“Where’s Mr. Elder?” he cried. “Wait a minute. I’ll make the flight. Hold on!”
“Go,” rang out from the boy in the aeroplane.
It came like a pistol shot, clear and distinct. But President Elder at the weight rope hesitated.
“Go,” came once more.
There was a note of command in the one word that startled the official. Whatever his judgment was at the moment, President Elder mechanically jerked the cord. With a crashing creak of the derrick and a thud of falling sand bags, the starting rope whipped over the pulleys; there was a spray of melted tallow thrown fifty feet into the air by the flying skids; five thousand spectators gasped and fell back as if panic stricken, and the aeroplane smoked forward as if rushing into a vacuum.
Half way along the track, the rocking aeroplane seemed to lose headway for an instant. The pressure of the air in front and the force of the propellers behind had equalled and overcome the force of gravity. As the starting rope hook fell from the frame, the two great planes, like a kite in the wind, darted into a giant leap ahead.
Hundreds of spectators, still lingering in the path of the airship, threw themselves onto the ground just in time. The aeroplane almost touched the earth as the leap seemed to slacken, but this Bud had been anticipating. He did not know whether the first dart of the car would be up or down, to the right or left. But he did know that there was not one chance in a thousand that the flight would be straight ahead and upward. What professional aviators had learned by long experience, Bud knew he had to get by sheer cool headed pluck.
He had thought over this idea so constantly that his muscles were set and ready like springs. Not even the narrow escape of the people in front of him rattled the boy. His body was cold from a realization of the great risk he was taking, but this did not disconcert him. When Bud shouted the word that was to hurl him into the air, he dismissed every thought from his mind but this: “up, down, right, left.”
It was all done in a second, but Bud’s thinking apparatus responded. “Down,” his whole being cried out, and his muscles responded like a spring. Almost before the boy could realize what he was doing, he had thrown the front, horizontal rudder up. In another instant he knew he was going to fly; the ground dropped beneath him, and then a tremendous roar sounded in his ears. He gasped. But the sound was only the wild cheers of the multitude beneath. He was flying—the aeroplane was soaring swiftly upward. It was like falling in a dream. With nervous dread, the boy looked about. Then came his third shock—the fair-grounds were already behind him. He had passed beyond the territory in which he was to operate. He was at least three hundred feet in the air.
Suddenly all fear, apprehension and nervousness left Bud.