Named right
Date: 2026-09-15T04:00:00+00:00
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Title: Named right

Author: Andrew A. Caffrey

Release date: September 15, 2026 [eBook #79582]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1930

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79582

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAMED RIGHT ***

NAMED RIGHT

By Andrew A. Caffrey

A Story of the Air Mail Pilots

Pilot Rutter had been flying the San Francisco-Reno air mail for more than two years. He’d been with it from the start. And during that time Rutter had known lots of hard work and real grief. But at no time had Rutter ever been lost. This came near to being a record, too. Seldom do you find a working pilot who can make such a boast. Rutter’s closest pal, Pilot Miller, said it was all luck.

Well, Rutter wasn’t boasting about this luck. To tell the truth, he was regretting it.

Why regret such a break? It was this way: A new pilot, just out from the East, had been assigned to share the Frisco-Reno hop with Rutter and Miller. This new bird, Page by name, had been badly lost twice during his first month on the Far West route. And did he get nation-wide publicity? Why, for days at a time, the new pilot’s name was on every front page in America. Sweet news items!

“Page,” Rutter said to Miller, “is surer’n hell named right.”

“Green eye,” Pilot Miller answered. “Guy, you’re only sore because you can’t cut in on some of that nice hero stuff. Ah, what’s eating you, Rutter? Have you got the idea that this Page kid is dumb enough to kill his power over the high Sierras just for the sake of shooting a landing on the front page and rolling to a stop at the headline? You’re crazy as a coot, brother.”

“Me and you both, Miller,” Rutter agreed. “But Page isn’t crazy. Take it from me, Miller, this front page stuff is worth a lot of jack when a boy’s wise enough to use it right. Well, Miller, one of these days I’ll go out and grab me some of this publicity. Then I’ll turn it into ready money, buy you a new hat and quit air mail.”

“Not you, Rutter,” Pilot Miller told his mate. “You’re just a workhorse. None of this grandstand stuff for you. Anyway, if you do ever go lost I’ll be the first one to tell the newspapermen that you’ve gone fishing. Think I’d see my old friend Rutter grabbing off a lot of bum glory like this kid Page does? Not by a damsite!”

“Miller,” Rutter promised, “I’ll cut your brave American heart out if you ever try to spill my apple cart.”

Within a week’s time of the foregoing conversation Pilot Rutter was deep in the hay early one morning. He was awake, at about 4:30, through force of habit. Trying to get back to sleep, he felt at peace with all the world and half planned the doings of the coming day. This day was Rutter’s day off. There’d be no birding for him before 5:30 of the next morning. So he expected, at least. Young Page was the pilot scheduled to hop this morning. And as Rutter gazed from his bed, out over a dark and cloudy San Francisco, he told himself that Page was welcome to that nasty sky. The sky in question had been mighty bad for several days. So a day off looked good even to the hardy Rutter.

Sleep had almost reclaimed Pilot Rutter when his telephone turned loose and smashed the peaceful world wide open. Getting out of the hay to answer the phone, Rutter glanced at the clock. It was 5:15. Right away Rutter knew what to expect.

“Hello, Rutter speaking!” he barked over the wire.

“Good morning glory,” a happy voice laughed back at Rutter. “Did I get you out of bed, honey?”

“Come on, Kinney,” Rutter snapped. “Say what you’re going to say and quit the high-powered kidding. What do you want?”

Kinney was the early morning slavey in charge of the starting crew out at the cold, wet mail field. Kinney laughed some more and said:

“Start climbing into your clothes, Mr. Pilot Rutter. Page just telephoned out and wised us up to the fact that he can’t fly this morning. Now keep your shirt on! Have you got a shirt on, Rutter? . . . Yes? Well, keep said shirt on, Pilot Rutter. Listen, Page is under a doctor’s care. He didn’t know he was sick till he tried to crawl out and stand up, half an hour ago—so hurry, Mr. Pilot Rutter. We’ll be waiting for you. You have fifteen minutes to step into those world-famous flying clothes, crank up your car and get out here. And don’t forget—the mail must go! By Otto Kruger and Charles Eggie, by hell!”

When Rutter turned from the highway on two wheels, and skidded to a stop on the mail field at 5:40, Kinney had the motor of the mail plane tuning up and waiting Rutter’s arrival.

At 5:42 Rutter was in the air; and before another minute of earthly time had passed into eternity the ship that carried the hog wild Rutter was blotted from view. Reno was one hundred and eighty air miles away. With any kind of luck, two hours more should see Rutter safely abed in Reno. That, at least, was a happy thought.

