The model having finally been extricated, amid much laughter, and poor Tom having offered mortified apologies, the announcer made known that Hiram Nelson's Doodlebug monoplane would essay a flight.
As the pistol sounded, Hiram launched his craft, and amid cheers from the crowd it soared up, and, just clearing the red tape, settled gracefully down a few feet the other side of the two hundred foot line.
"Good for you, Hiram!" exclaimed Ernest Thompson, the bike scout, who was acting as a patrol on the course. "Whose turn next?"
"You kids wait till I get my Bleriot started," sneered Jack. Several small boys near him, who were mortally afraid of the big fellow and rather admired him as being "manly," set up a cheer at this.
"Wait for Jack's dandy model to fly!" they cried.
"Edward Rivers—model of a Curtiss biplane!" came the next announcement through, the megaphone.
Another cheer greeted this, as young Rivers was also on the "town team."
The little Curtiss darted into the air at the pistol crack and flew straight as an arrow for the red tape. It cleared it easily and skimmed on down past the grand stand, and alighted, fluttering like a tired butterfly, beyond Hiram's model.
"Three hundred feet!" cried the announcer, amid a buzz of approval, after the measurers of the course had done their work.
"Paul Perkins—Bleriot!" was the next announcement.