“Oh-h-h, by Jehoshaphat Jumping!” yelled Fuz McGinnis as he threw his arms about Hal’s dripping form. “We’d given up hope, never believed we’d find you all in one piece!”
“It’s a miracle.” Colonel Wiljohn slid an arm around Hal’s waist to help him over to the waiting automobile. “That dashed faulty plane came down in shreds, spars gone here, wings drifted yonder. I couldn’t tell in heaven’s name where you were going to smash. I shot cars and stretchers out in every direction. And now I find you floating on our lake, calm as somebody on a bed of roses—”
“T-too bad I disappointed everybody by coming down all in one p-p-piece!” chattered the dripping Hal.
“Hush, boy! No joking! Never have I suffered such agony. I’m a thousand years older.” Colonel Wiljohn yanked off his coat and wrapped it around Hal. “Never, my young friend, never shall I let you or any of my aviators test out such a machine as this again.”
But Hal Dane did take up this same type of ship again. He did it at his own risk, and at his urgent insistence. From his perilous performance in mid-air he thought that he knew what were the faults of construction that had caused the ship to shatter under strain. Previous work in his department, the risk department, had taught him to learn something of real value to flying from every accident. In this case, he asked for the chance to prove what he had learned. So weeks later, he took up the very same type of ship, greatly strengthened, and put her through the same test. This time he and the ship went up and came down together, none the worse for wear, and he could write O. K. on her examination sheet.
Testing other people’s inventions did not fill all of Hal’s time. At nights, or whenever he could snatch a few hours to himself, he was forever pottering with pieces of fabric and metal and wood. Table top, dresser top, every available surface in his sleeping quarters seemed cluttered with aviation trash. Only not all of it was trash. Mixed in with wood shavings and screws and wire coils was a strange metal helmet, something like a diver’s helmet, yet different,—light, graceful, not cumbersome in shape. A tube could be attached to the mouth-piece. Elsewhere in the litter sat a miniature oxygen tank. In these was expressed a forward thought for achievement in high flying. Little models of engines rubbed noses with wing models in various stages of incompleteness. Above a chifferobe was poised something that Hal Dane’s eyes sought every time he entered his room—a completed model of a plane. It was a slim silver creation, all metal, and streamlined from engine, through monoplane wing, back to tail. Slender, yet with strength in every line! Smoke blown against this model did not eddy and swirl but slipped straight across her nonresistant lines. With her length of wing, she was built to ride the winds.
For a wonder, Hal Dane was not studying the beloved lines of his tiny, silvered wind bird tonight. Instead, his fingers were fiddling with a little flying toy manipulated by a couple of twisted rubber bands to furnish motive power. If he twisted the rubber tight enough, the little windmill fans of the toy shot it up to the ceiling. In the midst of one of these flights, there came a sharp knock on the door, and while Hal leaped to open it, the little wind toy drifted down from the ceiling about as straight as it had gone up.
In the open doorway stood Colonel Wiljohn, his fingers gripping a folded paper, his eyes shining with an eager light as he watched the wind toy whirl down.
“You’ve got it—made a start on it anyway!” the Colonel slapped the paper across his palm excitedly.
“Sir—I’ve got it—what?” Hal stammered in amazement.