That first hour of Rutter’s flight was all tough labor. The sky, every mile of the way, was right down on the ground. But, once over the coastwise hills, it was all flat going up toward Sacramento. And given a river to follow, Rutter was the boy to turn a plane into a duck. So that first hour, mean as it was, had not been hard enough to bring Rutter to the stiff upper lip and a tight grip on the stick. But now, with that first hour gone, and Sacramento passed, Rutter must start his climb. That hard climb goes up through the foothills and over the high Sierra. Not so good, brother. No, sir. Bad joss!

It is one thing to go winging ahead blindly over low, flat country; given an occasional peek at the passing ground, plus the use of altimeter, a pilot can continue to prod. But it’s something else again to face a mountain range without benefit of visibility. Tell you what, that tries the stoutest of stout hearts.

Well, through all that bum going out front, below and around him, Rutter could still see bits of Mother Earth. And Rutter wasn’t the sort who would turn back when and where there was the faintest chance to get through. He had only one neck to risk for aviation, and he was lavish in his devotion. Nevertheless, Rutter was very much down in the mouth during the dragging minutes of this tough hop. He could not help recalling that this rotten detail was nothing more or less than a nasty dish wished on a willing worker. And Rutter had always been that—willing.

Yes, sir; a man has a right to live. No reason at all why he should be here, plugging ahead like a wet bat out of hell, while front page Page was safe in a warm bed. Sick? Sick, hell!

No, at the time, you couldn’t have convinced Rutter that Page wasn’t lying down on the job. Sick! You couldn’t afford to buy Rutter a good hat for every time he had covered this route while sick. Take it from Rutter, during those first few years of air mail, just to put the air thing across, pilots flew sick or well. Sick! Tie that effeminate wheeze outside. Pioneers don’t carry a doctor’s certificate. You have no right to a bed unless you’re dead. And if you’re a dead one, keep out of the air. Rutter was sore, and talking to himself.

And Rutter studied the clouds that filled the climbing foothills ahead and decided:

“Man, this sky would be worth at least a million bucks to our friend Page. Yes, sir; Page, if he was sitting where I am now, could go right ahead and make every headline in America before night.

“But me, poor dumb bloke, I couldn’t make anything out of a sky if it was packed full of cyclones, thunderstorms, tornadoes and waterspouts. All I’d get out of it would be a good bad cold and a devil of a wetting. But as for front page stuff, naw! Back on page 10, Section II, is the only place I’ll ever crash the papers. That’s where you’ll find the obituary column.”

Some ten minutes later, at nine thousand feet, Rutter began to remember that he hadn’t seen any ground for quite awhile. The clouds below were packed solid and presented a pretty level upper surface. Five hundred feet overhead, packed solid too, was a canopy of storm clouds. At no point was the sun breaking through. And for miles ahead and for miles on all sides, Rutter had a fairly good sky. The airman in Rutter thrilled to the flying in such a pocket; but the cold logic, deeper in Rutter, yelled—

“Not so good!”

It wasn’t so good; and it grew worse rapidly. A few minutes more, quick minutes, and the upper canopy of black was beginning to ravel out, drop down, and intermingle with the blanket below. The pocket had ended. Rutter wheeled his ship in a tight virage, getting set to turn back. There, behind him to the west, the pocket had also ended.

Rutter’s ground was gone—long gone. He had no sky. He soon had no way to tell which was up or which was down, except by watching the liquid in his compass. Watching the float in a liquid compass doesn’t help much when a ship is flying a vertical virage, with the whole works vibrating and the compass float bobbing like mad. So Rutter did what he supposed was leveling off. He laid her flat out of the virage, cut down on the gun and shoved ahead on the stick to ease into a glide. There was a sickly swish of wires, idling prop and sluggish control surfaces, and—Rutter discovered that his safety belt was tight, that his feet hardly reached the rudder bar, that the ship was on its back. Dirt was dropping up out of the fuselage.

If you’ve piloted, you know how Rutter felt then. And if you’ve never hung on a tight safety belt, then it’s beyond feeble print to paint such a picture. But Rutter, working now for Rutter, forgot all about Page; so maybe this tough upside-down situation was worthwhile, after all. Yep, good that a man be kept busy, so they say.

Nine thousand feet when this started. If he was over or near the highest place in the Sierra—and Rutter guessed that he must be—then nine thousand feet wasn’t a foot too much. Why, with good visibility, a pilot needed nine thousand. You had to have that altitude to clear the highest humps.

Rutter hung there on his belt—with stick hard in his belly, waiting for the craft to swoop off its back—and studied his altimeter. It showed eight thousand, then seven thousand five hundred feet. Now it was at seven thousand. Rutter sensed that the ship’s nose was falling. His belt was no longer tight. His feet were hard on the rudder bar. Fact is, he was standing on the bar now and gazing ahead into the black swirl of clouds. Then the struts and wires whistled louder; control came back to the surfaces; and Rutter whaled full gun to the motor, and zoomed. That zoom, had it arrived a split second later, would have been a split second too late. As the ship’s nose shot up, Rutter, with his brave heart in his dry mouth, saw the hard top of a mountain ridge come popping through the black, then fall back into oblivion. That was close.

