"If I could be sure it would 'fetch' me back safe, Tom—"
"That'll do! That'll do!" laughed the young aviator. "One joke like that is enough in a morning. It was pretty good, though. Now go on in and tog up."
"You're sure it's safe, Tom?"
"Positive! Trot along now. I want to fix a wire and—"
"Oh, is anything broken?" and the girl, who had started away from the aeroplane, turned back again.
"No, not broken. It's only a little auxiliary dingus I put on to make it easier to read the barograph, but I think I'll go back to the old system. Nothing to do with flying at all, except to tell how high up one is."
"That's just what I don't care to know, Tom," said Mary Nestor, with a smile. "If I could imagine I was sailing along only about ten feet in the air I wouldn't mind so much."
"Flying at that height would be the worst sort of danger. You leave it to me, Mary. I won't take you up above the clouds on this sky ride; though, later, I'm sure you'll want to try that. This is only a little flight. You've been promising long enough to take a trip with me, and now I believe you're trying to back out."
"No, really I'm not, Tom! Only, at the last minute, the machine looks so small and frail, and the sky is so—big—"
She glanced up and seemed to shiver just a trifle.