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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Famous Flyers, by J. J. Grayson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Famous Flyers
+       And Their Famous Flights
+
+Author: J. J. Grayson
+
+Release Date: December 7, 2010 [EBook #34593]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS FLYERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS FLYERS AND THEIR FAMOUS FLIGHTS
+
+
+By
+
+CAPT. J. J. GRAYSON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+Cleveland, Ohio -- New York, N. Y.
+
+-----
+
+  Copyright
+  _by_
+  THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUB. CO.
+  1932
+
+  _Printed in the United States of America_
+  by
+  THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.
+  CLEVELAND, O.
+
+-----
+
+CONTENTS PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I--Exciting News
+  CHAPTER II--Captain Bill
+  CHAPTER III--The Wright Brothers
+  CHAPTER IV--Some War Heroes
+  CHAPTER V--The Eagle
+  CHAPTER VI--More About The Eagle
+  CHAPTER VII--A Close Shave
+  CHAPTER VIII--North Pole and South
+  CHAPTER IX--Four Women Flyers
+  CHAPTER X--Hawks and Doolittle
+  CHAPTER XI--Hal Comes Through
+
+-----
+
+FAMOUS FLYERS
+AND THEIR FAMOUS FLIGHTS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--Exciting News
+
+
+Bob Martin stood outside the large red brick house and whistled. He
+whistled three notes, a long and two short, which meant to Hal Gregg
+inside that Bob wanted to see him, and to see him quickly. Something was
+up. At least, that was what it should have meant to Hal, but evidently
+it didn't, because no answering whistle came out to Bob, and no head
+appeared in any of the windows.
+
+Bob whistled again, this time a little more shrilly, and he kept on
+whistling until a pale, spectacled face appeared at an upstairs window.
+The window was thrown open, and Bob shouted up before Hal Gregg had a
+chance to speak.
+
+"Hey, what's the idea of keeping me waiting? Hurry up, come on down,
+I've got something great to tell you."
+
+"Hold your horses. I didn't hear you whistle at first. I was reading,"
+called down Hal.
+
+Bob snorted. "Put it away and hurry up down. Books can wait. You should
+hear the news I've got to tell you."
+
+"The book's swell," said Hal. "It's that new book on aviation I got for
+my birthday. Is your news more important than that?"
+
+"You bet it is," yelled Bob. "And if you aren't down here in two
+seconds, I'm going to keep it to myself. And won't you be sorry!"
+
+Hal laughed. "I'll be down in one second. I'm not going to have you
+knowing anything I don't know. You're too smart now." The dark head
+disappeared from the window, reappeared atop the narrow shoulders of its
+owner at the front door within a few seconds, bobbing about as he leaped
+down the front steps two at a time. Hal Gregg joined his pal Bob under
+the maple tree on the Gregg front lawn.
+
+The two boys made a strange contrast as they flung themselves down in
+the shade of the tree. They were the same age, sixteen, with Hal having
+a little edge on his friend. But Bob could have passed for the other
+boy's big brother. He was a full head taller, his shoulders were
+broader, his complexion ruddier. He was the typical outdoor boy, with
+tousled brown hair, a few unruly freckles, and a broad pleasant face.
+Hal Gregg was short and slight, with sloping narrow shoulders. His
+complexion was dark, and his large, serious eyes were hidden behind
+shell-rimmed eye-glasses. Yet though they were such a badly matched
+team, the two boys were fast friends.
+
+Their friendship had begun strangely. In the first place, they lived
+next door to each other, on a quiet, shady side-street in the large city
+of Crowley. Bob had lived there first, while the red brick house next to
+his had been empty for a long time. Nobody Bob's age had ever lived in
+that house, and he had grown to look at it as an old fogey sort of a
+house, very dull, and fit only for grownups. It didn't seem as though
+young people could ever live in it. So he'd been pretty much excited
+when he found out that the house had been sold, and that a boy his own
+age was going to move in.
+
+But his first glimpse of Hal was a disappointed one. "Oh, golly, just my
+luck," he said to his mother. "Somebody my own age moves in next door at
+last, and look what he turns out to be."
+
+Mrs. Martin had also caught a glimpse of Hal as he had got out of the
+automobile with his mother, and entered the house. "He seems to me to be
+a very nice boy," she said quietly.
+
+"Nice! That's just the point. He looks as though he's so nice he'll be
+as dull as ditchwater. I'll bet he's the kind that can't tell one
+airplane from another, and buys his radio sets all made up, with twenty
+tubes and all kinds of gadgets. Lot of fun I'll have with him!"
+
+Mrs. Martin smiled and said nothing. She was a wise mother. She knew
+that if she praised Hal too much he would seem just so much worse in her
+son's eyes. So she resolved to let him decide for himself, just as she
+always let him decide, whether he wanted Hal for a friend or not.
+
+For several days Bob saw nothing of Hal, but one day, as he rode his
+bicycle up the driveway that separated the two houses, he heard someone
+hail him. He looked over into the Gregg yard and saw Hal there,
+stretched out in a steamer chair, an open book in his lap. He looked
+very small and puny. Bob got down from his bike. He was embarrassed. Hal
+hailed him again. "Come on over," he called.
+
+Bob got down and walked over to where the other boy was sitting. The
+meeting between two strange boys is usually a hard one, with suspicion
+on both sides. But Hal seemed surprisingly pleasant. "I've seen you
+riding around," he said, "but I haven't had a chance to call you before.
+I'm Hal Gregg. You're Bob, aren't you?"
+
+"Sure," grinned Bob. He was beginning to think that this Hal might not
+be such a bad sort. "How did you know?"
+
+"Oh, I'm a Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, I've heard your mother calling to
+you. And if she calls you 'Bob,' that must be your name."
+
+Bob laughed, "You're right, she ought to know," he said. But he didn't
+know what to say next. Hal filled in the gap.
+
+"You go swimming a lot, and bicycling, don't you?"
+
+"Sure," Bob replied. "That's about all a fellow likes to do in summer.
+Don't you swim?"
+
+Hal's forehead wrinkled. "My mother doesn't like me to go swimming," he
+said. "I've never had a bike, either. You see, my mother's always afraid
+that something'll happen to me. She hasn't got anybody but me, you know.
+I haven't got a father, or any other family. I guess that's what makes
+Mother so anxious about me."
+
+"My mother never seems to worry very much about me," said Bob. "At
+least, she never shows it."
+
+Hal looked at Bob enviously. "You don't have to be worried about," he
+said. "You're as husky as they come."
+
+Bob felt himself getting warm. This wasn't the way for a fellow to talk.
+All of his friends called each other "shrimp" or "sawed-off," no matter
+how big and husky they might be. None of them ever showed such poor
+taste as to compliment a fellow. He guessed, and correctly, that Hal
+hadn't been with boys enough to learn the proper boy code of etiquette.
+But he just said, "Aw, I'm not so husky," which was the proper answer to
+a compliment, anyway.
+
+"You sure are," said Hal. "You see, I was a sickly child, and had to be
+taken care of all the time. I'm all right now, but my mother doesn't
+seem to realize it. She still treats me as though I was about to break
+out with the measles any minute. I guess that's about all I used to do
+when I was a kid."
+
+"With measles?" laughed Bob. "I thought that you could get those only
+once."
+
+"Oh, if it wasn't measles, then something else. Anyway, here I am."
+
+Bob's opinion of the boy had sunk lower and lower. He saw that they
+weren't going to get on at all. Why, the boy was nothing but a
+mollycoddle, and not much fun. "What do you do for fun?" he asked,
+curiously.
+
+"Oh, I read a lot," said Hal, picking up the book in his lap.
+
+Bob's mind was now more firmly made up. A fellow who spent all his time
+reading was no fun at all. And he needn't think that Bob was going to
+encourage any friendship, either. "What's the book?" he asked.
+
+"A biography," said Hal.
+
+"Biography!" thought Bob, but he looked at the title. It was a life of
+Admiral Byrd.
+
+Bob's eyes lighted up. "Oh, say," he said, "is that good?"
+
+"It's great," said Hal. "You know, I read every book on aviators that
+comes out. I've always wanted to be one--an aviator, you know."
+
+Bob sat up and took notice. "Gee, you have? Why, so have I. My Uncle
+Bill's an aviator. You ought to know him. He was in the war. Joined when
+he was just eighteen. I'm going to be an aviator, too."
+
+"You are? Have you ever been up?"
+
+"No," said Bob, "but I'm going some day. Bill's going to teach me how to
+pilot a plane. He's promised. He's coming to visit us some time and
+bring his own plane. Dad takes me out to the airport whenever he can,
+and we watch the planes. I've never had a chance to go up, though."
+
+Hal's eyes clouded. "I hope you get to be an aviator," he said, "I don't
+think that I ever shall. My mother'd never allow me to go up."
+
+"Oh, sure, she would," consoled Bob, "if you wanted to badly enough.
+Have you ever built a plane? A model, I mean?"
+
+"Have I? Dozens. One of them flew, too. You've got to come up to my
+workshop and see them," said Hal eagerly. "I read every new book that
+comes out. I think that airplanes are the greatest thing out."
+
+"You've got to see my models, too. I made a _Spirit of St. Louis_ the
+year that Lindy flew across the Atlantic. Of course it isn't as good as
+my later ones. Say, we're going to have a swell time, aren't we?" At
+that moment Bob knew that he and Hal were going to be good friends.
+
+And good friends they were. There were a great many things about Hal
+that annoyed Bob no end at first. Hal was, without a doubt, his mother's
+boy. He was afraid of things--things that the fearless Bob took for
+granted. He was afraid of the dark--afraid of getting his feet wet--afraid
+of staying too late and worrying his mother. And then he was awkward.
+Bob tried gradually to initiate him into masculine sports--but it irked
+him to watch Hal throw a ball like a girl, or swim like a splashing
+porpoise. But he had to admit that Hal tried. And when he got better at
+things, it was fun teaching him. Bob felt years older than his pupil,
+and gradually came to take a protective attitude toward him that amused
+his mother.
+
+Mrs. Martin smiled one day when Bob complained about Hal's awkwardness
+in catching a ball. "Well," she said, "you may be teaching Hal things,
+but he's teaching you, too, and you should be grateful to him."
+
+"What's he teaching me?" asked Bob, surprised.
+
+"I notice, Bob, that you're reading a great deal more than you ever
+have. I think that that's Hal's influence."
+
+"Oh, that," said Bob, "why, we read the lives of the famous flyers,
+that's all. Why, that's fun. That's not reading."
+
+Mrs. Martin smiled again, and kept her customary silence.
+
+The strange friendship, founded on the love of airplanes, flourished.
+The boys were always together, and had invented an elaborate system of
+signals to communicate with each other at such times as they weren't
+with one another. Two crossed flags meant "Come over at once." One flag
+with a black ball on it meant "I can't come over." These flags, usually
+limp and bedraggled by the elements horrified the parents of both Bob
+and Hal when they saw them hanging in various intricate designs out of
+windows and on bushes and trees in the garden. But since they seemed
+necessary to the general scheme of things, they were allowed to go
+unmolested, even in the careful Gregg household.
+
+The friendship had weathered a summer, a school year, and was now
+entering the boys' summer vacation again. It was at the beginning of
+this vacation that Bob whistled to Hal and called to him to come down to
+hear his wonderful news.