Out of the zoom, now, Rutter redressed his ship, circled no more, and tried to guess a natural, slow climb. His compass float was riding normal, and he kept it that way. For a few endless minutes, still deep in that world of clouds, things carried on.

Tight flying minutes went by the board before Rutter won the first view of better sky. It wasn’t much better, but there was, during seconds at a time, visibility for fair distances beyond his wingtips. More and more often now rays of the early sun pierced the dark canopy overhead; and that canopy was “on the blow”. The clouds were moving here, and when they move like that, there’s a chance for a clearing ahead.

But Rutter was lost. Two hours of flying time had passed since he had lifted that ship off the San Francisco field. Two hours of flight should have given him Reno. There had been no headwinds, or sidewinds, to drift his craft; so he should be there, or near there, were he not lost. Again now, with the visibility better, Rutter took to circling. After several minutes of circling search he brought his first view of the ground through the blanket below. There was a bit of an added thrill there, too. With that first peek of earth, Rutter learned that he was still clearing mountain ridges, and crags, by a too scant margin. He resumed full throttle and went out for a bit more of altitude. Altitude, the stuff that spells life.

With two hours of flight behind him, his ship’s tank still had two hours’ gas remaining. That capacity could do any one of three things. He could turn back, and find a landing in the Sacramento valley. But a flying man doesn’t like to backlap. As a second choice he could fly a compass course, dead reckoning, eastward. Doing that, perhaps he’d run out of bad weather before Elko, the next air mail control, was reached. Yeh, do that and the crews of three fields would horse-laugh him out of air for being two hundred miles lost. Well, taking the third and last chance, Rutter could carry on this blind hunt and take a chance on finding Reno before the last of his gas should be exhausted. A fellow could sure become gloriously lost in two hours. What a feast this would be for Page!

Page? Rutter was now willing to take the whip off Page. Maybe, after all, Page’s forced landings in this neck of the woods had been genuine. But Page your eye! Rutter had no time for Page, or for any other fellow. Rutter was still hard put getting Rutter out of this aerial hole.

For more than an hour Rutter continued to sashay back and forth, here and there, in and out, through and above the great open spaces of the still untamed West. He struck rain. He struck snow. And if he’d struck oil it wouldn’t have surprised him.

“The first piece of ground,” Rutter promised himself, “that isn’t standing up at present arms will be mine. I’ll put this old cull down if I have to wrap ’er around a dozen trees. If Page could do it twice, for headlines, I should be able to get away with it once, even if I do only get about a half-inch of posthumous back on Page 10, Section II, as before mentioned.”

Of a sudden, again wheeling in a tightly-flown virage, Rutter found his visibility once more wiped out. Pressing in from all sides, the clouds filled his world heavier than ever. Down and down his wheeling ship was mushing, losing altitude and bringing the tough looking world closer and closer to his wheels. Then, like something broadcast from heaven, a bit of clearing, only a few rough, cramped acres, flashed before his eyes. He kicked his ship over into a slip, killed off his forward speed, wished a flock of brief flying wishes, swished his wheels and prop through the tops of the trees lining the small clearing, then met the ground—man to man.

When the plane stopped rolling on that small bit of cleared hillside, Rutter carefully removed much wreckage from around his neck and shoulders. He crawled out of the pile. All arms and legs were as good as ever. Tell you what, it was fine to be back on the ground.

The mail matter was undamaged. Rutter looked to that first.

Next, at the edge of the clearing, Rutter noticed an Indian. Said Indian, with the stoicism of his race to uphold, was making no move; nor was he showing any undue excitement. Chances are this noble Indian had lots of visitors arrive in just such a manner. Maybe he was field manager on this particular airport. Who knows?

Rutter motioned the Indian watcher to come a-runnin’.

The Indian did so—slowly. You’d guess, had you seen him, that the Indian was leading a snail. Indian never in much hurry.

“Where am I?” Rutter asked.

“Woods,” the Indian answered.

“You must have peeked,” Rutter said. “Or at least you looked in the back of the book. Woods!”

Indian looked very dumb. Indian can look very, very dumb.

“Besides being in the woods,” Rutter pressed, “where are we? Where’s the railroad? Which way ketchum?”

“Out,” was the answer. Just that and no more.

For a long time Rutter was the one that looked very dumb.

“Out,” Rutter finally repeated. “You didn’t ketchum my talk. I wasn’t asking you how you are, but where we are. Now where’s the railroad?”

“Ten dollars, one day,” the Indian bargained. “Me Indian guide. Ten dollars, one day.”

“Ten bucks me eye!” Rutter wailed. “You ketchum seven.”

