Like one come back to the present from a far journey into eternity, Hal Dane sat for a space within the gyroscope’s cockpit. He hardly heard the tumult that was men battering down the locked door to the tower hangar. Next thing he knew, many hands were lifting him out of the squat machine that had made its triumphal straight-rise, and its equally triumphant down-drop.
Fuz McGinnis, red hair on end, eyes blazing with excitement, was the first to get to him.
“By Jehoshaphat J-J-Jumping—man, you did it!” Fuz howled incoherently, “but I wouldn’t live through another t-t-ten minutes like that—not to be President, even!”
Then Mr. Rankin, representative of the great Onheim Prize Fund, was pumping his hand up and down, “Congratulations, Hal Dane! The award is bound to be yours. There’s not the slightest doubt that your extraordinary performance has beaten every other safety record set here today. Things’ll have to be confirmed at headquarters though—will be letting you know.”
Once Hal was outside the hangar, the surging crowd pressed close. He was the center of a shouting, thrilling excitement. Newspaper men fought their way to him. Questions were hurled at him thick and fast.
Could that thing be counted on always to rise straight-up, and to sit back down just like that, behind a wall, or a steeple, or anything? Hal rather thought it could, considering the flood test, and now this shooting up out of a tower.
That being the case, did he realize that this invention was likely to revolutionize the airplane business? Had he caught the vision of what the gyroscope could do in the way of taking off and landing on a mere roof top? Had he any plans for the now very possible city-to-be which would have roof-top terminals on all its down-town buildings?
Heavens, how these reporter fellows could shoot off questions! Hal answered, “Yes, and yes again, and, well no, he hadn’t drawn any plans of future cities—he’d been too busy drawing plans of airplanes—” And then Hal ducked for cover.
“Here, Fuz, help me get out of this,” he whispered, “there’s somewhere else I’ve got to be, now—right away!”
So Fuz had slid into the cockpit of his own Wiljohn biplane, warmed up the motor, and held the machine in readiness behind the long mechanics’ hall near the center of the grounds. Ten minutes later, Hal Dane entered one door of this building, went out by another door, flung a leg over the cockpit, and was in beside Fuz. In the next moment, he was riding high above the throng, fleeing from fame, on the way to the “somewhere else”—and that was the Mazarin Hangars on the city outskirts. Here was housed his own plane, his Wind Bird, that he’d not yet seen in all its completeness.