"I'm going to try for a world's record!"
The audacity of this startled the boys for a moment, and then a shout went up, while word was passed around the crowd that Issaquena County was going to try for the kite record of the world.
The first kite, which no one but Tom and the Forecaster had yet seen in flight, took the air and was off. Tom gave it four hundred feet of line and then fastened his second kite, which he let run up until eight hundred feet more of the line was out. The wind was now stronger, registering twenty-two miles an hour. The three lower kites were run in tandem, about two hundred feet of line apart. When the last of the five kites was still on the ground, the topmost one was out of sight, and the kites were carrying only a fraction of the weight of wire that their lifting surface could bear.
"I'm afraid of it, sir," said Tom, his finger on the wire that was running from the reel, "it doesn't feel right."
"Probably your lower kite is in gusts," the Forecaster answered. "Let her go up, there may be calmer wind higher. Fasten on your three small ones, now, Tom; you might as well have all the sail area that you can."
The eighth kite was started on its journey upwards. Only those with the strongest eyes now could see the second group of three, the first pair was far out of sight.
With Anton carefully measuring the angle of altitude and giving Tom the figures in a low voice, Tom, watching the registering apparatus on the reel, suddenly announced:
"Two miles up!"
The reel rattled merrily as the line was paid out, the brake keeping it at exactly a uniform pressure under Tom's skillful guiding.
"Two miles and a half!"