“Eight,” the Indian dickered.

“Split the difference with you,” Rutter agreed. “Five!”

“Uh-huh,” the redskin agreed. “Five dollars, one day.”

Rutter pulled a billfold from an inner pocket and displayed a company front of five-dollar bills. It stopped the Indian’s slow heart. Next, Rutter dug his sawed-off shotgun from the wreckage, just for moral effect, tucked it under his arm and said:

“All set. Crank up a couple of those harness hares and let’s start for the railroad.”

At the edge of the clearing, in a crude corral, were a few pack mules. The mules were just standing around wishing that they were not too lazy to jump the low bars and get at some pretty good grazing in the clearing. Toward these mules the Indian and Rutter now made their way.

“Me ketchum pack mule. Load um mail bags. Start for railroad,” the Indian said.

“Ketchum?” Rutter repeated. “You won’t have to ketchum those burr heads. You’ll only have to wake ’em up. Think they’ll keep awake on the trail?”

“Good mule,” the Indian guaranteed. “You ride um one; me break trail with other.”

“Break trail?” Rutter demanded. “Say, listen, Little Big Man With Strange Ideas, remember I’m a tourist and not a Forty-niner.”

“Me John,” the Indian corrected. “We go fast.”

“How about grub? Got plenty?” Rutter thought to ask.

“Me ketchum grub on trail—”

“Not so good. Looka here, John, this is no hunting jag. I’m in a hurry. Got U. S. mail. Savvy mail?”

John said that he savvied mail, and added:

“Railroad long way. We make um quick. Ketchum grub on trail.”

“Just how far is the railroad, John?” Rutter again asked.

The Indian made many strange motions. He pointed at the sun. He pointed to the north. He waved toward the west. But he imparted nothing of value. Rutter said—

“That helps a lot, John.”

“Long way railroad,” the Indian once more avowed. “Me ketchum railroad an’ five dollars day.”

“The five per seems to be the important thing,” Rutter thought.

And so thinking, Rutter began to drag six mail pouches to where the mules were still sleeping erect. Minutes later, with John leading the mail-pouch-bearing mule, and Rutter astride the other animal, they took the trail. Slowly, very slowly.

Noon came and passed. The trail had grown more difficult. Time and again John had stopped the big push to take soundings, as it were; to look north and south, wave east and west; and to make a deep study of the sun. Maybe he was trying to mystify Rutter. Perhaps John was anxious to impress Rutter with the fact that he wasn’t stealing the five bucks. Just proving that this guiding racket was no soft graft. Well, a man must sell his line. Then, late in the afternoon, there came a time and a place when and where John was openly stopped. No kidding or stalling here and now.

“Well,” Rutter demanded sharply, “what’s wrong—you lost?”

“Uh!” the noble red grunted. “Indian no lost—trail lost.”

John had not merely stopped, he had even turned to argue. He was openly belligerent. It ill becomes an Indian to be lost in the high growth. Why, the thing just isn’t being done. Moreover, he who accuses the aborigine of going astray must certainly be one of unlimited crust. But who ever said that Rutter wasn’t crusty?

“You look like a long-lost guy to me, John,” Rutter said.

“Indian no lost!” the owner of several dirty shirts again grunted. “Indian right here, this place. Trail no here. Trail lost.”

Rutter, even, could see the logic of that statement. He said:

“You win, Passing Buck. The world’s all wrong, and you’re all right. But now that we’re sure you are not lost, what are you going to do about it? Where’s the trail that’s lost, Passing Buck?”

“No Passing Buck—John,” the redman corrected.

“Well, John, John it is. That stands. Now how about it; where’s the trail?”

“Trail lost,” John said for the manyith time. “Indian guide find lost trail.” And John said that in a tone of voice that showed that he wished somebody would start an argument about the thing. He added, “Indian always find him lost trail.”

“You never had a better chance to prove it,” Rutter cheered. “Let’s shake a leg before you take root, John. It’s getting late. You sure should have brought a guide, John.”

“Me guide!” John barked, with no little showing of heat.

“Me guide?” Rutter repeated. “You mean misguide, John.”

That bit of patter was too fast for the Indian. He turned from Rutter and gave his slow attention to the business at hand. He stood there studying his surroundings. For a long time John gazed at the setting sun. Its last slanting rays played through the heavy, tall timber.

“You’ll surer’n hell know that sun when you see it again,” Rutter finally told John. “Let’s get the lead out, guy.”

They were moving—had been for hours—in the way of the sun. Now, at this late hour, John seemed to be surprised at finding that darned sun in such a place. The sun, perhaps, and not the Indian or the trail, was lost. Stranger things have happened in the big woods.

