Next Harry tried it and did still better, starting with more power after a longer initial run. It was a very easy thing to learn how to do. One after another the boys tried it, with a trifling mishap now and then. Bert Waring glided fifty-one feet from the rising point, which was the record until Red Deer took off his gold specs and handed them to Roy Carpenter.
“Get from under!” said Matthew Reed.
“Move those trees out of the way,” said Langford.
“Will you be back to-night, Doctor?” asked Mac.
Red Deer made a very scientific flight, doing a sort of scenic-railway curve, almost alighting, then up again. His lateral balancing was admirable. He got up as high as thirteen or fourteen feet, and tacked three feet on to Waring’s record.
“By Jove, that’s splendid sport, isn’t it?” said he, as he alighted.
“Let’s try it down the slope now,” said Roy Carpenter.
They took it up to within about twenty-five feet of the precipice. That was as far as Red Deer would allow it to be carried.
“That’s far enough,” he called, as he came up after them. “I want you to be careful never to go nearer the top than this. If any wind should catch you and take you over the brink, it would be all up.”
“It would be all down,” said Matthew.