“There he comes,” he said suddenly, pointing.
The gaze of the others followed. Heads nodded. They, too, saw the distant speck which betokened the approaching plane.
“Guess I left him plenty of room for landing,” said the army man, casting a glance towards his own De Haviland near the hanger.
“Yes, suh,” said Tom, not withdrawing his gaze from the sky. “I wasn’t here when you come down, but afterwards I wheeled yo’r bus to the south end. See? She won’t be in Jack’s way. Besides, that boy could land on a nickel a’most.”
There was such obvious pride in his voice that again Captain Cornell smiled discreetly. To himself he said that he wished people felt that way about him. But he did not do himself justice. He was one of the best-liked men of the Border Patrol.
On came Jack, the thrumming of his motor clearly heard by the watchers below. When almost overhead, the tune of the motor changed, and Captain Cornell’s practised ear could tell that Jack had throttled down to eight or nine hundred revolutions. He was nosing down. His plane was shooting earthward.
When little more than a thousand feet up, the plane was thrown into a tight spiral. Then Jack began circling downward.
“Pretty work,” muttered the army flyer. And Mr. Hampton overhearing could have gripped the other’s hand in his pleasure. The way to his heart lay through praise of his motherless son.
At two hundred feet the plane was seen to straighten out, and then Jack leaned overside and waved a greeting. He dropped down within fifty feet and then, with wide-open motor, roared along above the field towards the north end. There he turned for the landing.
“Always a ticklish task for a young flyer,” commented Captain Cornell, as the three men stood grouped and motionless, watching, while waiting beside the hanger could be seen the figure of the mechanic. “But he certainly handles himself like a veteran. Look at that,” he commented, as Jack shot downward in a shallow glide. “Beautiful.”