Bye and bye a State Police car arrived with passenger.

“Major Grigsby, Sir,” Cornelius said, “good to see you again.”

“And you also,” Charles Grigsby said.  “It’s still early, the air is cool, so I can look forward to the flight.”

“The waterskins are in the rear seat,” Cornelius observed, “and thank you for finding them.  Mind you, I very much do not want to have to walk out of that place, but with those we likely can.  I’d prefer not to fly over it at all, but he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

“I completely agree,” Charles said.  “And the first indication of airplane trouble, however small, I am happy if we turn around for home.  The militia squadron that rode across this place, their horses died, and the men are in hospitals.  Someone had the bright idea, drink absolutely all the water you can, eat sea-salty foods, and the poison seems to be flushing from their systems.  They’re getting better, not worse.”

“I looked at your map,” Cornelius said.  “The geologists’ route makes perfect sense. It gets them as close as possible to the glassy field before they enter the yellow sand.”

“Some slight controversy at the front end,” Grigsby observed,  “not in the newspapers.  They’re Prescott men, paid for by a Prescott businessman looking for new gemstones, but they started here, not there.  Prescott newspaper was upset.”

“The Prescott paper is always upset,” Cornelius responded politely.  “They want Prescott to be the state’s leading city, but that’s simply not going to happen.  Let’s get into the air.  It’s not getting any cooler.”

With a powerful drone of its engine, the Oriole took to the air and banked to fly north.

“We’ll be climbing for a while,” Cornelius said.  “I’m not pushing the engine toward full power if I don’t have to.   However, you should be able to see the Prescott road off to your left.”

“I can, indeed,” Charles said, “and we have another twenty miles before we head off to our right to follow the edge of the hills.  I’d say that should be about 060 magnetic, but I am warned that magnetic compasses have become unreliable.”

“Darn right they have,” Cornelius agreed.  “I positively will not do night flying any more, and not two days ago the night mail flight was lucky to find the Sky Harbor.  Fortunately  the pilot recognized the city lights before he ran out of fuel.”

The Oriole climbed ahead into the blue sky lifted by the first thermals of the morning.

“We should be coming up on the Date Creek Wash,” Charles finally said.

“I see it, so now we follow, staying this side of the hills.”  Cornelius gave a thumb’s up gesture.

“I’m tracking them against the map,” Charles responded. “Soon we take the gentle left.”

“It’s dead ahead,  but I see the glass field. We’ll stay a few hundred feet up.”

They circled the sea of glass, seeing nothing, then turned back.

“I see a trio of mules,” Charles announced, “slightly to our left, where they’ve found a bit of water, and, yes, I see two men lying on the ground.  They’re both face down.  They’re dead, or unconscious.  And there’s another mule…it’s lying on its side, must be dead.”

“OK, I will circle around,” Cornelius said,  “try to hold our speed at sixty, and we can do a timed flight from them back to the sand edge.”

A few minutes later, the distance measurement was complete.

“About a half mile of golden sand,” Charles said.  “They almost made it back out.  People wait until evening when it’s cool, go in with protective gear and gas mask, and bring out the bodies and the animals.”

“Not me, thank you,” Cornelius said.

“Nor I. Wearing a gas mask in this heat, even in the evening, will be hellish.”

&&&&&