They landed in the dusk with planes gassy with engine fumes, but with happy-go-lucky laughter in their own hearts.
It was laughter that soon ceased, for each walked straight into the grasp of an enraged official, posted to wait for them.
“Your flying days are over,” each was informed, and was ordered to report to the office after the evening meal.
Neither Hal nor Fuz had any hankering for supper that night. As soon as the seemingly endless meal was over, they hurried, rather white-lipped, to the office.
There they found awaiting them, assembled like a judge and jury, Mr. Rand, Colonel Elwin himself, Raynor, Weston and a couple of other instructors. Raynor and Weston had the drawn, haggard look of men sitting in at their own execution. There was a hard firmness on the faces of the other men.
Hal Dane sought with agony in his heart for the clue to this summons to appear before a judgment seat—this summons and the verdict already rendered, “Your flying days are over,” that had dropped like a ton of rock on all his hopes, crushed out his whole future. And it was happening so close to what would have been the first glorious upward step in his career,—his graduation from an accredited aviation school. With the Rand-Elwin O. K. on him he could have secured a flying job anywhere—the flying world would have been open to him.
What would his mother and Uncle Tel do—how would he ever go back to them, broken under some sort of disgrace—
Hal’s misery of trapped thoughts whirling madly in his brain was interrupted by the firm harshness of Colonel Elwin’s voice.
“I have here,” his hands turning over several cards and slips of paper, “reports from various ground officials that you two students stayed in the air an hour overtime this afternoon, tampering with engines, and riding with motors missing—when every principle of air flight warns a flyer to seek a landing when his motor misses. No matter how well a man flies, we can never make an aviator out of him if he hasn’t sense enough to know that he is in deadly peril if he continues to fly a missing engine. A knock in a motor presages engine trouble, and engine trouble presages a forced landing. At the first hint of mechanical defection, it’s a flyer’s duty to head down and make as speedy and safe a landing as possible—”
“I—” Hal Dane opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. No words seemed to come.