The sun was well in the west. They seemed to be flying straight into the blazing disk when Ernest, pointing to a wide plain far ahead, touched Bill and told him with a gesture to go down and land.
Bill gave a short nod and prepared to obey. There flashed into his head a saying of Tom's, "Anybuddy can fly, but it's the landing that hurts."
Bill felt everything—their safety, his own self-respect and Ernest's confidence in him—rested on this last and different test. He could not conceive of a reason for landing, but Ernest said land, so land it was!
At any rate, his engine was going perfectly, so he was not required to attempt a difficult volplane with a dead engine. It was something to be spared that. Bill picked the likeliest spot in the distant landscape, all immense field with only a few groups of black dots to break its late fall greenness. Bill could not tell the nature of the dots at the height he was flying. They might be bushes or cows. Bill hoped for the latter, and as he came down he saw that he was right. Cows would be likely to scatter, thought Bill, but bushes would be difficult to steer around.
About a hundred feet from the ground he tilted his elevating plane, and the machine, nosing up, glided off at a tangent. Once more making a turn, he came down to the ground, striking it gently, and bobbing along the grassy surface of the field.
The cows scattered all right. When the machine came to a standstill, swaying back and forth like a giant dragonfly, all that remained of the herd was a glimpse of agitated and wildly waving tails galloping off into the second growth which rimmed the pasture.
Ernest, who had taken many long flights, removed his goggles and smiled at the young pilot as he climbed awkwardly over the side and dropped to the ground. His head whirled, and his eyes felt strained out of his head. With fingers that trembled he undid his helmet and pushed off his goggles.
"Well, boy, I may say that I was never so proud of a friend in my life! You have done nobly!"
"What did we land for?" asked Bill. "I don't see as we can afford the time."
"We must take time to get some gas and rest you up a little. Don't you worry, son! You are going to drive all night to-night unless—well, why didn't I think of this before? We are 'way past the path of the storm last night, and—"