"Blamed if you can't do about whatever you want to with this machine!" exclaimed Burton enthusiastically. "I've read about the Hawk, and about Jerrold's air ship, the Eagle, but I hadn't no idee they'd been figured down to such a fine point."
"The time is coming," said Matt, "when people will own air ships just as they own automobiles now."
"Not me," averred Sanders. "The time'll never come when I trust my neck to a few cubic feet of gas and a motor. The solid ground'll do me for quite a spell yet."
"Better come down at the edge of the timber, Matt," counseled Harris, indicating a favorable spot. "There's a place where you can moor her to a fence post on one side and to a telephone pole on the other. You'll have to look out for the wires."
"You can't pass under 'em!" cried Sanders, in trepidation.
"Then we'll jump over them," said Matt coolly, and the slant he gave the car in making the "jump" caused all hands to hang on for dear life to keep from being spilled out.
The manœuvre, however, was effected in the neatest kind of style, the Hawk skimming over the topmost wire, and changing her course during the descent so that, when Matt brought her to an even keel on the surface of the ground, she was parallel with the telephone line and just between the farm fence and one of the poles.
Sanders scrambled out with an exclamation of thankfulness.
"If we go back with any prisoners," said he, "we'll not travel by air ship."
"Not by this air ship, anyhow, Mr. Sanders," laughed Matt, "for her passenger capacity is limited."