley before Bill banked the silver ship around and came back over the precipitous cliffs on the eastern shore. Black basalt from volcanic eruptions blended with the bright red of the sandstone cliffs. Where wind and rain had chiseled away portions of the cliffs, great columns stood erect with black crowns on their heads, which faded into red, until, at the base, the bright-blue waters of the Dead Sea lapped at their feet.
The narrow chasm, through which the Wadi el Mojib flowed into the Dead Sea, flashed below their wings, and here and there they saw bright-red patches where the fertile land had been newly plowed. Scattered along the wadies were camps of Bedouin goat-hair tents.
Gliding down to a thousand feet as they entered another valley, they could see the terraced gardens and orchards below El Kerak.
Then they were back over the vast expanse of desert plateau that was the northernmost extremity of the Syrian Desert. The tan-and-yellow desert was bare of trees or color, except where a wadi cut its surface. To the east the desert rolled away interminably; and to the west a low range of hills towered into the air.
Bill stuck the nose of the Lancer up, and just cleared the tops of the scrub-oak thicket on the westerly range with his altimeter at five thousand feet. They both gasped in amazement as they sped between the dizzyingly colorful twin ranges where Petra nestled. To the west stretched the deep expanse of the Araba, blue-tinted, remote and forbidding. The yellow, tan and ivory sandstone changed to vivid rd as they flew between the two ranges of fascinating shapes and color.
“That is Petra, kid,” Bill said, pointing. “Kestrel gave me a map. The large building in ruins used to be the castle of Pharaoh's daughter, and the hill above it is El Habis, the Acropolis Hill.
“Over there on the left is El Khubdha and El Der. The river below us is the Wadi es Siyagh. It's the only outlet from Petra, except Es Siq, where Douglas was murdered two nights ago. But it's impassable to caravans.”
“How did that caravan get out of Petra?” Sandy asked.
“It didn't,” Bill said grimly. “It's in here some place. That highest peak is Jebel Harun. The building on the top with the white dome is the tomb of Aaron, and the place where the Dushara is kept. Some one tried to get in there the other night and mutilate the Dushara. The natives, according .to Kestrel, are half mad because of it.
“That great flat mountain over there is Umm el Biyara, Petra's most ancient stronghold. It tells in the Bible how David wanted to storm the Edomite stronghold in his day. There used to be a single path cut in the side of it so that men could get to the top. But erosion has worn it away.”
“We could almost land on there, couldn't we, Bill?” Sandy asked.
“Almost is right,” Bill said. He flew lower and inspected the great, flat surface. “It might be done, but I don't want to do it. It was impregnable in its day, and still is, except from the air. The little mountain beside it is El Habis. That's an unfinished tomb. The rock-cut
“Gosh, Bill,” Sandy said. “You know a lot; don't you?”
Bill swung around in his seat and looked at Sandy suspiciously. But Sandy was serious.
“You aren't trying to kid me, are you?” Bill asked.
“No! Gosh, no, Bill. I'm really interested.”
The air had become bumpy now above the crags and caverns of Petra. Bill yanked the stick back and zoomed the big ship upward.
“The best way to get into that place is on a horse, Bill,” Sandy said.
“That's the way we'll come next time,” Bill answered. “I'm going to circle this place now. Those caravans and those eight ships have to be some place. Button up your lips. I'm going to open the Lancer up wide and cover as much territory as I can.”
VII—STRANDED
THE RED limestone hills surrounding Petra gave way to the great barren wastes of the desert as Bill opened the throttles of the Lancer and circled westward. Here and there among the boulder-strewn stretches of desert west of Ma'an they could see Arab encampments with horses grazing where there seemed to be no vegetation.
As the ruins of an old Arab citadel flashed beneath their wings, Bill stuck the nose of the Lancer down and circled back. No living thing moved within the crumbling walls. Outside, heat danced from the sun-scorched steppe as the sun crept higher into the heavens.
Twice they saw large bands of roving Bedouins astride sturdy Arab horses. Flying low, they saw the fierce nomads of the desert unsling their rifles and felt the drum of their bullets as they pounded through the metal skin of the Lancer. As they nosed upward the tribesmen shook lances and yataghans at them until they were mere specks on the desert.
“Take her for a few minutes, kid,” Bill said to Sandy. “There is something screwy about our fuel tanks. I told 'em to check 'em when we landed this morning. We may have picked up a couple of punctures last night.”
Sandy held the Lancer at three hundred miles an hour while Bill checked the fuel lines and tanks. He checked and rechecked his instruments to find their position.
“We're almost two hundred miles from Ma'an, Bill,” Sandy said.” And she isn't pulling the way she ought to. I just adjusted the props and it didn't do any good.”