“That’s west, John,” Rutter told his guide. “The sun, except in the movies, always sets in the west. And we’ve been moving on the sun all day. But the railroad, as I recall, should be some place to our south or east. Are you sure that you’re a guide, got papers and all that sort of thing, John? If you haven’t, John, and I find that you’ve been wasting my good time, I’m going to bust you wide open. You know, John, there are Indians, and there are Indians. And do you know that old proverb about dead Indians being bon Indians, John?”

John grunted.

Finally, leaning into the setting sun, John took up the slack of the lead rope between him and the first pack mule, which he was towing, and started forward. Properly urged, with heavily booted urges, the long-eared mount of Rutter’s followed in John’s wake. The quiet of the trail was again very heavy upon them.

Of a sudden, far overhead, seen now and then through the trees, an airplane droned. The packers watched it. And Rutter, perhaps for the first time, thought of front page space. No doubt about it, he was now listed among those missing, and this was a searching ship.

“You’ll never find me in this timber,” Rutter mused. “But I sure thank you for making the try ... Wonder if that’s Scott, or Miller? Flies a bit like Page—’bout time Page did some real flying. He’s sure good on the old front page, though.”

After a few turns of the country, and with darkness so close at hand, the searching ship finally gave up the work and flew away.

“Well,” Rutter told himself, “that settles it; I’m now thoroughly and officially lost. I’ll get fan letters, too. Hope they run a good picture of me in the papers. Maybe I’ll make the Police Gazette. Kid Page will be green with envy. Chances are, Page’ll get out of bed, hop in a ship and get lost in his nightshirt.

“Page? I’m pretty sure that Page was flying that ship just now. Nobody flies a turn as flat as that guy. Still and all, I must be wrong, for Page is sick abed. Sick me eye!”

Night was on them now; and Rutter, forgetting newspaper glory, followed John into the shadows.

“Sun gone,” the redman said, and pointed to where a few light, high blown clouds caught the last red of the sun’s afterglow. “Stop now,” he decided. “Night here.”

“What’s that to you?” Rutter questioned. “I was in hopes that with the daylight gone you’d do better in the dark, John. How about it, where’s the trail now?”

“Trail lost,” John said very low, and he prepared to unload the lead mule. When he had done that, and many other little things, including the starting of a small fire, the redman said, “Me look for trail now. Find um trail soon.”

Then, alone, he went into the brush. When John came back he had some small game with him; and they scoffed.

Early morning found them on the prod again. A few times during that second day they watched two circling planes high overhead. And a few more times during this long day John lost and found the trail which seemed to have such a bad habit of getting itself mislaid again. Quite often during this second day’s trek, leaving Rutter and the mules, John had gone off into the great unknown. And as a rule he came back with the small game in hand again. Rutter could not figure the thing out. With a knife and a club—but without firearms of any kind—the Indian seemed able to shake down this primitive world for a good living.

“Not too bad,” Rutter thought. “We’ll eat even if we don’t get any place. Wonder if I can eat five bucks’ worth each day. Must keep even with this thing.”

Time and time again, as the second day wore away and those searching planes shuttled back and forth, Rutter recalled that he was earning every inch of space the newspapers would be giving him by now. He hoped that they were running that swell wartime cut of him—the one that showed him standing before the wreckage of a two-place German ship which he had just knocked down. You bet Rutter was a Front Line pilot. He was a good one, too. Rutter, being human, and liking his publicity full strength, hoped that the newspapers were doing right by that war record of his. Seven enemy ships, it was; and two balloons. A Croix de Guerre and D.S.C. and—

And Rutter was jerked back to this tough world, for John was obviously off the trail once more. Rutter’s mule had walked up the lead mule’s back; and the two noble head of stock had taken time out to swap a few swift kicks at each other.

“If I had my way,” Rutter was saying to himself as the sun was sinking behind a distant ridge, “all Indians would be good Indians, and it would give me great pleasure to make one of John Passing Buck— He isn’t lost; the trail’s lost!”

“Well, that’s an argument hard to beat, and John sticks to his story. Stuck to it for two full days now. What’s a guy going to do with a jaybird like this? The law won’t let me shoot him.

“Right he is! No use talking, said trail is lost. Correct— The trail is lost!”

Yesterday John had not been lost more than a few times; for they had been more or less in the Indian’s own back yard, as you might say. But this second day’s long trek had surely placed John in a position open for criticism. Of course, if in the end, John were to find the railroad, then all must be forgiven. A guide is a guide just so long as he is able to say “Here we are” at the finish of the last long mile. “Here we are” even though said so-called guide must spend the next few hours asking natives—

“Where am I?”

For a last look, in the strong sunset glow, one of the searching planes circled high over the wild country. The slanting rays heliographed from the ship’s glistening surfaces. And a few minutes later the pilot gave the thing up as a bad job, straightened out his course and hightailed for home. When the noise of his motor went out of the cañon in which Rutter stood, day seemed to end, headlong, and darkness was hurled down upon the packers.