+
+"Well," said Hal, "spill the news." It must be said of Hal that he tried
+even to master the language of the real boy in his education as a good
+sport.
+
+"Bill's coming," said Bob, trying to hide his excitement, but not
+succeeding very well.
+
+"What?" shouted Hal.
+
+"Sure, Captain Bill's coming to spend the summer with us. He's flying
+here in his own plane."
+
+"Oh, golly," said Hal, and could say no more.
+
+Captain Bill was the boys' patron saint. It had been through his uncle
+Bill that Bob Martin had developed his mania for flying. Captain Bill
+Hale was Bob's mother's youngest brother, the adventurous member of the
+family, who had enlisted in the Canadian army when he was eighteen, at
+the outbreak of the war. When the United States joined the big battle,
+he had gone into her air corps to become one of the army's crack flyers,
+with plenty of enemy planes and blimps to his credit. A crash had put
+him out of commission at the end of the war, but had not dulled his
+ardor for flying. For years he had flown his own plane both for
+commercial and private reasons.
+
+As Bob's hero, he had always written to the boy, telling him of his
+adventures, encouraging him in his desire to become an aviator. He had
+never found the time actually to visit for any length of time with his
+sister and her family, but had dropped down from the sky on them
+suddenly and unexpectedly every so often.
+
+But now, as Bob explained carefully to Hal, he was coming for the whole
+summer, and was going to teach him, Bob, to fly.
+
+"Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy," Bob chortled, "what a break! Captain Bill
+here for months, with nothing to do but fly us around."
+
+Hal did not seem to share his friend's enthusiasm. "Fly us around? Not
+us, Bob, old boy--you. My mother will never let me go up." Hal's face
+clouded.
+
+Bob slapped him on the back. "Oh, don't you worry. Your mother will let
+you fly. She's let you do a lot of things with me that she never let you
+do before. We'll get her to come around."
+
+But Hal looked dubious. "Not that, I'm afraid. She's scared to death of
+planes, and gets pale if I even mention flying. But that's all right.
+I'll do my flying on the ground. You and Bill will have a great time."
+
+"Buck up," said Bob. "Don't cross your bridges until you come to them.
+We'll work on your mother until she thinks that flying is the safest
+thing in the world. And it is, too. We'll let Captain Bill talk to her.
+He can make anybody believe anything. He'll have her so thoroughly
+convinced that she'll be begging him to take you up in the air to save
+your life. See if he doesn't! Bill is great!"
+
+Hal was visibly improved in spirits. "When's Bill coming in?" he asked.
+
+"Six tonight," said Bob. "Down at the airport. Dad says that he'll drive
+us both out there so that we can meet Captain Bill, and drive him back.
+Gee, wouldn't it be great if he had an autogyro and could land in our
+back yard?"
+
+"Maybe he'll have one the next time he comes. What kind of plane is he
+flying?"
+
+"His new Lockheed. It's a monoplane, he says, and painted green, with a
+reddish nose. It's green because his partner, Pat, wanted it green.
+Pat's been his buddy since they were over in France together, and
+anything that Pat says, goes. It's got two cockpits, and dual controls.
+It's just great for teaching beginners. That means us, Hal, old boy.
+Listen, you'd better get ready. Dad will be home soon, and will want to
+start down for the port. Say, does that sound like thunder?"
+
+The boys listened. It did sound like thunder. In fact, it was thunder.
+"Golly, I hope it doesn't storm. Mother won't let me go if it rains."
+
+Bob laughed. "I wouldn't worry about you getting wet if it stormed," he
+said. "What about Bill, right up in the clouds? Of course, he can climb
+over the storm if it's not too bad. But you hurry anyhow. We'll probably
+get started before it rains, anyway."
+
+At ten minutes to six Hal, Bob and Bob's father were parked at the
+airport, their necks stretched skyward, watching the darkening, clouded
+skies for the first hint of a green monoplane. No green monoplane did
+they see. A few drops of rain splattered down, then a few more, and
+suddenly the outburst that had been promising for hours poured down.
+Bob's father, with the aid of the two boys, put up the windows of the
+car, and they sat fairly snug while the rain teemed down about them. The
+field was becoming sodden. Crashes of lightning and peals of thunder
+seemed to flash and roll all about them. All of the airplanes within
+easy distance of their home port had come winging home like birds to an
+enormous nest. The three watchers scanned each carefully, but none was
+the green Lockheed of Captain Bill.
+
+The time passed slowly. Six-thirty; then seven. Finally Mr. Martin
+decided that they could wait no longer. "He's probably landed some place
+to wait for the storm to lift," he said. "He can take a taxi over to the
+house when he gets in."
+
+Reluctant to leave, the boys nevertheless decided that they really
+couldn't wait all night in the storm for Captain Bill, and so they
+started for home.
+
+Very wet, and bedraggled, and very, very, hungry, they arrived. Hal's
+mother was practically hysterical, met him at the door, and drew him
+hastily into the house.
+
+Mr. Martin and his son ran swiftly from the garage to the back door of
+their house, but were soaked before they got in. Entering the darkened
+kitchen, they could hear voices inside.
+
+"Doesn't that sound like--why, it is--that's Bill's voice," shouted Bob.
+The light switched on, and Bill and Mrs. Martin came into the kitchen to
+greet their prodigal relatives.
+
+"Hello," said Bill, "where have you people been? You seem to be wet.
+Shake on it."
+
+"Well, how in the--how did you get in?" shouted Mr. Martin, pumping
+Bill's hand. "We were waiting in the rain for you for hours."
+
+"I know," said Bill, contritely, "we tried to get in touch with you, but
+we couldn't. You see, I came in by train."
+
+"By train!" exclaimed Bob. "By train!"
+
+"Why, sure," laughed the Captain, "Why, aren't you glad to see me
+without my plane? That's a fine nephewly greeting!"
+
+"Oh, gee, Bill, of course I'm glad to see you, but--well, I've sort of
+been counting on your bringing your plane."
+
+Bill laughed. "The plane's coming all right," he said. "We had a little
+accident the other day, and the wing needed repairing. I decided not to
+wait for it, but to come in on the train to be with you. So Pat
+McDermott is bringing the plane in in a few days. Is that all right? May
+I stay?"
+
+"Yup, you can stay," said Bob. "But I want something to eat!"
+
+"Everything's ready," said Mrs. Martin. "You change your clothes, and
+come right down to dinner."
+
+"Sure thing," said Bob. But he did not change immediately. He stopped
+first to put two crossed flags in the window, which meant to Hal, "Come
+right over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--Captain Bill
+
+
+Hal couldn't come right over. He had to be fussed over, steamed, dosed,
+and put to bed so that he would suffer no ill effects from his soaking
+that evening. But he was over bright and early the next morning. It had
+rained all night, and was still raining in a quiet, steady downpour,
+when Hal appeared at the Martin home, dressed in rubbers, raincoat,
+muffler, and carrying an umbrella to protect him on his long trek from
+his own front door to his friend's. Captain Bill would have been
+startled at the strangely bundled figure of Hal, but he had been warned,
+and greeted Hal without a blink of an eyelash. In fact, as soon as Hal
+had been unwrapped from his many coverings, and had spoken to them all,
+Captain Bill discovered that he was probably going to like this boy
+after all, and was pleased that his nephew had such good judgment in
+choosing a friend and companion.
+
+They talked that morning, of course, about airplanes, and the boys told
+how they had been reading about the famous flyers, and of their hopes to
+be flyers themselves some day. Bill had been a good listener, and had
+said very little, but after lunch Hal said what had been on his chest
+for a long time.
+
+"Captain Bill, we've been doing all the talking. Why don't you tell us a
+story?"
+
+The Captain laughed. "I think that Bob's heard all my stories. I'm
+afraid that they're a little moth-eaten now. But how about the two of
+you telling me a story? Some of the things that you've been reading so
+carefully. How about it?"
+
+"We can't tell a story the way you can, old scout," said Bob. "Anyway,
+we asked you first."
+
+"All right, I'm caught," said the Captain. "But I'll tell you a story
+only on one condition. Each of you has to tell one too. That's only
+fair, isn't it?"
+
+Bob and Hal looked at each other. Hal spoke. "I'm afraid I won't be able
+to," he said, blushing. "I can't tell stories, I'm sure I can't."
+
+Captain Bill knew that it would be tactless at that moment to try to
+convince Hal that he could tell a story. It would only increase the
+boy's nervousness, and convince him only more of the fact that he could
+not spin a yarn. So he said, "Well, we'll tell ours first, and you can
+tell yours later. After you hear how bad ours are, you'll be
+encouraged." Then Bill had an idea. "How about having a contest?" he
+said. "The one who tells the best story gets a prize."
+
+"What prize?" asked Bob quickly.
+
+"Now, you take your time. We'll decide on the prize later. We'll have to
+let Pat in on this, too, I suppose, but he's going to give us some
+competition. Pat's a great story teller. I'll tell my story first. Then
+Bob can tell his, after he's had some time for preparation; then Pat
+will probably want to get his licks in; and Hal will come last. He'll
+have the benefit of our mistakes to guide him. How about it?"
+
+"All right with me," said Bob, eagerly. He was keen about the idea.
+
+But Hal seemed less enthusiastic. His natural reticence, he felt, would
+make it torture for him to tell a story. It would be all right just for
+Bob--and he was even getting well enough acquainted with Captain Bill to
+tell his story in front of him--but this Pat McDermott--even his name
+sounded formidable. Captain Bill didn't give him a chance to say aye,
+yea, or nay, but went on talking.
+
+"I think that we ought to choose subjects that you two know about," said
+Bill. "How about stories of the aviators--of Famous Flyers and their
+Famous Flights?"
+
+"Great!" said Bob. "Gee, I want Lindbergh."
+
+"Lindbergh you shall have," said Captain Bill. "What's yours Hal?"
+
+"I don't know," said Hal. "I'll have to think it over. But--I think that
+I'd like to take the life of Floyd Bennett--if I may."
+
+"Of course," said Bill. "I think that I'll tell about Admiral Byrd--do
+you think he'd make a good story?"
+
+"Marvelous!" said Bob, with his usual enthusiasm. "What'll we leave for
+Pat?"
+
+"Pat can take whomever he wants to take," the Captain said. "He'll have
+to take what's left. That's what he gets for coming late. But what do
+you say we wait to start the contest when Pat comes?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes, I think that that would be much better," said Hal,
+relieved that the ordeal would at least be postponed, even if it could
+not be avoided altogether. "I think that we ought to wait until Mr.
+McDermott comes."
+
+The Captain laughed. "Don't let him hear you call him 'Mr. McDermott'"
+he said. "He's Pat to everybody, and to you, too."
+
+"I'll try to remember," said Hal, miserably, thinking of what a
+complicated world this was.
+
+It was still raining outside. The boys and the Captain, seated in the
+library, or rather, sprawled in the library, could see the streams of
+rain splash against the windows and run down in little rivers until they
+splashed off again at the bottom of the pane.
+
+Captain Bill yawned and stretched. "Not much to do on a day like this.
+I'm mighty anxious to get out to the airport as soon as it clears up.
+What'll we do?"
+
+Bob had an idea. "Couldn't we sort of sneak one over on Pat?" he said.
+"Couldn't we have a story, one not in the contest, now? It wouldn't
+count, really, and it would give us a little rehearsal before Pat gets
+here."
+
+"Who's going to tell this story?" asked Captain Bill, looking just a bit
+suspiciously at his nephew.
