Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/103

I had advertised that a passenger would be taken (for a price) on my return trip by air from Omaha to the coast, and awaited the responses with no little curiosity. A flying companion should be chosen carefully.

The very first applicant, therefore, startled me. He appeared almost as soon as the papers were off the presses—a spare, intense, elderly man, with gray mustache and imperial, and bushy brows shadowing singularly bright, restless eyes. His years, of course, were against him; his weathered, lean face and active step bespoke energy, nevertheless I judged him to be rising sixty.

"But, my dear sir!" I protested.

He proved insistent.

"Heart perfect," he snapped. "I'll leave that to any doctor you appoint. Heart, arteries and lungs, they're as sound as yours."

"Just why do you wish to make the trip, may I ask?" said I. "Business or pleasure?"

"Business." He eyed me sharply. "There'll be no woman aboard?"

"Scarcely," I assured.

"All right. No woman. I've been across time and again, by train—and there were women; by auto—drove my own car, alone, but there were the women, before, behind, and no way to avoid them." He grumbled almost savagely. "I'll go by air," he resumed. "I want to get to San Francisco at once. I want to look around. Do you stop at Denver? Salt Lake? Cheyenne?"

"Straight to San Francisco," said I. "We may have to land en route,