The roar of the engine suddenly ceased. A pleasant calm, broken only by the soft flutter of the breeze as it rushed by, followed.
They were volplaning straight toward the hangar of Mr. Warfield Carroll’s dirigible balloon.
The long glide through space brought with it a truly delightful sense of comfort. Bob Somers viewed the brown, loam-covered prairie rushing toward them with almost a feeling of regret. He could see groups of people gathered about the hangar. Their loud shouts of welcome, too, reached his ears.
The wind was singing past now at a faster rate. Another pulsating roar began. Their speed gradually slackened under the power of the reversed propellers.
Calmness again; and a long, steady, breath-taking swoop! There was a sudden change in the slant of the balancing planes. A final glide, then the biplane alighted on its wheels with scarcely a jar, and stopped within a hundred feet of the hangar.
CHAPTER XI
THE DIRIGIBLE
The navigators of the air were almost immediately surrounded; but the man who reached them first and extended his hand in greeting toward that of Mr. Ogden was Major Warfield Carroll, the New York financier. He glanced with an expression of wonder at the aviator’s passenger.
There was nothing very impressive about Major Carroll’s appearance—not enough to cause any one to take a second look. He stood but little over five and a half feet high, and was slight, with a closely-cropped sandy mustache and gray-blue eyes. And it was not until he spoke that a truer estimate of the man could be had. His eyes then seemed to fairly flash; his quick, nervous movements, and short, jerky sentences, uttered in a voice that vibrated with decision and energy, entirely changed his appearance. Even the most casual of observers could recognize in him a forceful character which nature had somehow concealed from view in his physical make-up.
“Glad to see you, Ogden,” he said, in hearty tones. “Been expecting you all morning. Your young friend, Bob Somers, eh? Glad to see you, too. Never were up in an aeroplane before, I suppose? What! Many times? Well, well; an old hand at it, then!”
“Oh, just a few days old,” laughed Bob.