+
+Bob grinned. "Well, I thought that maybe you would. Seeing that you're
+the best story-teller anyway."
+
+"Go long with your blarney. But I guess I will tell you one. It will be
+a sort of prologue to the rest of our stories. It's about the very first
+flyers and the very first famous flight."
+
+"The Wrights?" asked Hal.
+
+"The Wrights," said the Captain. "Wilbur and Orville, and their first
+flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--The Wright Brothers
+
+
+The Captain had first to fill his pipe, and stretch his legs before he
+began his story.
+
+"Of course," he said, "we can't really say that the Wrights were the
+first men to fly, or to build a machine that would fly. Even in the
+middle ages Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for a flying machine. Just
+before the Wright's experiment Langley had stayed up in the air in a
+machine invented and built by himself. If he had not died at so
+unfortunate a period in his experimental life, perhaps he might have
+been the inventor of the airplane.
+
+"The Wrights invented the airplane in the same degree that Thomas Edison
+invented the electric light. Men had experimented with both inventions
+for many years. But it took the genius of the Wrights, the genius of an
+Edison to bring together these experiments, to think through logically
+just wherein they were right and where they were wrong, and to add the
+brilliant deductions that brought their experiments to a practical and
+successful end. Edison's discovery was dependent upon the finding of the
+proper filament for his bulb; the Wrights' success hinged upon their
+discovery of the warped wing, which gave them control over their plane.
+
+"The fact that the Wrights were not the first to fly does not detract
+from the thing that they actually did. At the time that they were making
+their first flying machine, any man who tampered with the subject of
+flying through the air was looked upon as crazy. And this was not more
+than a quarter of a century ago. Seems funny, doesn't it? But they were
+not to be discouraged. They knew that they were right, and they went
+ahead. They had many set-backs. Their planes were wrecked. What did they
+do? They just built them over again, and were glad that they had learned
+of some new defect that they could re-design and correct.
+
+"You notice that I always talk of 'the Wrights' as though they were one
+person; everybody does. In fact, they almost were one person. They were
+always together; lived together, played together, although they didn't
+play much, being a serious pair, and worked together. They never
+quarreled, never showed any jealousy of each other, never claimed the
+lion's share of praise in the invention. They were just 'the Wrights,'
+quiet, retiring men, who did much and talked little.
+
+"From early childhood it was the same. Wilbur Wright, the elder of the
+two, was born in Milville, Indiana, and lived there until he was three
+years old with his parents, Milton Wright, bishop of the United Brethren
+Church, and Susan Katherine Wright. In 1870 the family moved to Dayton,
+Ohio, and in 1871 Orville Wright was born. From a very early age the two
+were drawn to each other. Their minds and desires were similar.
+
+"When Wilbur decided that he would rather go to work after being
+graduated from High School, Orville decided that he, too, would give up
+his formal education, and devote himself to mechanics.
+
+"They were born mechanics, always building miniature machines that
+actually worked. They did not stop studying, but took to reading
+scientific works that were of more help to them than formal education.
+In this way they learned printing, and built themselves a printing press
+out of odds and ends that they assembled. On this they began to publish
+a little newspaper, but they gave this up when another opportunity
+presented itself.
+
+"Bicycles were coming in at that time, and the Wright brothers set up a
+little shop to repair them. From the repair shop they developed a
+factory in which they manufactured bicycles themselves. Their business
+was very successful, and they were looked upon as young men who were
+likely to get along in the world. This was in 1896.
+
+"That year Otto Lilienthal, a famous German experimenter, was killed in
+his glider, just at the peak of his career. Wilbur read an account of
+his death in the newspaper, and discussed it with his brother. The event
+renewed the interest that they had always had in flying, and they set
+about studying all of the books that they could find on the problem of
+flight. They soon exhausted all that they could get, and decided that
+their groundwork had been laid. From then on their work was practical,
+and they discovered principles that had never been written, and which
+resulted in the first flight.
+
+"The first things that they built were kites, and then gliders that were
+flown as kites. The Wrights were after the secret of the birds' flight,
+and felt that they could apply it to man's flight. Their next step was
+the construction of a real glider. But the country around Dayton was not
+favorable for flying their craft. They wrote to the United States
+government to find a region that had conditions favorable to their
+gliding. That is how the obscure Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, came to be
+the famous place that it is. It happened to have just south of it three
+hills, Kill Devil Hill, Little Hill, and West Hill. Between the hills
+was soft drifting sand, that would provide a better landing place than
+hard earth in case of a spill. The winds were steady and moderate.
+
+"To Kitty Hawk the Wrights went. Here they glided to their heart's
+content, until they decided that they had learned to control their
+flights, and were ready to build a plane with power. They went back to
+Dayton in 1902. They designed and supervised the building of the motor
+themselves, one that would generate twelve horsepower. Satisfied, they
+set out once more for Kitty Hawk, with the motor and parts of their
+plane carefully stowed away.
+
+"They got down there in the early autumn, but found so many difficulties
+to overcome, that they could not make the first tests until December. In
+the first place, they discovered that a storm had blown away the
+building which they had built to work in when they first got to Kitty
+Hawk. However, everything was at last ready, the weather favorable, and
+the plane was hauled up Kill Devil Hill, and guided toward the single
+track of planks that had been laid down the hill.
+
+"Who was going to get the first chance to pilot the plane? Who was going
+to be the first man to fly? Orville insisted that Wilbur be the one;
+Wilbur insisted that Orville should be the first. They decided it by
+flipping a coin. Wilbur won. He got into the plane, unfastened the wire
+that held the plane to the track, and started down. He ended in a heap
+at the bottom of the hill, uninjured, but with several parts of the
+plane damaged.
+
+"The Wrights were nothing daunted. They repaired the plane as quickly as
+possible, and on December 17, they were ready for the second trial. It
+was Orville's turn, of course. He unloosened the wire; the plane started
+down the hill; at the end of a forty-foot run it rose into the air. It
+kept on going, in a bumpy, irregular course, now swooping up, now diving
+down, for 120 feet, then darted to earth. The flight had taken in all
+just twelve seconds, but the Wrights had flown.
+
+"I suppose you've seen pictures of that first plane. It wasn't much more
+than a box in shape, a biplane, with no cockpit at all, just the wings
+held together by struts, and a seat in the center for the pilot. A man
+had to be tough to fly one of those planes. The wonder is that any of
+them escaped with their lives. They had to sit up there exposed to all
+the elements, and pilot the clumsy planes. And yet they grew into
+skilful and expert pilots, and could loop the loop and figure eight in
+them! The Wrights themselves were excellent flyers. This seems only
+natural, with their natural born gift for mechanics. It was well that
+they were good flyers, because it was up to them to prove to the world
+that their craft was safe, and practical.
+
+"It was hard at first. People were skeptical as to whether the Wrights
+really had a ship that flew. Some of their tests were unsuccessful, and
+they were laughed to scorn. However, France, who had been more advanced
+than the United States in the matter of experimentation in flying,
+became interested in the new flying machine, and sent representatives
+over to the United States to inspect it. With the French approving of
+it, the United States became more interested. The government offered a
+prize of $25,000, for anyone who would build a plane that would travel
+40 miles an hour, carry enough fuel and oil to cruise for 125 miles, and
+fly continuously for at least an hour, with two persons weighing
+together 350 pounds. The Wrights built such a machine, and the
+government not only gave them the $25,000, but an additional $5,000
+besides.
+
+"In the meanwhile Wilbur Wright had gone to France, where he
+participated in many flights, and won the hearts of the French people by
+staying in the air for an hour and a half. At the end of the year, 1908,
+he stayed in the air over two hours.
+
+"The Wrights were showing what they could do. Flying became the rage.
+Society took it up, and traveled to the Wrights to see their planes. But
+the Wrights, no more impressed by this than they were by anything else,
+kept right on working. They were financed by a group of able financiers
+in the United States, and founded the Wright Aeroplane Company for the
+manufacture of planes, and they were content.
+
+"After 1909, their point proved, the Wrights did very little flying.
+They spent their time in engineering problems, making improvements on
+the planes that they were designing and manufacturing.
+
+"They did some more experimenting with gliders, but this was in order to
+perfect the art of soaring.
+
+"In May, 1912, Wilbur Wright died, and broke up the famous partnership
+that had existed for so many years. Since his death his brother has
+lived quietly. He has not flown, and has acted as advisor to his company
+as they turn out more and more modern planes. He is one man who has
+lived to see a thing that he started himself grow into a blessing to
+mankind. And if the airplane isn't that, I'd like to know what is."
+
+"I think so," said Bob.
+
+"Who are you to think so?" asked Bill, sitting up very suddenly.
+
+Bob was non-plussed for a moment, but then saw that his uncle was
+joking, and laughed. They were interrupted by the ringing of the
+doorbell.
+
+"Well," said the Captain, "who could be out in weather like this?"
+
+They heard the front door open, voices, and then the closing of the
+door. In a short while the footsteps of Mrs. Martin sounded on the
+steps, and she entered the library.
+
+"A telegram for you, Bill," she said, and handed it to him. "My, you
+three look cozy up here. I suppose you've been yarning, haven't you?"
+She gave her brother a playful poke.
+
+Captain Bill, who had risen when his sister came in, offered his chair
+before he opened the telegram. "Join us, won't you, Sis?"
+
+His sister laughed. "I really can't go before I see what is in the
+telegram," she said. "Of course, I suppose I should be polite and
+pretend not to be interested in it, but I am. We all are, aren't we,
+boys?"
+
+Bob and Hal grinned.
+
+"Well, then," said Bill, "I guess I'll have to see what's in it." He
+opened the telegram, and glanced hurriedly over it. "Pat's landing
+tomorrow," he said. "He wants us to be out at the airport to see the
+_Marianne_ come in."
+
+"Hurray!" shouted Bob, and went into a war dance.
+
+His mother looked at him tolerantly. She was used to Bob's antics. "What
+time is Pat coming in?" she asked.
+
+"He didn't say. In fact, that's all he didn't say in this telegram. But
+I guess he'll start out about dawn and get here around noon. Anyway,
+we'll be going down to the airport tomorrow morning to look around.
+We'll stay there until that Irishman rolls in."
+
+"What will you do about lunch?" asked the practical Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Why, we'll eat at the airport restaurant," said Bill. "Don't worry
+about us, Sis."
+
+Mrs. Martin looked dubious. She glanced at Hal. She knew that Hal's
+mother liked to supervise her son's meals, and did not care to have him
+eat at strange places. Mrs. Martin felt that it would be a shame to
+spoil the expedition for such a trivial reason, so she said, "I have an
+idea. I'll pack a lunch for all of you tonight, and you can take it with
+you tomorrow. How will that be? You can eat it anyplace around the
+airport. It'll be a regular picnic. There are some nice places around
+the port that you can go to. How about that?"
+
+Bob answered for them. "That will be great. Gee, Bill, do you remember
+the picnic baskets that Mom can pack? We're in luck."
+
+"Do I remember?" said Bill. "How could I forget? You fellows had better
+be up pretty early tomorrow."
+
+"You bet we will, Captain," said Bob.
+
+Then Hal said, "I guess I'd better be going. My mother will be wondering
+if I'm never coming home. I hope that I can come with you tomorrow."
+
+"Hope you can come with us? Why, of course you're coming with us. We
+won't go without you," Captain Bill said explosively.
+
+"I'll see," said Hal. "I'll ask Mother. Maybe she'll let me go. But
+anyway, I'll let you know. I'll put up the flags in the workshop window.
+All right?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob, and walked out with Hal. He saw the boy to the door,
+and warned him again to be sure to come.
+
+When the two boys had left the room, Captain Bill turned to his sister.
+"Say," he said, "do you think that Hal's mother really won't let him
+come, or is the boy looking for a way out?"
+
+"Why, what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Just this," said Bill, and puffed vigorously on his pipe. "I've been
+watching the boy, and I think that he's afraid."
+
+"Afraid of what?"
+
+"Afraid of actually going up in an airplane. I feel that a change has
+come over him since there has been an actual chance of his learning to
+fly," explained the Captain.
+
+His sister looked pensive. "But he's always been so interested in
+flying. That's all the two of them ever talk about."
+
+"Perhaps. When there was no immediate chance of his going up in a plane.
+Now that there is, I think he'd like to back out."
+
+"There is his mother to consider, of course," said Mrs. Martin. "She
+would undoubtedly object very strenuously if he merely went to the
+airport. You must remember that he's all she has. She's always so
+careful of him."
+
+The Captain snorted. "Too careful," he said. "She's made the boy a
+bundle of fears. Bob has helped him get over some of them, but I think
+that they're cropping out now. It will be very bad for Hal if he funks
+this. I think that it will hurt him a great deal. If he succeeds in
+overcoming his fears now for once and for all, if he learns to go up in
+a plane, even if he may never fly one himself, he will be a new boy.
+He'll never be afraid again. But one let-down now, and he will be set
+way back--even further back than when Bob first met him."
+
+"I think you're right, Bill," said his sister. "But what are we going to
+do about it?"
+
+The Captain shrugged his shoulders. "I think the best thing to do with
+the boy is not to let him know that we know he's afraid. Treat him just
+as if he were the bravest lad in the world. I'll take care of that. But
+I can't take care of his mother. I never was a lady's man," smiled
+Captain Bill. "You'll have to attend to that."
+
+Mrs. Martin's brow wrinkled. "I think you've taken the easier task," she
+said with a wry smile. "I'd much rather teach a boy to overcome his
+fears than teach a mother to overcome hers. But I'll try," she added,
+and hoped against hope for success.
+
+Bob burst into the room. "How about something to eat?" he said. "I'm
+starved!"
+
+"As usual," said his mother. "I would like to hear you just once
+complain about being not hungry."
+
+"All right, mother," said Bob. "If you want to hear me complain about
+that, you just feed me a good dinner now, and I'll do my best to
+complain about being not hungry--after I finish it."
+
+"You're an impossible son," said his mother, but smiled fondly at him.
+She really didn't believe it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--Some War Heroes
+
+
+Whether secret springs were put into operation by Mrs. Martin that
+afternoon or not, nevertheless Hal was able to join the party going to
+the airport early the next morning. It was a beautiful morning. It had
+stopped raining, and the sun, coming out strong and bright, had dried
+everything so thoroughly that only an occasional puddle here and there
+on the road showed that it had rained at all. The drive to the port was
+pleasant, too; the port being about a mile out of town, and at least
+five miles from the Martin home.
+
+When they arrived, the day's program was in full sway. A huge
+tri-motored plane was loading passengers for a cross-country trip. As
+the three approached the port, they saw the great plane rise into the
+air and take off exactly on schedule. Smaller planes were flying about
+above the airport, and on the ground mechanics were working over several
+planes that needed overhauling. Captain Bill wanted to go first to the
+administration building, a large white brick structure, modern as any
+office building in appearance. He wanted to see the head of the airport,
+an old friend of his, and make the final arrangements for the care of
+his plane when it came in.
+
+As they were about to enter the building, a tall, heavy-set man passed
+them, on his way out. Captain Bill started, and half turned. "Well, if
+that didn't look like--" he began, then turned and went on into the
+building. "Looked like an old flying buddy of mine. But of course, it
+couldn't be. Old Hank never was that fat. Never had an ounce of fat on
+him. All skin and bone. But you never can tell, eh, boys?"
+
+"You'll be getting there yourself, some day, be careful," laughed Bob.
+
+John Headlund, delighted to see Captain Bill, jumped up from his desk,
+and pumped his hands up and own. "If it isn't the Captain! Man, it's
+great to see you again!" Headlund and Bill had flown together in France,
+and although they had kept in touch with each other a few years after
+they had returned to America, the press of business had kept them apart,
+and they had not seen each other for years. Captain Bill presented the
+boys.
+
+"They're going to bring new business for you, Headlund," said Bill.
+"Here are two of America's future flyers."
+
+The boys grinned.
+
+Headlund, after wishing them success, turned again to Bill. "Do you see
+any of the old boys?" he asked.
+
+"Pat McDermott's my partner," said Bill. "He's flying the old boat in
+this afternoon sometime."
+
+"He is! That's great! And quite a coincidence, too. Do you know who was
+here--left just before you came in?"
+
+"Not Hank Brown!" shouted Bill. "By golly, I thought I recognized that
+face! Old Hank! What was he doing here?"
+
+"He's got a ship down here in one of our hangars. It's a beauty--a four
+passenger cabin plane, with the pilot's seat up front--a beautiful job.
+Listen, Hank's gone down to the hangar now to look it over. Maybe you
+can catch him down there. It's Avenue B, the last hangar in line."
+
+"Great. I'd like to see Hank. Last time I saw him he was in an English
+hospital, eating porridge and not liking it at all. Who would have
+thought that the old skinny marink would have put on all that poundage?
+Old Hank fat! And flying in a cabin plane. Come on, fellows, we've got
+to go down there and see him." He turned to Headlund. "I'm going to be
+in town all summer, Heady, and I guess you'll be seeing plenty of me.
+What street did you say? Avenue B?"
+
+Captain Bill and the boys hurried out, found the right road, and walked
+along it until they came to the last hangar. A beautiful plane, black
+and aluminum, stood outside. But as they approached, there was nobody to
+be seen.
+
+"Ahoy, there!" shouted Bill. "Anybody here know Hank Brown?"
+
+Hank himself appeared from the other side of the plane, where he had
+been conferring with a mechanic. "I'm Henry Brown," he said, peering
+from behind gold-rimmed glasses at Bill and the boys. His face
+registered no sign of recognition at first. Then suddenly it lighted up,
+he rushed forward, and gripped Captain Bill's hand in his, slapping him
+heartily on the back with the other. "Well, Bill! You old sock! Where on
+earth did you come from? What are you doing here? Where have you been?"
+
+Bill, delighted to see his old buddy, laughed at him, and poked him in
+his now well-padded ribs. "One question at a time, Hank. What are you
+doing here? And how come you've got this grand ship?" asked Bill.
+
+"I asked you first," laughed Hank.
+
+They spent the next ten minutes telling each other just what they had
+been doing since their last meeting. They spared the details, but each
+was satisfied with the other's story. Hank had done well as the manager
+and later as president of his father's steel plant. Prosperity had
+ironed out the wrinkles that had always twinkled around his steely grey
+eyes, and contentment had added inches to his waistline, but he was
+still the same generous, fun-loving Hank that the boys had known in
+France.
+
+"Listen," said Hank. "Come on in and try the plane. See how comfortable
+it is. Say, this is some different from the old rattletraps we used to
+fly, isn't it?"
+
+"But we had some good thrills in them, didn't we," said Bill. This
+meeting with Hank was bringing back memories that had not stirred in him
+for many years.
+
+"Let's get in here where we can talk in comfort," said Hank.
+
+They mounted a little step that the mechanic set for them, and entered
+the side door of the plane. The inside was amazingly luxurious. Along
+both sides were upholstered seats, covered with multi-colored cushions.
+There were built-in fixtures, and everything to make for the greatest
+ease in traveling. The pilot's seat could be partitioned off by a glass
+sliding door up front.
+
+The three men sat down on the seats at the side of the cabin. "Gee,
+they're soft," said Bob. "I could ride all day on these." He jumped up
+and down a little.
+
+"Remember your manners," said Bill.
+
+Bob stopped jumping and blushed. "Oh, I forgot," he said. He had really
+forgotten that Hank Brown was an important man, a millionaire. But Hank
+only laughed.
+
+"How would you people like to take the plane up on its last ride this
+year?" he asked.
+
+"The last ride?" said Bill. "Why the last?"
+
+"Well, I'm putting her away," said Hank. "That's what I was talking to
+the mechanic and Headlund about. I was going to spend my summer up in my
+log cabin in Canada, fishing, and all that. But my wife wants to go to
+Europe instead. She's going to take the two girls over to France and
+leave them there in school. That would mean she'd have to come back all
+alone. I've been intending to go back to take a look around ever since
+I've been back in America, so I thought I'd take the opportunity of
+getting over there now with her. I wouldn't take the plane. I won't need
+a big ship like this. If I want to fly I can pick up a little French or
+German bus. So I'm putting old Lizzie in the hangar. Seems a shame. But
+how would you like to go up now? Would you like to try her out?" he
+asked Bill. "Would I?" said Bill. He slid into the pilot's seat, and
+looked over the instrument board, to familiarize himself with the
+instruments with which the plane was equipped. Then he turned back to
+the boys. "Want to go up?"
+
+Bob was almost beside himself with excitement. "Take her up, Bill go
+on," he squealed. "Sure we want to go up. Go ahead, Bill."
+
+Hal said nothing. His face was pale. Bill thought that it would be best
+to ignore him, and just take it for granted that he wanted to go up,
+too. And Hal, although he was by this time frightened to death, would
+not admit it. He decided to risk the going up rather than say that he
+was afraid.
+
+The mechanic taxied the plane out into the open and took away the steps.
+Bill pressed the starter, and the great propeller began to move. Slowly
+the ship rolled over the ground, gradually gaming momentum. Finally it
+rose into the air. Bill handled the huge ship as though it were a toy.
+Higher and higher it rose. Bob, looking out of the window, saw the
+building of the airport whizzing by below them, then disappear into a
+whirling mass. Were they going? Were they standing still? Bob couldn't
+tell.
+
+"How high are we?" he shouted at the top of his voice to Hank.
+
+"About 5,000 feet," judged Hank. He was looking over at Hal rather
+anxiously. He thought that maybe the boy was going to be sick. But Hal
+manfully hung on, and said nothing.
+
+"We seem to be standing still," shouted Bob.
+
+"We're going, all right. Your uncle is a great one for speed!" shouted
+back Hank.
+
+The plane was banking now for a turn. They were going back. In a short
+while Bill had brought the plane down once more into the airport.
+
+"Well, how did you like it?" he said, turning around in his pilot's
+seat.
+
+"Great!" said Bob.
+
+But Hal was just a little sick. He said nothing, and waited for the
+world to settle down again.
+
+"You sure handle the ship like you used to in the old days," said Hank
+admiringly to Bill.
+
+"She's a great ship," said Bill, modestly.
+
+Hank had an idea. "Say," he said impulsively, "how would you like to fly
+her while I'm in Europe?"
+
+"Gee, Hank, I really don't think"--began Bill. He thought, the same old
+Hank, always generous, always impulsive.
+
+But Hank was going on with his plan. "Listen, I won't take 'no' for an
+answer. You fly my plane. And you can fly it up to the Canadian cabin if
+you want to. Then a perfectly swell vacation plan won't be entirely
+thrown away. How about it? The cabin is all ready to move into. They've
+been fixing it up for me. What do you say? Are you game?"
