"Almost any time we want to go over to the Field and get hold of an instructor," answered Frank. "Now the war is over, the rush is over too and we are taking our time over here. Stick around all you want to, Bill; I can fly myself."
Walking over to the hangars, the boys found the field bright with the giant dragonflies hopping here and there or rising slowly from the ground, and taking wing with ever increasing noise and speed. Lee followed the boys and was glad when he found that Bill could not make a flight without written permission from his parents. This was a rule of the Field, no minor being allowed to go up without the presentation of such a paper, which acted as a sort of release in ease of any accident. Jardin buttoned himself into an elaborate and most expensive leather coat, carefully, adjusted his goggles, stepped into a plane beside the usual pilot who winked slyly at Lee, and proceeded, to send his big bug skimming here and there across the field under the wobbly and uncertain guidance of Horace. They did not leave the ground, but Frank soon soared upward on a short flight that filled Bill with joy and envy all at the same time. He felt that he must fly.
Frank was really mastering the control of a plane in a remarkable manner. The instructors said that he was a born birdman. He seemed to know by instinct what to do and when to do it.
Bill and Lee, on the sidelines by the hangars, did not find all this very exciting. Bill grew more and more crazy to go up, and Lee, who was an artilleryman and had no use for flying, was sorry to see the craze for the dangerous sport grow in his favorite.
Finally the lesson was over, and Frank and Horace, both much inclined to crow, rejoined Bill and Lee to talk it over. They wandered over to the Andersons' quarters, where Lee left them to go to the men's mess for his luncheon. Mrs. Anderson was out attending a bridge luncheon, and the Major did not come home at noon, so the boys had the table to themselves.
"Well, I have decided to be an aviator," declared Jardin. "There will be another war sometime perhaps, and there is nothing like being ready. I suppose I will have to go to school this winter because I agreed to. Gee, I hate the thought of it! Perhaps there will be some way of getting out of it, I can almost always work dad one way or another. He is crazy for me to go through college."
"So is my father," said Frank. "But I am going to be an aviator too, and I don't see any need of college."
"My father is set on college, too," said Bill, "or at least a good training school."
"Well, he is only your stepfather, so I suppose you will do just as you like about it," said Jardin.
"I don't see it that way," replied Bill, flushing, "Of course he is my stepfather, but he is the kindest and best man I ever knew or heard of and I will say right now I am perfectly crazy over him. If I hadn't been, I would never have let mother marry him."