Ned smiled at the determination of the lad to keep close to his side. He knew that Jimmie dreaded the very idea of leaving the solid earth that night, still he found him willing to make the ascent merely for the sake of being in his company.
“All right, kid,” he said. “You may go if you want to, but it may be morning before we get back to camp.”
“You can’t remain in the air all that time,” Jimmie said.
“I am fully aware of that,” Ned replied, “but I can drop down over on the other side and rest and tinker with the machine—if she doesn’t work just right.”
“You haven’t got gasoline enough,” urged Jimmie, who would have argued Ned out of the notion of the night flight if possible, but who was determined to go with him if he went.
“The first thing I do,” Ned replied, “will be to fly over the Great Northern right of way and fill up with gasoline. Besides filling the tanks, I shall carry a lot away in an aluminum keg I have provided for that purpose.”
“Well,” Jimmie said, with a tired sigh, “I should think you’d been through enough to-day and to-night, without goin’ off in the dark, but I’m goin’ if you do.”
After talking with the others regarding his intentions, and warning them to keep a sharp lookout during his absence, Ned assisted Jimmie to his seat and the two were away. There was scant room for a rise between the spot where the machine lay and the foot of the range, but Ned had little difficulty in getting into the sky and swinging along in the breeze.
It was now after ten o’clock, and the moon was high in the heavens. To the east the dark passes of the mountains showed green and misty in the moonlight. To the west the burned spaces looked dark and forbidding, with smoke half hiding the ruin that had been wrought. Jimmie clung to the machine and insisted that Ned was chasing the Milky Way when he lifted the aeroplane up the level of the divide.
Before crossing the divide, however, Ned flew to the Great Northern right of way and filled his tanks with gasoline, also filling the extra keg. The machine, which was an improved Wright, was then turned to the north-east. So perfect have aeroplanes now become that even inexperienced drivers may sometimes venture into the air with them with impunity, still it is well known that it is more the man than the machine that decides whether there shall be a tumble or a successful flight.