+
+"Game?" said Bill. "Gee, I'm crazy about the idea. But I don't see why
+you should do this for me."
+
+Hank was embarrassed. "You've been pretty decent to me in other times,
+remember that, Bill, old boy," he said.
+
+"Forget it," said Bill.
+
+Hank turned to the boys. "Bill here shot down a Boche when the Boche was
+all but stepping on my tail. Those were the days, eh, Bill?"
+
+"You bet," said Bill. "We sure were glad to get back alive. Remember old
+Lufbery? Raoul of the Lafayette Escadrille? There was a boy who could
+shoot them down. Six out of seven in one day. Not bad flying, that. They
+used to get pretty close to Raoul themselves. He'd come in with his
+clothes ripped with bullets, but ready to go right out again with the
+next patrol. Then one day he got his, and there wasn't a man there that
+wouldn't have given everything he had to save him, either. He'd gone up
+after a German that nobody seemed able to down. Lufbery climbed up to
+get above him, and dove. But something went wrong with his plane--God
+knows what, and those who were watching from the ground saw it burst
+into flame. Then they saw him stand on the edge of the cockpit and jump.
+It was horrible. But it was the only way for Lufbery to die--with his
+plane. He wanted it that way."
+
+Then Hank said, "And Bill Thaw! There was another flying fool. Bill was
+great fun--always laughing and joking, just as if his next flight might
+not be his last. Remember what he did to those three German planes when
+they got fresh with him, Bill?" He turned to the boys. "Thaw," he
+explained, "was coming back from his regular patrol, when he suddenly
+came face to face with three German planes. One of them maneuvered to
+his left, the second to his right, and the third dove below him to fire
+up. Well, Bill had to think fast, and he did. He side-slipped until he
+was directly over the plane below him, and fired down. One gone. Then he
+pulled himself out of a steep dive, and went after the second plane. A
+quick swoop, and a steep bank, a rapid burst of fire, and the second
+German went down in a burning nose dive.
+
+"From then on it was nip and tuck, and each man for himself, dog eat
+dog. It was a pretty even battle. The German was plucky, and ripped into
+Thaw for all he was worth. But one lucky turn, one accurate shot, and
+Thaw had him. Down went his plane. Thaw, his plane in ribbons, his
+clothes bullet-riddled, limped home, stepped out of his plane with a
+smile, and a joke on his lips."
+
+"Golly," said Bob, "that must have been great fun. I wish I'd been
+there."
+
+"What would we have done with a baby in swaddling clothes?" laughed
+Bill.
+
+"Aw," said Bob, "you know I mean if I was old enough."
+
+Hank was looking into the distance, with the far-away look that meant
+another story was coming on, and Bob stopped talking.
+
+Finally Hank said, "Remember Luke and Wehner? What a team! You never saw
+two men so different in your life. Frank Luke talked a lot--not always
+the most modest fellow in the world, either, and made a great to-do
+about everything he did. But he sure did plenty of damage to the
+Germans. Joe Wehner was quiet, modest, never talked very much, and never
+about himself. But still they were always together. Came to be known as
+'The Luke and Wehner Duo.'
+
+"They worked together, too. Went out on the same patrol and always stuck
+together. Luke's specialty was shooting down Drachens. Those were the
+German observation balloons that they sent up behind their lines to
+observe what was going on in the American lines. Of course, the
+information they got caused plenty of harm, and anybody who shot down a
+Drachen was doing a lot of good. But the things were expensive and
+useful, and the Germans sent them up with plenty of protection. There
+was always a swarm of planes flying around them and ready to light into
+any stranger that came near.
+
+"Luke and Wehner used to take care of that. Wehner would fly above Luke,
+looking out for any plane that might come to attack him. If one hove in
+sight, Wehner would go for him and engage him while Luke flew on and
+shot down the balloon. Balloon after balloon went down. The Germans were
+getting wary.
+
+"One day when Luke and Wehner were on their way to see what they could
+do about three Drachens that were watching the American lines, they met
+up with a formation of Fokkers. Wehner dived into the uneven battle.
+Luke flew on, and shot down one, then the other bag. But the gallant
+Wehner had fought his last fight. One of the Fokkers downed him. Luke,
+who saw what had happened to his pal, left the remaining balloon and
+furiously charged the Fokkers. He fought like mad, zooming, diving,
+spurting fire into those German planes. Two of them hurtled to the
+ground. The others fled. Luke started for home. On his way he engaged
+and downed another enemy plane. It was a record that on any other day he
+would have boasted about. But not that day. His pal had been killed, and
+Luke was for once silent and speechless.
+
+"Of course, he didn't give up balloon breaking. He added up a goodly
+store. But one day he got his, like so many of them. He'd sent three
+Drachens down in flames that day, when his own plane was so badly
+crippled, and he was so badly wounded that he was forced to land. He
+wouldn't let them take him, though, and he died fighting. When a band of
+German soldiers approached him, he pulled out his gun and shot six of
+them before he fell dead."
+
+It was Bill's turn. "Of course you boys have heard of Eddie
+Rickenbacker. There was an ace for you. If it was speed and trick flying
+that you wanted, Eddie was the man to give it to you. He had a bag of
+tricks that would get any pursuit plane off his tail. But he didn't
+always use them. He didn't have 26 planes to his credit for nothing.
+Eddie was a great ace and a great scout."
+
+Hank interrupted. "Here we go gassing again like two old fogies. I feel
+like my own grandfather sitting on the front porch and discussing the
+battle of Bull Run. We are getting old, aren't we, Bill? These
+youngsters ought to be glad that they didn't have to fly those old buses
+that we used, though. The new planes are great to fly. You two are going
+to have a grand time. I'd rather fly than travel any other way. But I
+don't think that it would be quite the thing to suggest to my wife now
+that I would rather fly to Europe with her than take the boat. So old
+Hank will be a land animal this time. Or rather, a water animal, instead
+of a bird."
+
+"A sort of--fish?" laughed Bill.
+
+"Shut up, you," said Hank. "Now, listen, how about that offer of my
+cabin and my plane for your vacation? It'll be a grand trip, and I
+guarantee that you'll like the cabin on the mountain. Nobody around for
+miles, except Jake, who takes care of the place for me. In fact, there's
+no town for a hundred miles around. About the only practical way of
+getting there is by plane. Just think, old man, all of that beauty and
+solitude going begging. You can get right back to nature there, live a
+wild life, or have all the conveniences of home, whichever you chose.
+We've got the place all fixed up. It's a real man's place, and you'll
+love it. And I'd like to see somebody who'd appreciate it have it this
+summer. And I know you would."
+
+Bill looked at Hank, who was talking so earnestly, with a puzzled look.
+"Listen, Hank," he said, "you aren't trying to persuade me to go up
+there as a favor to you, are you? Because if you are, you're crazy. It's
+certainly not you who should be doing the begging. We ought to be down
+on our hands and knees begging you for the place. The only reason I
+hesitate at all is because I think it's too much you're doing for us."
+
+Hank snorted. "Then you're going to take the place."
+
+Bill looked at him fondly, seeing through the strange marks that time
+had left on this man, the young, awkward boy whom he had befriended in
+France, when he had been just a young fellow himself, but not so green
+as the other. Then he said, "What do you say we leave it up to the
+boys?" He turned to them. "What do you say, Bob? How does a vacation up
+in the mountains sound to you?"
+
+Bob, his eyes shining, could hardly answer. He hadn't wanted to show too
+much eagerness before because he had remembered his manners just in
+time, and was watching Bill to see how they should respond to Hank
+Brown's generous offer. But now that he saw that Bill was favorably
+disposed, he breathed, "Oh, gee, I think that it would be great! Just
+great! Let's go, Bill."
+
+Hank was amused and pleased by this enthusiasm.
+
+The Captain turned to Hal. "How about you?"
+
+Hal, who had forgotten his misery during the recital of the exciting
+stories of war aces, and was once more fired with ambition, now that he
+was safely on the ground, was almost as enthusiastic. "But," he said as
+an afterthought, "I don't know whether I could go, of course. My
+mother--" his voice trailed off.
+
+Bill reached over and grasped Hank's hand. "We'll take it, old scout.
+Don't know how to thank you."
+
+"Don't," said Hank. "I'm glad you're going to go. All you have to do is
+to wire to Jake when you're coming. He lights bonfires to mark the
+landing field, and there you are. I'm going to be in town for two weeks,
+so you can come up any time to make arrangements. O.K.? Now I've got to
+go. I've been spending too much time as it is. Wish I could stay and see
+Pat, but I can't. Tell him to come up and see me, will you?"
+
+He bid them goodbye and left in his automobile which had been parked
+nearby. The next hour was spent in an exciting inspection of the various
+planes in the airport, from tiny two-seater monoplanes that looked like
+fragile toys, to huge biplanes; and in a growing impatience with Pat's
+delay. Finally a tiny speck appeared on the horizon, but the three of
+them had been disappointed so often that they did not dare to hope that
+this was at last Pat McDermott. But it was. He stepped out of the green
+monoplane and pushing up his goggles, looked around him. He spied his
+three friends immediately, and hurried to meet them.
+
+"Hi, Irish!" called Captain Bill. "I want you to meet two pals of mine."
+He introduced Bob and Hal. "We're going to teach them to fly."
+
+The two boys shook hands with Pat. He looked like his name, a tall,
+broad, husky man with a shock of curly hair that had probably once been
+red, but which was now brown, with a little gray at the temples; a young
+face--it was impossible to tell how old he was; and a broad grin that
+spread across his face and up around his eyes, disappearing into the
+roots of his hair.
+
+"Well," he said, without ceremony, as though he had been friends of
+theirs for years, "They'll make good flyers if they're not too lazy. And
+if anybody can make you work, I can. And I will."
+
+The Captain laughed. "Don't take Pat seriously," he said. "He's too lazy
+to make you work very hard. But let me warn you that he's trained army
+flyers, so you'd better not mind what he says, while he's teaching you."
+
+The boys had gone over and were looking at the Marianne. She was a
+beautifully stream-lined craft, large yet graceful.
+
+Pat noticed the boys' admiration, and was pleased. "How about taking a
+ride in her now?" he asked.
+
+"They just got down to earth," said the Captain. He explained about Hank
+and Hank's plane. Pat was delighted that their old pal had turned up,
+and decided that they would have to have a reunion very soon. He also
+decided on the spot that he was going along with them to the mountains.
+
+"Try to keep me away. Although I don't much fancy the riding on
+cushions, in a fancy plane. When I fly, I want to fly. But if you let me
+do the piloting, I'll make the best of that." Pat always decided things
+that way, but nobody resented his high-hand manner, since he looked, and
+was, the sort of man who could make good on any job he undertook. "Well,
+Bob, my lad," he said, turning to the boy, "how about going up? It's the
+first step in learning to fly. And don't think that it's going to be
+like cabin flying. You'll notice the difference when you get up. Ready?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob.
+
+Pat produced a helmet and some goggles. "It's an open cockpit you're
+sitting in," he said. "And see that the goggles fit tightly."
+
+Bob wiggled them around. "They seem all right," he said.
+
+"All right, hop in," Pat told him.
