Yes, flying was easy enough; but when it came to making a landing—that was where the difficulty began.
Nervously, Don switched off the current and pushed the control stick forward.
And, to his utter dismay, the plane seemed to be falling headlong at an acute angle—the ground to be fairly shooting up toward him.
For one brief instant he had a terrible vision of a fatal smash-up. Then, a pull of the lever in the opposite direction brought the nose of the machine upward again. And following this, to the boy’s intense surprise and relief, the monoplane dropped in the most gentle fashion to terra firma, taxi-ing across the field, its speed rapidly diminishing.
When it had come to a stop Don found his face bathed in perspiration and his pulse throbbing in a way that it had seldom done before.
“By George! Am I actually here!” he muttered.
Notwithstanding the fact that the boy had made a mighty good landing and could hear shouts of approval coming from the distance he was too honest with himself to be gratified with the achievement. He knew that it was simply a case of good luck.
“But just wait till next time!” he muttered, grimly. “By George, the earth never seemed so fine before!”
A number of Annamites presently appeared and turned the machine around.
It was not for some time, however, that Don’s nerves quieted down sufficiently for him to put his airplane into motion. With a fervent hope that fate would be as kind to him as it had been before, he switched on the ignition and once again faced the blasts of wind.