“Sun gone,” John said. “Trail lost.”

“I’ll be damned!” Rutter exclaimed resignedly. “Who’d’er thunk it!”

They made camp. John quit Rutter and the stock. Through the brush, fifteen minutes later, the Indian returned, with the usual small game.

“Trail here, there,” he said, and pointed from where they stood above the small fire.

“Bon,” Rutter said. “In the A.M. we go places—maybe.”

The third day was like the second. John had struck the trail early but the darned thing kept getting away from him. And when that trail went astray for the second or third time before noon, and John appeared very helpless, Rutter said—

“If you ever find it again, John, we’ll make a pet of the darn thing.”

“Me ketchum!” John grunted.

“You ketchum, and I’ll tame um,” Rutter promised. “M’gosh, John, you’re awful careless. The way you mislay mountain chains, deep cañons and river beds is perfectly scandalous. But, Chief Kick In The Pants, I’ll get you back to civilization if I have to take you back feet first. Now find yourself. Many Dirty Shirts!”

Once and for all, with a grunt that was close to a real bellow, John stated his case:

“Me right here. Trail lost.”

“Yes—” and Rutter couldn’t help laughing as he agreed—“and your poor efforts are planting me on every front page in America. John, you’re making me famous, against my will. But front page gravy and fame won’t pay the five bucks per that I’m paying you. Neither will your old Uncle Sam. That’s out of my own kick, John. Beginning early tomorrow morning, you’re going to hump or I’ll dock you for lost time. If you want to work for me, hit the ball, John.”

Shortly, John grunted his way into slumberland.

Early on the job next morning, a searching plane flew back and forth across the surrounding ridges. There was just one ship in the air. Rutter, feeling better after a fair night’s rest, thrilled once more to the search, and to being lost, and to the swell front page space that he must have won by this time.

“But only one ship in the hunt, that’s cheap of Uncle Sam. I sure rate more attention than this. You’d use more equipment if you were just looking for a nigger in the woodpile. The greater number of ships, the greater the search, and the more flashy the headlines. Ah, but they can’t cheat me. I’m a lost baby. Long lost, now. Page isn’t in my class at all. That guy will have to call me uncle after this. Hope Miller keeps all the clippings for me. Miller, the old stiff, said I couldn’t crash the gates of fame. Crash ’em? I’ll buy you a hat if I haven’t knocked said gates forty ways from the center.”

Once, as that lone plane circled very close and low, Rutter decided to build a fire and send up a smoke signal, à la Boy Scout, but John objected, saying:

“No fire here. Forest ranger throw Indian in jail.”

“No such luck,” Rutter said. But the fire was not lighted. And the hovering airman pulled out, going elsewhere to do his hovering.

Now and then, as on days previous, the Indian quit Rutter and took to the brush. After each of these short sidetrips he seemed to locate the lost trail anew. Fact is, John seemed to make these side trips without losing the trail. Keeping the mules company, Rutter talked to himself and remembered what this was costing him. Then, with John out front again, they’d push on slowly, slowly.

The mules and John worked fine together. Rutter, like most city people, supposed that mules had only two speeds, slow and slower. But now, with him paying the toll, he learned that John’s burr heads also had a reverse; and they seemed to be using it most of the time. Time and again, with little protest from John, the pair of long-eared queer boys would take to backing up.

“I’ll stop this,” Rutter finally decided. He aimed his sawed-off shotgun back over his shoulder and turned loose with both barrels. For the next few minutes the only direction was forward; and the speed was much better. But John did not like this a little bit; and for a while he acted as though he knew all about that Custer affair, and thought it high time for history to repeat itself—on this too-smart white man. But the backfire had sure worked a cure; and the mules were now logging miles per hour.

“Now keep these damned harness hares moving the way they’re looking,” Rutter ordered. “I want five bucks’ worth of riding and motion every day. You great big noble five-foot-nothing redman, un-lose yourself and be quick about it.”

“Indian no lost!” John protested. “Trail—”

“Don’t say it! Don’t say it,” Rutter bellowed, “or I’ll shoot. Find that trail, Passing Buck.”

Grunting and growling, stretching the lead mule’s neck and making slow tracks, John pounded trail westward into the long, hot afternoon. Singing strange ditties—simple little snatches—Rutter brought up the rear and watched that searching plane that came and went through the now cloudless sky. And, ever and anon Rutter glowed with the glow of conquest, as he thought again of all that swell publicity he was piling up. However, one sore spot remained to chill Rutter’s enthusiasm: the fact that the powers that be were putting on a one ship hunt. Of course, other ships might be hunting elsewhere, but he doubted it.

Evening came. Night fell. And sleep closed down on them.