+
+Bob climbed into the rear cockpit, no less thrilled by his second flight
+that day than he had been by his first. He waved his hand to the Captain
+and Hal who were watching them. Pat climbed into the front cockpit.
+"Ready?" he called.
+
+"O. K!" shouted Bob.
+
+Pat started the motor, which was a self-starter. The plane taxied gently
+across the field, and Pat turned her nose into the wind. Bob felt her
+lift from the earth; there was a bump--they hadn't quite cleared; Pat
+speeded up, until Bob, looking over the side of the cockpit, could see
+the ground slipping by dizzily. Then the bumping stopped; they had left
+the ground. This time they did not again bump; the Marianne soared into
+the air.
+
+Bob could feel the blast of air against his face, and he was glad his
+goggles fitted well. The motor roared, the wind screamed. Bob tried to
+shout, but could not hear himself uttering a sound. He looked down. The
+airport looked as it had from the other plane. Now he had more of the
+feeling of flying. There was a sudden bump. The Marianne dropped
+suddenly. Bob felt as though he were in an elevator that had descended
+very suddenly--there was the same pit-of-the-stomach feeling. Air bump,
+he thought, and it was. He looked over the side again, and could see
+nothing. They were traveling pretty high.
+
+Then suddenly the roar of the motor stopped, and they began to descend
+at what Bob felt must be an almost unbelievable speed. At first Bob was
+frightened, but then realized that they were gliding down. Every now and
+then Pat turned on his engine again. Bob, looking over the side, could
+see the fields coming up to meet them. They landed so gently that he
+hardly felt the jolt of the wheels touching the ground.
+
+How funny to stand on the stable ground once more! The sound of the
+motor was still roaring in Bob's ears. He pulled off the goggles and
+helmet. "It was marvelous!" he shouted loudly to his friends.
+
+"We can hear you," said the Captain. "You needn't shout!"
+
+"Was I shouting?" laughed Bob.
+
+"You are," said the Captain.
+
+But Pat had turned to Hal. "Well, lad, you're next."
+
+But Hal said what he had been rehearsing for many minutes, in fact, ever
+since Bob had taken to the air. "Don't you think it's rather late? We
+haven't had any lunch. Maybe we could go up again after lunch."
+
+Captain Bill, who knew the struggle that was going on in Hal's heart,
+and who was getting hungry anyway, said, "Lunch. That's the idea. We've
+got a great picnic lunch, Pat."
+
+"Lead me to it," said Pat.
+
+"Knew that would get you," laughed the Captain.
+
+They left the plane in charge of a mechanic, who was to look after it,
+and went over to the automobile that the Captain had parked. They
+decided, on Bob's suggestion, to eat on a grassy slope from which they
+could see the airport.
+
+"I've got an idea," said the Captain. "You can start your story about
+Lindbergh."
+
+"I'm ready," said Bob, "if you're ready to listen. I think I know the
+story backwards and forward."
+
+"Begin at the beginning, always," the Captain warned.
+
+They reached the spot where they had chosen to picnic, and settled back
+contentedly in the long grass to hear part of Bob's story before lunch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--The Eagle
+
+
+"Well," began Bob, "I guess my story isn't going to be very new to any
+of you. Gee, I know it almost by heart, and I suppose everybody else
+does, too."
+
+"Don't apologize," said the Captain. "We'll be only too glad to stop you
+if we've heard it before. I don't think that we will, though. It's a
+story that bears repeating."
+
+Bob's eyes lighted up. "You bet," he said. "I never get tired of reading
+about it." He plucked at the grass beside him. "Gee, it makes a fellow
+want to do things. It makes him feel that the older folks don't know
+everything--"
+
+"A-hem," interrupted Captain Bill.
+
+Bob laughed. "You're not old folks, old bean. Don't flatter yourself.
+Anyway, they told Lindbergh that he couldn't do it. They told him that
+his plane was carrying too much, and he'd never be able to make it
+alone."
+
+"Did he?" said Pat.
+
+Bob looked at him disgustedly. "Did he! Don't make fun of me, you old
+Irishman!"
+
+The old Irishman looked grieved. "Well, I just wanted to know. I'm
+always willing to learn somethin' new. And you'd better get started, or
+we'll never know. We'll be leaving the lad up in the air, so to speak."
+
+"Ignore that ape," said Captain Bill, "and proceed."
+
+"Lindbergh didn't listen to them. He just went ahead and did what he
+thought was right, and by golly, he was right. It makes a fellow feel
+that even if he is young he can do things. He doesn't just have to sit
+around and do what everybody else has done before. There's got to be a
+first every time. Lindy wasn't afraid just because nobody had ever flown
+the Atlantic alone before, and the wiseacres said that it couldn't be
+done. He just went ahead and flew it."
+
+"It wasn't as easy as all that," quietly remarked Hal.
+
+Bob turned to him. "Of course not. Lindy had planned every move that he
+was going to make. He was prepared for anything. That's why he's always
+so successful. He has his plans all laid before he ever takes off. He's
+got all the courage in the world, but he's not reckless."
+
+"Put that under your hat, my lad. It's a good lesson to know by heart
+when you're going into the flying game."
+
+"You bet," said Bob. "Gee, it needed a lot of courage for him to make
+that take-off. I've got the date down here. It was May 20, 1927, on a
+Friday. That must have been an exciting morning down at Roosevelt Field.
+He made up his mind on Thursday afternoon. They told him that the
+weather was all right over the North Atlantic, and that it would be best
+if he started out the next morning.
+
+"He didn't tell anybody about his plans. He never talks very much
+anyway. Everybody found that out later. It was all sort of secret. He
+just told his mechanics to get the Spirit of St. Louis ready, and keep
+their mouths shut. I guess he didn't want everybody messing around with
+his plans. But the men who delivered his gasoline weren't so secret, I
+guess, and somehow his plans leaked out Thursday night.
+
+"That Thursday night was pretty awful. It was raining, and the weather
+could be cut with a knife. But once people found out that Slim was going
+to start, they began to come around to Curtiss Field, and at two o'clock
+in the morning there was a big crowd of them standing around in the rain
+and mud. Slim wasn't leaving from Curtiss, though, and they towed his
+plane by truck over to Roosevelt. They got there just about when it was
+getting light.
+
+"There was a crowd over at Curtiss, too. But Slim didn't care. Crowds
+never mean much to him. He saw a whole lot more of them later on, too,
+but he never was one to strut or show off. He just got into his
+fur-lined suit, and waited for the men to start his engine. Somebody
+asked him if he had only five sandwiches and two canteens of water.
+'Sure,' he said. 'If I get to Paris, I won't need any more, and if I
+don't get there, I won't need any more, either.' It was just like him to
+say that, but the real reason he didn't take any more was because he had
+too much weight already. He had over 200 gallons of gas, and the load
+was heavy. He had to cut down on everything that wasn't absolutely
+necessary.
+
+"Well, they started his motor for him. The plane was standing on the
+Roosevelt runway, which is pretty smooth, and five thousand feet long.
+The weather had cleared up a little. And there was the monoplane looking
+all silver and slick, roaring away for all it was worth. Lindy said
+goodbye to his mother, and to Byrd and Chamberlin and Acosta, who were
+planning their own trips across the Atlantic, and then he stepped into
+the cockpit, and closed the door.
+
+"He raced his motor a little bit. She must have sounded pretty sweet to
+him, because he gave her the gun, and off he went. That start must have
+been one of the hardest parts of the whole trip. The Spirit of St. Louis
+bumped along that muddy runway, and the people watching thought she'd go
+over on her nose any moment. She was over-loaded. Her motor was pulling
+for all she was worth, but it didn't seem as though they'd ever make it.
+She went off the ground a few feet, and bounced down again. But then the
+crowd held its breath. She was leaving the ground. They were up about
+fifteen feet. And there were telegraph wires in their path. If they hit
+those, the trip to Paris was over right then. But they didn't. The
+landing gear cleared by a few inches. That crowd simply roared. But Slim
+didn't hear them. He was on his way to Paris."
+
+Bob paused for breath. He had been talking very fast, carried away by
+his story. The others did not speak, but sat waiting for him to go on.
+They had all heard the story before, but as the Captain had said, it
+bore repeating, and they could hear it again and again. There was
+something agelessly appealing in the tale of that young man's feat.
+
+Bob was talking again. "I'm not much at poetry," he said.
+
+"You bet you're not," said Captain Bill. "I've read some of yours."
+
+Bob glared at him. "I never wrote a poem!" he said defensively.
+
+The Captain looked contrite. "It must have been Hal," he said. "I beg
+your pardon. Go on with your story. Where does the poetry come in?"
+
+"I was going to tell you, before you interrupted, so rudely, that
+there's somebody who's written a poem--a lot of poetry, to music--a
+cantata I think they call it. It's about Lindy's flight, and it tells
+the story of the flight across the Atlantic. I guess it's pretty
+thrilling. Maybe that's the only way the story can be told--in poetry and
+music, because it always sounds pretty flat when you just say Lindy flew
+across the Atlantic in a monoplane. It needs music, with a lot of
+trumpets--"
+
+"Go on, go on, my lad. More words, less music." Pat seemed to be getting
+impatient. The sun was pretty high over their heads now, and bees were
+buzzing drowsily in the tall grass all around them. Hal had stretched
+out on his stomach, facing the little group, which was seated now in a
+semi-circle. "I'll be falling asleep if you don't get on."
+
+Bob laughed embarrassedly. "All right, you just stop me if I get to
+rambling. You keep me straight, Irish."
+
+Captain Bill leaned back on a hummock of earth, his arms folded behind
+his head. "I'm so comfortable, I could listen to anything, even to Bob
+telling a story. Go on, Bob."
+
+"One more crack, and you don't hear anything," said Bob. "Remember the
+rules, no interruptions from the gallery."
+
+"We stand corrected. Go on."
+
+Bob settled himself once again into the grass. "Well, we've got Lindy
+into the air. No sooner had he set out when people began reporting that
+they'd seen him. Some of them had. A lot of them were just excited
+individuals who'd heard a motorcycle back-firing. But somebody actually
+did see him flying over Rhode Island, and about two hours, nearly, after
+he had set out, they flashed back that he'd been seen at Halifax,
+Massachusetts. Then he dropped out of sight. Nobody reported seeing him.
+That was because he took an over-water route, and was out some distance,
+flying along the coast of New England.
+
+"They saw him next over Nova Scotia, running along nicely, and then
+Springfield, Nova Scotia saw him. It was about one o'clock, and he was
+going strong. But he was getting into a dangerous region, cold and
+foggy. They had watchers looking for him everywhere. Lindy left Nova
+Scotia at Cape Breton, headed for Newfoundland. It was pretty stiff
+going, about 200 miles without sight of land, and over a pretty
+treacherous sea. But at 7:15 they saw him flying low over St. John's, in
+Newfoundland. They could see the number on the wings, and sent back word
+to the world that he had passed there. And that was the last word that
+anybody received that Friday.
+
+"The going had been pretty good until then. The weather was clear, and
+the ceiling pretty high. But as soon as it got dark, Lindy and his plane
+hit some pretty bad weather. It grew mighty cold, and a thick swirling
+fog came up and swallowed up the plane. This was mighty tough, because
+if he flew low, he was bound to run into one of the icebergs that were
+floating in the icy sea. So he climbed up to about 10,000 feet, and
+stayed there. Flying high was all right, but it added another danger.
+Ice was forming on the wings of the Spirit of St. Louis, and if it got
+thick enough, it would break off a wing of the plane, and send the plane
+and Lindy into the sea.
+
+"Lindy could have turned back, but he didn't. He kept right on, through
+fog and sleet and rain. His motor never missed. It was a good pal, and
+no wonder he included it in his feat, and said later that 'we crossed
+the Atlantic.'
+
+"When morning came, a whole flock of cables came, too. It seems a whole
+lot of ships had sighted Lindy's plane, or somebody's plane, anywhere
+from 500 to 100 miles off the coast of Ireland, where he was headed.
+Nobody knew who to believe, but at 10:00 o'clock came the real news,
+that he was over a place called Valencia, Ireland.
+
+"Lindy wondered where he was, himself. Flying blind as he had, he didn't
+know just where he had come out. So he decided to ask the first person
+he met. Now you can imagine the air roads weren't full of planes flying
+to Ireland, and Lindy had to wait until he sighted a fishing schooner.
+He swooped low and shouted out, 'Am I headed for Ireland?' The fishermen
+were so astounded that they couldn't answer, so Lindy flew on his
+course, depending as he had all night, on his compass. Pretty soon he
+came in sight of land, and knew that it was Ireland."
+
+"Because it was so beautiful," said Pat.
+
+"No, because it was rocky, and his maps indicated that the land would be
+rocky," said Bob.
+
+"Oh, no doubt he could tell it was Ireland," insisted Pat. "His mother
+was Irish, you know, and it needs mighty little Irish blood to make a
+man long for the ould sod."
+
+"Well, anyway, there he was over Ireland," put in Bob, pointedly. "And
+from Ireland, on to England, and from England, on to France. Along the
+Seine, and then Paris. They were waiting for him at Le Bourget, and sent
+up flares and rockets, long before he got there. Maybe they weren't
+excited when he flew into range! It was about 8:30, that is, French
+time, but about 5:30 New York time, when Lindy and the Spirit of St.
+Louis circled around the landing field at Le Bourget and landed. Golly,
+I wish I'd been there. The first man in the world to fly the Atlantic,
+landing before my very eyes! He'd gone 3,640 miles, and had made it in
+33½ hours. Some going!
+
+"Well, he was there. And he got out of the plane. And you all know what
+he said when he got out. I--"
+
+"I am Charles Lindbergh," said Captain Bill and Pat, not quite in
+unison.
+
+"Yup," said Bob, "'I am Charles Lindbergh.' He thought that they
+wouldn't know who he was. He'd been flying pretty low over Ireland and
+England, and so far as he could see, nobody had paid much attention to
+him. So he introduced himself, just as though every man, woman and child
+in every civilized country wasn't saying that very name all through the
+day. Remember when we heard the news over the radio, Hal? We were so
+excited we nearly upset the furniture. Golly, that was a day.
+
+"Well, that was Slim Lindbergh's flight, and now about Slim himself. He
+was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 2, 1902, and that means that
+he was only twenty-five years old when he made his greatest flight,
+which is pretty young to become the most famous man in the world.
+
+"His dad was Charles A. Lindbergh, and he died in 1924, when he was
+running for governor of Minnesota on the Farmer-Labor ticket. He'd been
+a Representative in Congress before. Lindy and he were great pals, and
+played around together a lot. Lindy's mother was Irish, and taught
+school in Detroit.
+
+"Lindy went to school in Little Falls, and to Little Falls High School.
+He graduated from there when he was 16. He was good in Math and in other
+things he liked, but not in grammar.
+
+"Lindy didn't go right to college. In fact, he didn't go until three
+years after he'd graduated from high school, and then he went to the
+University of Wisconsin, to take up mechanical engineering. He was good
+at that. He'd always liked to tinker, and he got his chance there. He
+did at college just what you'd expect him to do. He had some friends and
+acquaintances, but mostly he kept to himself. He was the same quiet, shy
+person that everybody got to know later, when he became famous.
+
+"Slim didn't stay at Wisconsin very long, so we don't know what he would
+have finally done there. He went over to Lincoln, Nebraska, where they
+had a flying school, and asked them to teach him to fly. They taught him
+the beginnings of flying, and from the moment his hands touched the
+controls, he knew that this was what he was cut out for. He just took
+naturally to those levers and gadgets, and could handle his plane like a
+toy.
+
+"It seems that Lindy was born to be a pilot. He's built for one, in the
+first place. Long and rangy, and slim. No extra weight, but plenty of
+muscle and endurance. He's got a lot of nerve and never gets excited He
+showed that when he got himself elected to the Caterpillar Club. But
+I'll get to that later." Here Bob paused, and looked up at the sun,
+which was just slipping a little westward. "Say," he said. "Would you
+folks mind if I continued my story later? I feel just a little empty.
+How about the food?"
+
+"I've been thinking that for a long time," said the Captain. "But rules
+are rules. I didn't want to interrupt you."
+
+Bob snorted. "Say, for food you can interrupt me any time. Let's go."
+
+He jumped up, stretched himself, and made for the car, to get out the
+huge hamper of lunch. "Say," he called back, "Lindy may have been
+satisfied with five sandwiches all the way to Paris, but darned if I
+couldn't eat five right now." He carried the hamper over to the knoll
+where the others were. They were all standing now, limbering up,
+stretching, sniffing the good air, and looking eagerly toward the food.
+
+"Here, lend a hand," said Bob. He plumped down the basket so that they
+could hear the rattle of forks and tin cups within, and sat down beside
+it.
+
+"You're the host," said Hal, seating himself comfortably on the grass
+and looking on. "It's your party. We have to listen to your story, so
+the least you can do is feed us."
+
+Bob had opened the hamper, and was viewing its contents eagerly. He
+dived into the basket. "Say, anybody who doesn't help himself, doesn't
+eat. Fall to."
+
+They fell to, doing much eating but little talking. Finally Bob sat
+back, a sandwich in one hand, a cup of steaming coffee out of the
+thermos bottle in the other. "I have a suspicion," he said, "that you
+don't like my story."
+
+"Don't get ideas like that, Bob, my lad," said Pat. "We love your story.
+We just like sandwiches better."
+
+"All right, then I won't finish," said Bob. "I'm going to be
+independent."
+
+Hal looked up. "Not finish? You've got finish any story you start."
+
+"One of the rules? There aren't any rules. You just made that up."
+
+Hal was cajoling now. "Aw, come on, Bob. We want to hear the end. Come
+on, tell us the rest."
+
+Bob bit into a huge slice of cake. He shook his head. "Nope, no end."
+
+"Well, at least about the Caterpillar Club. At least you'll tell us how
+Lindy saved his life by bailing out. We've got to hear that."
+
+But Bob was adamant. "I've been insulted. I'm not going on. Anyway,
+Lindy didn't save his life once by bailing out of a plane."
+
+"He didn't? You said a little while ago that he did."
+
+"I didn't say once. He became eligible to the Caterpillar Club four
+times."
+
+Hal looked at Bob with disgust. "I must say that you're being very
+disagreeable."
+
+Captain Bill, who had been looking on in amusement, suddenly laughed
+very loudly. "Don't coax him, Hal. He doesn't need coaxing. He's going
+to tell the rest of the story, don't you worry. Wild horses couldn't
+keep him from finishing the tale. Could they, Bob, old man?"
+
+Bob looked over at his uncle and grinned. "Why, you old sinner. What a
+way to talk about your favorite nephew. But now that you mention it,
+maybe I did intend to finish the story, seeing that I'd started it. Now,
+where was I?"
+
+Pat was clearing up the debris made by four men eating a picnic lunch.
+"You've got Lindbergh at the Nebraska flying school for a long time."
+
+"Oh, not very long," said Bob. "You see, he stayed there really a short
+time. In fact, he never did any solo flying there."
+
+"Well, why not?" asked Hal.
+
+"They asked for a five-hundred dollar bond from every student before he
+went up on his first solo flight. This seemed silly to Lindy, and he
+left the school.
+
+"When he left, he did what so many of the flyers were doing then. He
+went out west, and did stunting, risking his neck at county fairs and
+air circuses to give the people a thrill. He did, too. He handled his
+plane like a toy, doing rolls, tail spins, and every kind of stunt
+imaginable. But the most exciting thing that he did, and it usually
+isn't an exciting thing at all, was landing his plane. He could land on
+a dime, and as lightly as a feather. That's really piloting, isn't it,
+Bill?"
+
+"You bet," said the Captain. He was sprawled out on his back, enjoying
+his after dinner rest. "A landing will show you your flyer's ability
+every time. Provided, of course, that he has a fairly decent landing
+field. Did I ever tell you the story that Hawks tells in his
+autobiography? Do you mind if I interrupt for just a minute, Bob?"
+
+"Oh, no, go right ahead," said Bob, witheringly. "Go right ahead. I was
+just telling a story."
+
+"Thanks," said Captain Bill with a grin. "I will. Well, it seems that
+Hawks was stunting down in Mexico, and doing quite a bit of private
+flying. He got a commission to fly a Congressman and a General, I think
+it was, back to their home town of Huatemo. Have you ever heard of
+Huatemo? I thought not. Well, Huatemo had never seen an airplane close
+up, and the two high muckamucks decided that they'd give the natives a
+thrill by coming back via plane. Hawks had them wire ahead to have a
+landing field prepared. The native officials wired that they had a fine
+field, clear of all obstructions, but dotted with a few small trees.
+'Fine, says Hawks, but have them remove the trees immediately.' The
+natives said that this had been done, and the party started out.
+
+"After several adventures, Hawks flew over Huatemo, and prepared to
+spiral down to the landing field. Imagine his chagrin and surprise, my
+dear boys, when he discovered, that the officials of Huatemo had indeed
+cut down the Huateman trees, but had left the stumps standing!"
+
+"Whew," said Bob. "What did he do, turn around?"
+
+"No, he couldn't. And anyway, there was no other place to land. The
+field was surrounded by dense forests. He had to make it. He brought his
+plane down without hitting a stump, and then zig-zagged wildly from
+stump to stump like a croquet ball trying to miss wickets. And he missed
+them all, too, except one. The wheel hit it an awful smack, and
+collapsed. The plane tilted up on its nose, and came to rest with its
+propeller in the ground and its tail waving gayly in the air, not at all
+like a proper plane should."
+
+"And killed them all," said Pat.
+
+"Who, Hawks? Not on your life. He's a lucky fellow. Not one of them was
+hurt. They climbed out of the plane, and were greeted by the natives,
+joyously and with acclaim. And not one of the natives seemed to suspect
+in the least that this wasn't the way a plane should land. Or at least
+the way a crazy American would land a plane." The Captain finished his
+story, and paused.
+
+"Well," said Bob grudgingly, "that was a good story, too. But, as I was
+saying, Lindy was a good stunter, and a good flyer. He decided that he
+wanted a plane of his own. He heard that there was going to be a sale of
+army planes down in Georgia, and he went down and bought a Curtiss Jenny
+with the money that he had saved from his stunting work. He fixed it up,
+and was soon off barnstorming again. But I guess the Jenny was too
+clumsy a boat for Lindy. He wanted to fly the newer, better planes that
+the army had. So he joined the army's training school at Brook Field,
+San Antonio. This was when he was 22 years old.
+
+"I guess he got along pretty fine at San Antonio, and he was sent down
+to the pursuit school at Kelly Field. He joined the Caterpillar Club
+there. It was the first time that he had to jump from a moving plane and
+get down with his parachute. I guess it was a pretty close shave."
