It wasn’t that this red-headed bird didn’t know ships. He did. In the first place he had those goggle-cuts around the eyes—and I figured from the first second my baby-blue eyes glimpsed his fire-top, that he’d crashed them far and wide. Bert Billings, who runs the “Billings Air Circus,” looks up from a pile of high-test gas bills, and greets the new arrival cheerfully.
“I’m betting you’re Happy Hennessy,” he says. “—Sometimes known as Red. An’ you’re down in Texas to tie up with the roughest ridin’ air circus what is. Am I right?”
This red-headed boy never blinks an eyelash. He’s tall and thin, and his face is a perfect brown.
“What is, right now,” he says slowly. “But not what was. I just come from an outfit, man, where we landed the crates upside down, an’ did outside loops to cool our toes off. Out in California we used to zoom ’em with the engine throttled down just to get a kick out of it. I can remember the time that—”
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This free edition of Ride 'em and weep by Raoul Whitfield comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #79062, released 2026-07-09. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer.
