He shouted a warning back over his shoulders to Wilson: “Hang on, fella! Get your goggles off your eyes! We may pile up!” He couldn’t see whether the doctor did as he was told. He heard a muffled shout behind him, but the words were whipped away by the rush of wind. When the flame of the exhaust was no longer in front of him, Nick discovered that he could see a little; his eyes gradually became accustomed to the dark. He had lost nearly five hundred feet of precious altitude, wandering aimlessly, before he picked a field; and then all he could see was the dark gray outline against an inky background. He started a broad turn, cutting in sharper as he neared the ground. “Get your arms in front of your face!” he shrilled at Wilson. “Sit tight!” He whipped the plane out of the bank and leveled it out on the last straight shot into the field. He was coming in too fast for a normal landing, but purposely, for he meant to “feel” the ship down and let it settle in after one bounce--provided he hit the field. As he neared the ground the field seemed to lose its lighter color and blend into the shade of the darker stuff surrounding it. Nick knew that the dark stuff was mesquite. “What if it’s all mesquite?” he exclaimed. “It wouldn’t be the first time! I’m a prize fool!” The outlines of the brush and trees weren’t even visible as the plane slipped swiftly over them. Nick had seen the outline of the field for a few seconds only; now he was coming in practically “blind.” And he was coming in at more than eighty miles an hour! He knew, before he reached the spot where he thought the edge of the field was, that he was too high to get quickly on the ground. He knew there was danger of “overshooting” the field--and piling up in the trees at the end of it. So, without knowing how far he dared slip the ship, he rolled it up with his ailerons and let it slide. He tried to see the ground, but couldn’t judge his distance accurately. With a sudden fear that he had gone too far, he kicked the plane out with his rudder and continued straight ahead. Suddenly there was a soft impact against the wheels. The tires seemed to sink deep; the plane shuddered at the strain. It bounced high into the air, and as it settled back to earth Nick pulled the tail down. But he still could see little of the ground. He couldn’t even see the horizon in front of him! There were no lights near by, and he didn’t have time to look at the instruments in the cockpit. A wing went down, and although he could feel it, he couldn’t get it up before they hit the ground again--on one wheel and the wing-tip! The tailspin skid bit into the soft sand, the ship spun around crazily, and for an instant it seemed that it would cartwheel and go over on its nose. But Nick prevented that; he fought the controls and whipped the wing up out of the dirt. Doctor Wilson, ignorant of the narrowness by which Nick had prevented a serious accident, asked, unperturbed: