"Oh! he gave me my choice. I saw it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, so I took the smaller one. I reckon I'll be ready to tackle a house next time, after having a motor on my back."
Bud set to work assembling the various parts of his model. In some respects it was rather a crude imitation of a monoplane, but for practical purposes no doubt it would answer just as well as the most elegant model. What Bud wanted to find out most of all was whether he had been working on the right principle. If that turned out to be correct he could afford to have a better model made; then he could take up the idea with some of those capitalists who were interested in building airships of all kinds.
For once Bud was supreme. He gave his orders and the others obeyed. Even Hugh, accustomed to being the leader, willingly assumed the air of a novice, though Bud knew very well that the other had studied the subject of aviation very thoroughly and was competent to advise in a pinch.
By slow degrees Bud managed to get his planes adjusted and the tiny motor installed. Hugh, in a quiet and unostentatious way, often assisted him to overcome some difficulty that arose; so that Bud declared he did not know how he could have managed without the other's help in tightening wire stays and installing the motor.
At last the work seemed to have been accomplished. Bud said he could fix the rudder of the model so that when once it was in the air, it would continue to make revolutions for a certain time. He declared it would actually fly around the field slowly until the measured stock of gasoline had been exhausted, when of course it would drop to the ground as the engine ceased to work.
"You see I expect to manage by means of this cord," he explained. "I'll chase along below, and every once in so often try to upset the thing by giving a savage jerk. Then you'll discover whether my device is going to work. If it does half way decently in this clumsy model, it'll pay to install it on a real aeroplane and either go up myself or else have an air pilot do it for me. But say, let me tell you right now that I'm shivering all over as if I had the ague! 'Cause why? In half an hour or so I'm going to know whether I'm IT, or else a lunkhead that ought to be smothered before his fool notions get him into a peck of trouble."
"Oh! I wouldn't put it that way, Bud," advised Hugh. "You mustn't call yourself hard names, even if this invention fails to work. They say Edison has lots of rank failures that the public never hears about; only his brilliant successes become known. Suppose this scheme doesn't do all that you expect it to, why, perhaps you'll see where it falls short and be able to remedy the fault. If you have faith in yourself, it's going to turn out all right every time. Try seventy times seven, and never give up as long as life lasts."
"Nil desperandum!" quoted Ralph; "or, as we Americans have it, 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'"
"You just bet I will, fellows," said Bud firmly; "and now let's make the first trial spin."
He had elevated the model so that it would start in the air without the necessity of leaving the ground. This was a minor matter, and only intended to hurry things along.