"By Jove," cried the lieutenant delightedly, "but this is fine! North Dakota has turned out a lot of people to see this exhibition, Matt. The bluffs are black with them, and everywhere you look you can see people with their faces upturned, either gaping in wonder or yelling with delight. Hear 'em cheer! I should think it would make your blood tingle."
"I haven't any time for all that," said Matt, busy with his levers, and watching everything with a keen, alert eye; "I've got something else to keep track of. You're watching the time?"
"Yes. It was ten-fifteen when we started."
Matt slowly speeded up the engine. The route, as already determined on, was to be across Devil's Lake and back, and then to Minnewaukon and back, going over the course as many times as he could during the two hours the aëroplane must stay in the air.
At a height of fifty feet above the surface of the earth, their flight through the air became a swirling rush. At top speed—a speed which Matt reckoned as fifty miles an hour—he made a wide, sweeping turn over the roof tops of Devil's Lake City, and plunged off across the lake. A frenzy of cheering arose from the bluffs and Camp Traquair as the aëroplane darted over them on her way to Minnewaukon.
"Can't we go higher, Matt?" begged the lieutenant.
"We'll go higher after we make the turn over Minnewaukon," Matt replied.
After that, Cameron did not bother Matt with questions. The young motorist's every faculty was wrapped up in his work. His ear alone told him how well the motor was doing, and his eyes, ears, and his sense of touch were brought into play in preserving the aëroplane's equilibrium.
The merest rise of one wing caused a mechanical shifting of the lever on which Matt constantly held his left hand.
That left hand of the young motorist had been trained to its work in many an automobile race, and its quickness and cunning did not fail him now.