“Wait,” said the Major. “There’s no place for you to land at McLearson. The nearest landing-field is at Plateau--twelve miles north of there. You’ll have to get a boat at Plateau and go after ’em. You land at Plateau and I’ll try to get word through that you’re on the way. I’ll have the ship fixed up with three stretchers and a place for a doctor.” He telephoned his orders to the crew-chief of the plane, then turned back to Nick. “If you can’t get down at Plateau, find a landing-field as near McLearson as you can, then go back to the wreck and drop a note telling them where you’re going to land. You’ve got only three hours of daylight left, so you’ll have to hurry. I can’t send a mechanic with you because they’ve got more work than they can do--rush stuff. I’ll put your other pilots to work.” * * * * * Nick found his plane--a single-motored Douglas--in the hangar, with mechanics just finishing the transformation of its cabin to an ambulance. He waited impatiently while these men pushed the huge plane out on the flying-field and warmed up its motor; then, after a final scrutiny of his map, he climbed up into the cockpit. The flying-field was muddy to such an extreme that any kind of flying from it was hazardous. Ten days of ceaseless rain, falling in a slow drizzle that allowed the water on the ground to soak in, had transformed the sodded surface into a slushy expanse of blackish, soupy mud that was flung from the revolving wheels of the ship like spray from the bow of a racing speedboat. The Douglas was slow in starting to roll over the ground; it was slower yet in lifting itself, light as was its load, but finally it climbed awkwardly into the air. Nick turned quickly away from the field, making no effort to climb for altitude, and settled the ship upon a compass course that would take him directly to McLearson, seventy-five miles to the southeast. Fifteen miles out of Little Rock he crossed the engorged Arkansas River, its waters flattened out over an area of ten miles on either side of the main channel. The water looked like some huge tropical lake, with weather-blackened vegetation jutting raggedly up through the surface and extending a few feet into the air. Here and there was a high ridge or hill, and not infrequently Nick could distinguish the tents of refugees pitched in precarious uncertainty upon their topmost areas.