He now felt scarcely any motion at all. When he closed his eyes, he could not have told that he was moving, save for the wind in his face. The deafening roar of the fan made questions impossible unless he yelled, and the aviator seemed too much occupied to talk.
Soon, still holding the wheel stiff, Goodwin pushed it from him, and the little planes in front twirled back to their former position, while the back of Harry’s seat seemed to be pushing him forward. Now, he could look straight between these two little forward planes again, and he knew the machine was coming to an even keel. They were at a height of five hundred feet or more, heading directly across the lake. Now and then, Goodwin turned the wheel slightly, and once, as he did so, Harry glanced behind him, and could just make out, through the whirring fan, the two vertical planes at the end of the tail turning a little to right or left, like a fish’s tail.
The seat was not equipped with springs, yet there was no jolting; indeed, there was no sense of motion at all, except for the wind, and the terrific straining and vibration of every part of the machine. Yet the boats in the lake beneath them receded, and in a little while they were above the Vermont shore.
Now, again, the forward planes turned slightly and the greater spreads of canvas followed them obediently upward, till Harry reclined against the back of his seat as in a steamer chair. When they came to an even keel again he realized that this had been done to clear the tree-tops on a hill well in from the Vermont shore. The absence of all sense of rapid motion continually tempted him to release his hold of the supporting bar, only to grasp it again whenever he looked at the tiny specks below, and at the lake winding its way like a river on a map.
Now, for the first time, the operator placed his hand on the lever, still holding the wheel stiff with the other hand. The hinged planes, out at the end between the main planes, rose on the right-hand side and sank on the left-hand side simultaneously. There was a sense of sudden lift, the left end of the craft rose higher, higher, till the machine swung full to the left. There was no jolting, only a delightful consciousness of being swept around. Now, again, the crowd on the New York side was clear to view. Again the lake, with its tiny, screeching boats, stretched below them. When they were almost above the field whence they had started, the vibration became less furious, the propeller slowed down, stopped. A grateful silence prevailed.
“Anything wrong?” asked Harry, apprehensively.
“No, indeed,” said his companion.
The machine coasted slowly, easily, downward, held stable by the lever control, with an ever so slight declining of the forward planes. Harry did not know when they touched the ground. When he alighted, he saw the tracks of the wheels for fully fifty feet behind. And it was only in that way that he was able to determine where the aeroplane had left the unstable and invisible currents of sustaining air for the homely but reliable support of good old Mother Earth.
“Look at him,” said Goodwin, with a grin, as he climbed out.
“It’s easy to tell he’s one of those scouts we hear so much about,” laughed a reporter who stood near. “First thing he does is to go back and study the tracks!”