“And he’d like us to put in a few knocks but I reckon that’ll be some job. As far as I can see, it’s young fellows like Zept who turn these hardships into glories. I’ve heard of kids like him who are really at home where there’s no trail and whose idea of luxury is a canoe and a blanket and a piece of pork.”
“Well,” concluded Norman, “if I didn’t have the aeroplane bug just now, I’d like to have a chance at the ponies and horses on one of Mr. Zept’s big ranches. A canoe and a blanket are all right, but on a cold evening when the snow’s spitting I don’t think they’ve got anything on a chuck wagon and a good tent.”
On the way to the show grounds, Roy went into further details of the gossip he had heard concerning young Zept’s escapades, not only in Paris but in the south of France.
“One thing’s sure,” commented Norman at last, “wild as he may be about a lot of things, he ain’t crazy about airships. That’s saying something these days.”
This remark was made because the Count, while showing a polite interest in the Gitchie Manitou, had not bubbled over with exuberance. The boys felt somewhat chagrined over this lack of enthusiasm until they recalled that to young Zept an airship was an old story, the young man having witnessed many flights by the most improved French monoplanes.
On this, the second day of the Stampede, about five o’clock Norman made a respectable if not very exciting flight. He was somewhat nervous and was glad when the exhibition was over, and had no sooner landed than he determined on the following day to attempt a more ambitious demonstration. On Wednesday and Thursday he added some thrills to his evening flight, making on the latter evening a landing in the shape of a corkscrew spiral that got for him special notice in the newspapers the next morning. It also got for him an admonition from his father, when the latter read this story, that a repetition of it would result in a breaking of his contract with the Stampede authorities.
“All right, father,” conceded the young aviator, “but that ain’t a marker to the possibilities of the machine. I haven’t put over the real stunt yet.”
“And what’s that?” demanded his parent.
“I had planned, on the last day of the show, to make an ascent as high as one reservoir of gas would take me—and that means so high that you couldn’t see me—and then make a volplane back to the ground without using the engine.”
“Are you going to try that?” demanded his father sternly.