“But he won’t have to go up in a flying machine,” meekly argued Mrs. Grant.
Norman only shrugged his shoulders in disgust. “There won’t be any more danger in that,” he expostulated, “than I’ve been in all week.”
Colonel Howell turned to Mr. Grant, who held up his hands in surrender. Then he looked at Mr. Moulton. The latter shook his head, but the debate seemed to be closed.
“I guess they’re able to take care of themselves,” conceded Mr. Grant.
“I started out younger,” added Mr. Moulton.
“I’m planning to leave at three o’clock Monday afternoon,” announced the Kentuckian, with his most genial smile, “and we’ll have a car ready for the machine Monday morning.”
The conference immediately turned into a business session to discuss immediate plans and the outfit needed by the newly enlisted assistants. In this the mothers took a leading part, seeming to forget every foreboding, and when Colonel Howell left, the two families were apparently as elated as they had been despondent on his arrival.
The next day’s performance at the Stampede was more or less perfunctory, so far as the young aviators were concerned, and was only different from the others in that Roy accompanied Norman in the exhibition flight.
Colonel Howell, after a day of activity in the city, was present when the flight was made. No time had been lost by the boys in arranging for their departure, and mechanics in Mr. Grant’s railroad department had been pressed into service in the construction of three crates—a long skeleton box for the truss body of the car, another, wider and almost as long, to carry the dismounted planes, and a solidly braced box for the engine. The propeller and the rudders were to go in the plane crate. These were promised Sunday morning, and Norman and Roy took a part of Saturday for the selection of their personal outfits. Over this there was little delay, as the practical young men had no tenderfoot illusions to dissipate.
The kind of a trip they were about to make would, to most young men, have called for a considerable expenditure. But to the young aviators, life in the cabin or the woods was not a wholly new story. Overnight they had talked of an expensive camera, but when they found that young Zept was provided with a machine with a fine lens, they put aside this expenditure, and the most expensive item of their purchases was a couple of revolvers—automatics.