"Well, you see you have a band of crack workmen," laughed Mr. Crawford, taking the boys in with a gesture.
"That can be said with all seriousness," replied Hawke earnestly.
The week was spent in trying out the machine, Hawke and the boys making several test flights each day. At the end of that time, they knew beyond a doubt that they could trust the Thunder Bird to do anything they wished. Hawke and five of the boys had ridden in it with safety for four hours, putting it to the most severe test.
With unfailing patience and ready good will, Hawke took them, by ones, and twos, and often filling the machine to its capacity, explaining to them the principles of successful flight. It was impossible, however, in this short time, for all of the boys to become masters of the machine. Fly, however, showed unusual proficiency, and by Saturday night was enthusiastically begging to be allowed to take the machine up alone, a request which was of course persistently refused by his anxious father and mother.
"I'm astonished, though, at the ability the boy shows," Hawke told Mr. Giles confidentially. "They're all first class, but Fly has the inborn instincts of a successful bird-man. He takes hold instantaneously, thinking, as it were, with his muscles, and handling his levers automatically, with the precision of an expert. All the boys have steady nerves and are going to acquire the poise and control of good fliers, but your son has unusual intuition."
"But you wouldn't let him go up alone yet?" said Mr. Giles, skeptically, though he might have altered his refusal at this assurance from Hawke if Mrs. Giles had not protested anxiously.
"Well, no. Better wait until after the hunt. That'll give them a good working basis," advised Hawke.
"Oh, please, please, please," pleaded Fly, whose anxiety to sail once, only just once, alone and unaided, up into the inviting blue clouds, and feel that he had at last achieved his great ambition, prompted him to repeated entreaty that the privilege might be granted him.
"Time enough, my son," said Mr. Giles indulgently.
But the time came sooner than any of them dreamed.