The fourth day’s sun crawled up into a swell day; and the much-lost-and-found trail was resumed early. At about noon of this fourth day they topped a ridge and turned in a more southerly direction, more to the southwest. During the day, several times, John allowed the trail to slip through his careless fingers as of yore. But, after a brief trip into the brush each time, John relocated said trail again. Off and on, all day long, the lone aerial hunter hunted. Then, as usual, when the day ended, it did so with the elusive trail hanging high in the air, lost. But John promised to find it in the morning. Darkness. More thoughts of glory for Rutter. Sleep.

The fifth day was just like the fourth. Same direction of march. Same lone plane above. More and bigger dreams of hard-earned newspaper fame. Rutter had Page backed off the map. Outclassed.

There was nothing new and original about the sixth day; except that, up till now, no air mail flyer had ever been lost so long. A new record for the service. Rutter felt fine about that. “Hell, John, here’s a five buck note. Light your pipe with it.”

And now the trek goes into the seventh day. Moreover, the morning hours of this seventh day were not out of the usual, so we’ll push on to the afternoon—the late afternoon.

On this day John found no trouble keeping the trail from becoming lost. The trail was now more distinct. Any one, even an Indian, could follow such a well-beaten path. The mules, just so long as they remained awake, very seldom stumbled from it. The going was fine, for this dusty, clear path certainly must lead to some place. So Rutter sang countless verses of nameless songs which, needless to say, were never learned at his mother’s knee. Even John was forgiven. And Rutter was trying to decide whether to ride his publicity into the movies or into vaudeville.

John no longer quit Rutter and the mules for sidetrips. And why should he? Trail no lost now. Trail right here, there, everywhere. John right here. Indian not lost. Yep, the five-dollar Indian guide was sure doing his stuff now.

“Pretty soon, Truckee,” John said. It was four o’clock when he said this. It was the first definite promise John had made. “This trail, Truckee trail. Make um town ’bout seven ’clock.”

“Attaboy, John,” Rutter cheered. “You’re sure a guiding fool; and you’ve earned the five per day. No foolin’. I wouldn’t go back over your return trip for a million.

“Seven days’ hard hiking! John, I’m going to give you a bonus. Yes, sir, you’ve earned a ten buck raise. And, John, we’ll have a picture taken together—Lost Airman And His Noble Guide. That will look swell right out on the front pages where all America can see it. It’s guys like you that made the West, John.”

“Indian know um trail,” John admitted. “Me ketchum job guide big men. San Fr’isco men. Trail ketchum big danger. One time bear chase John. Bear stop. Snif-snif John’s tracks. John say, ‘Ug-ug, bear like um tracks, uh? All right, John make um more tracks for bear.’”

“That was tough on the bear, John,” Rutter said. “A good bear would starve to death trying to grow fat on the tracks you’ve made on this trip. But you ketchum bonus, John.”

“This trail two hundred, maybe two hundred twenty miles,” John told Rutter. “Long trail for pack mule.”

“Long trail for any kind of a mule, John,” Rutter agreed, “Look at the whiskers on me. Think they’ll put me up at the hotel in Truckee, or will it be the livery stable? But we’ll have those pictures taken before I clean up. Hell, John, I’m a made man.”

Faithful to the end, the lone plane was making its sunset turn of the forestland. Rutter, with victory so close at hand, had a warm place in his heart for this stick-at-it guy. Maybe it wasn’t the same pilot each day, but for all those pilots who had manned the lone ship, Rutter had a place in his gay heart. Flying over that turned-up, piled-high mess that bears the name Sierra is no child’s play. And nobody knew the truth of this better than the airman on the ground, Rutter. Being big of heart, Rutter decided to say something, in the press, for these fellow pilots. Well, it wouldn’t be long now.

It was shortly after seven, just after dusk, when the two mules started to chew the hitching rack in front of Truckee’s post office. Five other mules began to throw hoofs when John’s two crowded in. John unpacked the mail pouches and dropped them on the front platform of the P. O. From all over town people were gathering to see what had come out of the tall growth. The whole town was soon on the scene; and that didn’t make Rutter a bit sore, either. Then the postmaster came out to take a look, scratch his neck and so forth.

While the postmaster watched from the threshold, Rutter pulled his billfold and counted out John’s take. John took. Then Rutter turned to pass the time of day with the postmaster. Also, he wanted to get this belated mail off his hands.

“You Pilot Nutter?” the postmaster asked.

“Rutter—R-u-t-t-e-r,” Rutter corrected.

“The Reno papers, about a week ago, said it was Nutter that was lost,” the postmaster said. “That was after they denied that it was Pilot Page. At first all the papers, clear back to the East Coast, said it was Page. Let’s see, you took Page’s run that morning, didn’t you?”

“Yeh,” Rutter agreed, and he looked for a place to sit down.

