“Snug and safe,” he spoke. “All you’ve got to do is to shut your eyes if you get dizzy. Now then, you old tyrant!” added Hiram speaking in the direction of the storming stamping man across from them, “we’ll set you a pace you couldn’t follow with all the constables in creation.”
The young aviator had to make three different efforts to clear the ground. It was not a very good spot for a start. Finally, however, the Scout gained enough momentum and made a graceful dart up into the air.
“Law!—stop!—arrest!”—fuming, and shaking his cane, the old man cried in disjointed fragments frantic threats after the vanishing air craft.
“Look there!” chuckled Hiram to the passenger behind him. Then he laughed outright, and, notwithstanding his anxiety and his miseries, the boy laughed, too.
His persecutor, eyes fixed aloft, following the vanishing Scout, had not heeded his steps. Coming too near the slimy edge of the swamp he lost his balance. With a splash he went flat, face first, into a bed of black sticky mud.
CHAPTER V
THE BIG EVENT
Not a word was spoken by either Hiram or his passenger as the Scout took its average altitude. The former was busy at his post. As to the other, holding the sleeping child in his lap, he sat like one entranced. The rescue from unfriendly hands, the odd situation in which he found himself, the novelty of a flight he had never before anticipated, fairly overcame him.
The able young pilot set out on a glide of easy progress. Then he had time to speak a few words to his fellow passenger.