The colored man touched his forehead in salute, and then clumsily gave the boy his powerful hand.
“Yo’ gwine come right back?” he asked.
But the boy did not reply. He was already starting the engine, and Ba fell to his task of holding the car. There was neither a break nor miss in the engine, and as the dust settled over the grim-set negro, Andy crawled into his seat.
“Hold her!” he exclaimed sharply, and once more the engine sprang into action. Faster and faster it flew, but the trembling, tugging car was safe in Ba’s powerful grip.
“All right!” shouted Andy at last, and while Ba fell back, the Pelican was cluttering over the beach with the quick roll of a sand snipe. Then she took the air. Andy did not wait for altitude. As soon as he felt that the rushing air had his car on its breast, he began his turn, mounting as he did so.
It was but a moment or so until the aeroplane swept over the pier, having turned and headed north. As it approached the boat landing on which Ba had taken up his anxious watch, the boy dropped the car until it was not over fifty feet above the river.
“Wait here, Ba, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The ease with which the car worked elated Andy. That he might not become over confident and to see if everything was all right, he began to mount again at once. He seemed to fall into the trick naturally. Before Goat Creek was reached, he was nearly a thousand feet above the river. Then, taking the turn and dip like a veteran, and without the slightest fear, Andy headed the aerial craft for the house on the hill.
The landing was made a little abruptly, but nothing was broken. Pushing the machine to the top of the hill, the boy turned it, and, throwing off his coat, began the work of refilling his engine gasoline tank and getting the extra can aboard.