“Come on,” the postmaster urged, “let’s drag this mail inside.” He continued to talk as they did so. “You say your name’s Rutter? Who’s Nutter? The papers, all that I’ve seen, said you were Nutter.”

“Nutter,” Rutter said, “flies mail too. He’s hopping between Elko and Salt Lake now. He used to fly out of Reno. Got any of the newspapers on hand?”

“That pile there,” the postmaster said, pointing to quite a pile of newspapers. There were Omaha papers, papers from Salt Lake City, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a few from the East.

Rutter sat down and started to look the pile over. Truckee’s postmaster was right. The first reports, those in the Reno paper, said that Page was lost. The San Francisco papers, of the same day, showed that the Reno paper had been misinformed. Pilot Page had not taken off; but a fellow pilot, Pilot Nutter, had taken Page’s place on the run. Amid the litter of news that filled the second day’s papers Rutter found one small item, at the bottom of page three, San Francisco paper, which said that Pilot Miller wished to state that it was Pilot Rutter, and not Nutter, who had gone fishing.

“This man Miller,” the postmaster told Rutter, “spotted the wreckage of your ship, out at John’s clearing. That was on the second day of the hunt. They had three or four ships in the air all the time, the first two days. Miller and a crew of mechanics drove over the road from Reno, went back to John’s with a string of mules, and packed out most of the wreckage. Even that big motor. Miller told the newspaper men that you and the mail wasn’t there; and that you were all right. He said that there was no blood on the wreck. Then Miller said something about maybe you’d gone fishing. I remember that now. He said that you had mentioned it to him only a short time before leaving San Francisco; or something like that.

“But this boy Page,” the postmaster concluded, “he’s a great pilot, eh? He’s been in the air every day looking for you.”

“Yeh,” Rutter agreed, “he’s a whiz.”

Rutter now turned to the papers of all those days after the first two. Pages of Page met his eyes.

Pilot Page Intends To Carry On Hunt For Lost Pal. Lone Eagle Page Covers Vast Territory. Page Wears Out Three Ships In Two Days. Page Covers One Thousand Miles In Ten Hours Of Hunt. Page Faces Death For Lost Pal. Page States That He Will Stick Till Pal Is Found. Page Ending First Week Of Epic Hunt.

Never a mention now of Rutter, or of Nutter. The nearest to any mention was “lost flyer,” “missing airman,” “Pilot Page’s buddy” and even “object of Page’s quest.”

With the mail taken care of, the postmaster said—

“Time for me to be closing now, Nutter—I mean Page—Rutter, rather.”

Together, with Rutter silenced to a hush, they stepped out on the front platform. As they stood there, John came from somewhere and removed his two mules from the hitching rail. Then John headed the two burr heads down the street, in the opposite direction from which they had arrived, belted each over the rump, waved his hat and yelled—

“Git f’home!”

“Where’re those mules going?” Rutter asked the postmaster.

“Them?” the postmaster said. “They’ll trail right back to John’s place.”

“All that way alone?”

“Why, that’s not far,” the postmaster told Rutter. “It’s just over the ridge, in the cañon. Not more than two miles. That’s where you landed, wasn’t it? In John’s clearing, eh?”

“Yeh,” Rutter answered in a very low tone of voice. “That’s where I piled up.” He was speaking with the voice of a man who is beginning to realize that he’s been taken down the line, badly taken. “But why did this jaybird take seven days to come two miles?”

“Well,” the postmaster explained, “John runs a string of traps back through the timber for a couple hundred miles or more. Maybe you came by way of his trapline.”

“I’ll say we did,” Rutter mused, as he watched John duck into one of Truckee’s many wide-open joints. “He took me down that line all right. He kept getting lost.”

“Tut-tut!” the postmaster tut-tutted. “I’ve been in these parts for a long time, Pa-Nut-Rutter, I mean; and I’ve never yet heard tell of a lost Indian, so I haven’t. John has been on that trapline for upward of thirty years; he’d never get lost back there. A lost Indian—there’s just no such thing.”

“Well,” Rutter agreed, “come to think of it, that’s what John kept saying—said he wasn’t lost. But he did say the trail was lost.”

“Now that’s possible,” Truckee’s postmaster told Rutter. “Yep, plenty lost trails, but no lost Indians. Nor dumb Indians, either. They just don’t grow ’em.”

“How about good Indians?” Rutter tried.

“The graveyard’s just full of ’em, Page—Nutter—ah, I mean Rutter—Well, will I see you in the morning? I must be getting home. The old woman will be waiting supper for me. Goodnight.”

With John’s two burr heads gone from the hitching rack, there were still five mules tied up there. Rutter stepped down from the platform, shouldered in among them, and said:

“Get over! Make room for the biggest jackass of them all!”

NOTES ON THE TEXT

This story appeared in Adventure Magazine, July 15, 1930. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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