“I won’t,” said Hal, grinning in spite of the fact that half of his best wind bird was dangling from a branch in a tree top.
The next day Rex Raynor was leaving. Pilot Osburn had come down to fly him off in the now fully repaired airplane. After a warm handclasp for all the friends into whose kindness he had dropped, Raynor started to climb up into the cockpit of the R.H.3. Then he stepped back to ground, drew out a notebook and wrote a few lines. He turned to Hal.
“I expected to write you a letter about this. But,” with a grin, “aviation’s too full of ifs, so—thought I might as well attend to it now while we’re together. You saved my life. And you’re not the kind of a chap I can get a reward off on. But there’s something I want to do for you, and this note will tell you what.” He slid the piece of paper into Hal’s pocket, then climbed up into his plane.
The pilot removed the blocks, the motor roared, and the R.H.3 taxied forward and zoomed into the air. The boy stared upward until the great plane grew small, became a mere speck, disappeared beyond the horizon. Then he silently turned away from the crowd and headed towards home, walking fast. He rather wanted to get into the privacy of his own old workshop before he opened Raynor’s note.
CHAPTER V
CHALLENGING THE AIR
Once within the quiet silence of the old workshop Hal plumped down on a sawhorse and pulled the note out of his pocket.
Quickly he unfolded the paper, and gave a gasp at the contents. It was a note scribbled to the head of the Rand-Elwin Flying School, saying: “Here’s a real air-minded boy who risked his life for a flyer. He wants to become one of us, and all he’ll need is work to pay for lessons. I think you could use such a boy.”
Hal Dane’s head was in a whirl as he read and re-read the few scribbled lines. Hal had every right to feel dizzy. Raynor’s words were suddenly opening up and making real to him certain vague, misty dreams he had desperately believed would somehow materialize in a far, far distant future.
Instead, they were materializing now—right now—immediately. The boy sitting rigid on the old sawhorse suddenly shut his eyes, as if the realized dreams were too dazzlingly bright. Flying school—actual training! He’d live with planes—eat, sleep, dream with planes—till he knew every inch of the real machinery of aeromotors. Then a pilot’s license! That would open the world for him.