Elephant, Larry and the old man were watching Frank tinker with the little engine out there on the field just where they had alighted. Of course, they talked the while, for boys can never keep silent any more than girls.
“I saw you swing to the left as you came down, Frank; why did you do that?” asked Larry, who had keen eyes that few things escaped.
“I did it because I knew we needed plenty of room ahead after we landed, so the machine could run along the ground a bit, for I haven’t yet quite got the hang of the brake,” replied the pilot, modestly.
“But how could you think of all that in a second and figure it out just how you wanted to land?” persisted the other.
“I didn’t,” Frank answered, promptly, after his usual candid fashion. “It must have been what you’d call instinct that made me swerve. I realized it all just like you get an inspiration, in a tenth of a second, they say. And my brain must have wigwagged it down to my hand, for the thing was done in a flash.”
“Gee! that’s what an airship pilot has to do, does he?” observed Elephant, shaking his head sadly. “Then I guess I’m not in the running. Somehow the telegraph line between my brain and my fingers gets out of working order right along. Then the news has to be relayed, sometimes by way of another fellow. This here bully old earth is going to be good enough for a fellow of my size for some time yet.”
“Yes, Elephant,” said Larry, “if he makes a little blunder here he doesn’t drop a few thousand feet, turning over and over, and landing with a sickening thud, as they say in the newspaper accounts.”
“Ah! let up on that, won’t you?” cried Andy. “You can’t scare us and there’s no use trying. My father took the chances before me and it’s sure in the blood. No matter what you say about risks, I’ve just got to be an aviator. And I’ve laid out a trip that some day I hope to take.”
Frank could give a guess as to what he meant when he said this, for that yearning look came upon Andy’s face, just as it always did every time he was thinking about the father who had so mysteriously vanished from the eyes of the known world so many months ago, when with his balloon he started to cross the isthmus of Panama and was seen no more.
“Anyway,” asserted Larry, with an expression of genuine pleasure; “I’m satisfied now that you fellows mean to have a look-in when that silver cup is raced for. I had my doubts before, but after seeing the clever stunt Frank just pulled off I’m not worrying any more.”