“Keep your nerves steady,” advised Mr. Brackett, at his side. “Dave will, I am sure.”
“Pretty work, that,” pronounced a bystander, and the staring, gaping Hiram echoed the sentiment enthusiastically.
The Whirlwind had been a mad, erratic, dashing creature full of strange turns and jerky movements. Valdec had looped the loop twice, but it was with a dive, rather than a swoop. The Ariel proceeded on its course with a gliding movement until about eight hundred feet up in the air. Then the pilot began a spiral. The crowd watched the maneuver breathlessly. There was not a break in the swift, perfect circles, narrowing to a space not three times the length of the biplane.
“Pretty neat, that!” sang out an admiring voice.
“One—two—three” added a strident echo—“he’s discounted the record!”
Three times in succession, far up aloft, the Ariel had turned a complete loop-the-loop somersault. So graceful, so easy it seemed to the expert young aviator, that the maneuver was a pleasant contrast to the rapid rush work of the venturesome Valdec.
A roar of commendation arose from the spectators. Not yet, however, had Dave Dashaway won his full laurels. The Ariel sailed away from its recent field of action straightaway west. Then, five hundred feet up in the air, within the full view of every person on the ground, distinctly the Ariel began “writing.”
“A-R-I-E-L”—in small letter script; every curve and letter formation could be traced.
The watching crowd went wild with delight. As the Ariel descended gracefully to the ground, even the Syndicate crowd themselves knew that the day had gone against them. The judges were of one voice. The official blackboard gave to number five thirty additional points.
“Ten points shy—oh, dear!” lamented Hiram.