Possibly one incident may be worth chronicling in more detail. This occurred when, a short time after rising for a night flight from Eufala, Alabama, to the Mississippi State line, Frank descried, through some trees, what he thought was the rising moon.
“That’s the funniest-looking moon I ever saw,” declared Harry, who happened to be doing duty as engineer.
“Why, what’s the matter with it?” demanded Frank.
“Why, it’s red.”
“Probably caused by the mist from some marshlands,” decided Dr. Perkins, who was resting, while Frank guided the Sea Eagle, at which he had become quite expert. But the next moment he changed his opinion.
“It isn’t the moon at all. It’s the glare from a fire, and a big one, too. Let’s hurry up, boys.”
Neither Frank nor Harry needed any urging, and the Sea Eagle was soon traversing the air so fast that the wind sang in their ears. As they raced along the glare grew brighter and angrier, glowing with a lambent red core from which flames could be seen leaping skyward like a nest of fiery serpents.
A few minutes brought them into full view of the conflagration. It proved to be a fine old farm-house. The front of the place was a mass of flame, and the blaze appeared to be bursting through the roof. Men could be seen running about the grounds like a nest of disturbed ants, and others were hastening on foot, in autos and in buggies, from every direction.
Nobody paid any attention to the oncoming aëroplane in the excitement, and when it dropped to earth on the lawn in front of the blazing building, there was the liveliest sort of confusion. Some of the farmers did not know what to make of the visitor from the skies, but their more enlightened neighbors soon informed them, and recalled the newspaper accounts they had read of the Sea Eagle’s great flight.
“Anybody in the building?” shouted Frank, jumping from the Sea Eagle as the craft came to a standstill.