+
+"Gee, how did it happen?" said Hal, his eyes wide.
+
+"Wait a second, I'm coming to it," said Bob. "He and another officer
+were to go up and attack another plane that they called the enemy. It
+was a sort of problem they had to work out. Well, Slim dove at the enemy
+from the left, and the other fellow from the right. The enemy plane
+pulled up, but Lindy and the other officer kept on going, dead toward
+each other. There was an awful crack, and their wings locked. The two
+planes began to spin around and drop through the air. Lindy did the only
+thing there was to do. He kept his head, stepped out on one of the
+damaged wings, and stepped off backwards. He didn't pull the rip-cord
+until he had fallen quite a way, because he didn't want the ships to
+fall on him. When he'd gone far enough, he pulled the cord, and floated
+gently down. That was the first."
+
+"And the second?" said Hal.
+
+"The second," went on Bob, "happened in 1927, just about a year before
+Lindy flew the Atlantic. He took a new type of plane up to test her. He
+put her through all the stunts that he could think of, and she stood
+them all right. It seemed as though she was going to come through the
+test O.K., when Lindy put her into a tail spin. They spiraled down for a
+while, and Lindy tried to pull her out of it. She wouldn't respond and
+went completely out of control. Lindy tugged and yanked at the controls,
+but he couldn't get that bus to go into a dive. He did his best to save
+the ship, but it was no use. He didn't give up until they were about 300
+feet from the ground, which is a mighty short distance to make a jump,
+if you ask me. But Lindy made it, and landed in somebody's back yard,
+the wind knocked out of him, but otherwise all right. That was the
+second."
+
+"And the third?" asked Hal.
+
+"We're getting ahead of the story. In fact, we're ahead of the story
+already. Before he made his second jump, Lindy had joined the Missouri
+National Guard, and was promoted to a Captaincy in the Reserve and
+Flight Commander of the 110th Observation Squadron. That's how he got to
+be a Captain, you know how he got to be a Colonel.
+
+"Then Lindy joined the Robertson Aircraft Corporation, at St. Louis.
+While he was with them, he helped map out the first mail route from St.
+Louis to Chicago, and was the first pilot to carry mail along this
+route. Slim had a habit of starting things off. He was the first to do a
+lot of things. No sitting back and waiting for others to start things.
+It was first or nothing for him. Maybe it was his Viking ancestors, I
+don't know.
+
+"It was while he was flying this route that Lindy had his third
+initiation into the Caterpillars. He took off one September afternoon
+from Lambert Field, in St. Louis, on his way to Maywood. Just outside of
+Peoria a fog rolled in, so thick you could cut it with a knife, Lindy
+could climb up over it for flying, but he couldn't land blind. He
+dropped a flare, but it only lit up a cloud bank. He saw lights, then,
+through the fog, and knew that he was around Maywood, but couldn't get
+the exact location of the field. He'd circled around for two hours, when
+his engine sputtered and died. The tank was dry. Lindy quickly turned on
+the reserve gravity tank. There was twenty minutes of flying in that
+tank, and Lindy had to think fast.
+
+"He tried flares again, but it was no use. When he had just a few
+minutes of gas left, he saw the glow of a town. He didn't want to take a
+chance on landing in a town and killing somebody, so he headed for open
+country. In a few minutes his engine died. Lindy stepped out into the
+blind fog and jumped. After falling a hundred feet, he pulled the
+rip-cord, and left the rest to chance. Every once in a while his ship
+appeared, twirling away in spirals, the outside of the circle about 300
+yards away from Lindy. He counted five spirals, and then lost sight of
+the bus. He landed in a corn field, shaken, of course, but all right. He
+found his way to the farm house, and told the farmer who he was. The
+farmer, who had heard the crash of the plane as it smashed to earth
+wouldn't believe that this safe and sound man was the pilot of it.
+Finally Lindy convinced him, and they went in search of the plane, which
+the farmer was sure had landed close to his house. They found it two
+miles away, looking not much like a plane, but a heap of rubbish. The
+mail wasn't hurt. They got it to a train for Chicago, and the mail went
+through. It always does, you know."
+
+"Yup, it always does," said Captain Bill.
+
+"That reminds me of a story," said Pat.
+
+"Hold it," said Bob. "I've got another parachute for Lindy."
+
+"Fire away," said Pat. "But remember to remind me not to forget to tell
+you my own story."
+
+"All right," Bob put in. "Now the fourth time Lindy jumped was not long
+before his big flight. He was still flying for Robertson's, carrying
+mail to Chicago. Just south of Peoria he ran into rain that changed to
+snow. Lindy flew around, waiting for the fog to lift, until he heard his
+motor sputter and die. He was up about 13,000 feet when he stepped out
+of the cockpit and jumped into the air. He landed on a barbed wire
+fence. Tore his shirt, but the plane was pretty much of a wreck. He
+grabbed the air mail; hurried to a train for Chicago, got another plane,
+and flew the mail through. A little late, but still, it got through. And
+he didn't bat an eye. Not one of the jumps fazed him a bit.
+
+"But it wasn't as though Lindy jumped at the slightest sign of anything
+going wrong. He stayed with his plane until the very last minute, doing
+everything he could to save it. He hated worse than anything to have a
+plane smashed up. Look how long he stayed with that new plane he was
+testing out--until he was just 300 feet above the ground.
+
+"Well, Lindy was one of the best mail pilots that the Robertson
+corporation had, in fact, he was their chief pilot. They could depend on
+him to go out in weather that no other pilot would think of bucking. He
+didn't show off. Just knew that he could fly through anything, and he
+did.
+
+"At this time there was a lot of excitement in the air. Orteig was
+offering his $25,000 prize for the first man to cross the Atlantic, and
+there were a lot of aviators who would have liked the prize, and were
+trying for it. Of course, the money wasn't the whole thing. There was
+the honor attached to it. And besides, there was the fact that crossing
+the Atlantic would make people sit up and take notice that flying wasn't
+as dangerous as they thought. If a man could fly all that distance in a
+plane, maybe planes weren't the death traps that some people had an idea
+they were. Lindy must have been thinking of this when he first decided
+that he'd like to try for the Orteig prize. Because everything that he's
+done since his flight has been to get people interested in aviation.
+
+"But it takes money to fly across the ocean. You've got to get a special
+plane and all that. Lindy had to have backers. He couldn't get them at
+first. Everybody tried to discourage him. In the first place, he looked
+such a kid. He was twenty-five, and that's young, but he didn't even
+look twenty-five. The men he asked to back him all but told him to run
+home and wait until he had grown up.
+
+"Then Major Robertson, Lindy's Big Boss, tried to get backers for him.
+He knew that Lindy could fly and finally got some influential men to put
+up $15,000 for his flight. Maybe Lindy wasn't glad! He tucked his check
+in his pocket and went on a shopping trip for a plane. He tried the
+Bellanca people in New York, but they didn't have what he wanted, so he
+skipped to San Diego to the Ryan Airways, Inc., and told them what he
+wanted. They put their engineers to work on his specifications, and
+designed him a Ryan monoplane, the neat stream-lined job that was
+christened the Spirit of St. Louis. It's a graceful bird--but you've all
+seen so many pictures of it, you know what it looks like. It has a wing
+span of 46 feet, and an overall length of over 27 feet. They put in a
+Wright engine--a Whirlwind, 200 horsepower. It's a radial engine. You two
+probably know what a radial engine is, but Hal here doesn't." Bob paused
+and turned to Hal. "Do you?"
+
+"Uh-uh," grunted Hal. "Do you?"
+
+"Of course I do. It's one in which the cylinders aren't in a straight
+line or in a V, but arranged around an axis, like the spokes of a wheel.
+Lindy's plane had two spark plugs for each cylinder, so that in case one
+missed, there was another one ready. She could carry 450 gallons of gas
+and twenty gallons of oil, and she was loaded to the gills when Lindy
+took her off the ground at the Field.
+
+"Suppose Lindy wasn't anxious about that plane. He hung around the
+factory all the time that it was being built, and made suggestions to
+help along Hawley Bowlus, who built the thing. You know Hawley Bowlus.
+The fellow who held the glider record until Lindy took it away from
+him--but that's later. Bowlus knows how to build planes, and Lindy swears
+by him.
+
+"Well, they got the plane finished in 60 days, which isn't bad time. Out
+in New York, Byrd and Chamberlin and the others were getting ready to
+fly the Atlantic. It's wasn't really a race to see who would be first,
+but of course, there's no doubt that each one was anxious to be the
+first man to cross the Atlantic. Because after all, nobody likes to be
+second. So Lindy had to get out to the east coast as fast as he could.
+He could hardly wait for the plane to be finished. But at last it was,
+and all the equipment in place. Lindy climbed into the cockpit to test
+her out. The cockpit was inclosed. I don't know whether I told that
+before or not. Anyway, he could see out little windows on each side, but
+he couldn't see ahead, or above him. So it was really flying blind all
+the time, except for a sliding periscope that he could pull in or out at
+the side, in case he had to see straight ahead. But Lindy doesn't mind
+blind flying. He's a wonderful navigator.
+
+"Well, Lindy turned over the motor of his new plane, and it sounded
+sweet. He hadn't got it any more than off the ground when he realized
+that this was the plane for him. It responded to every touch, although
+it was a heavy ship, and not much good for stunting. But Lindy didn't
+want to stunt. He wanted to fly to Europe.
+
+"It was on May 10, I think, that he left San Diego. It was in the
+evening, not quite six o'clock. The next morning, a little after eight,
+he got into St. Louis. Took him just a bit over fourteen hours, the
+whole trip. It was the longest cross-country hop that any one man had
+made up to that time. His old pals at Lambert Field were pretty glad to
+see him, and he spent the night at his old stamping grounds. But he
+didn't stay long. Early in the morning he got on his way, and made New
+York in the afternoon, in not quite seven and a half hours. Pretty
+flying.
+
+"Nobody much had heard of Lindy until he started from San Diego. Of
+course, he'd been a dandy mail pilot, but they're usually unnamed
+heroes. Nobody hears about them, and they never get their names in the
+paper unless they crash. Not that they care. They've got their jobs to
+do, and they do them. But when Lindy flew that grand hop from San Diego
+to St. Louis to New York, people began to sit up and take notice. He
+didn't say much after he got to the Curtiss Field.
+
+"Out at Curtiss he spent his time seeing that everything was ready, and
+all his instruments O.K. He had a lot of confidence in himself--he always
+has--but there was no use in taking chances. In back of the pilot's seat
+was a collapsible rubber boat, that he could blow up with two tanks of
+gas that he carried with him. It had light oars, and was supposed to be
+able to float him for a week in case he decided suddenly to come down in
+the middle of the Atlantic instead of flying all the way across. Then
+there were his regular instruments. He had a tachometer, and an
+altimeter, an earth inductor compass, a drift indicator, and--"
+
+Captain Bill interrupted. "Just a minute, just a minute. You say those
+things pretty glibly. Do you know what they mean? What's a tachometer?
+Pat here doesn't know."
+
+Bob looked embarrassed. "Well, they're all pretty necessary instruments.
+I've been meaning to look them up, that is, Gee, I really ought to know,
+oughtn't I?"
+
+"You ought," said the Captain severely. "Do you mind if I interrupt your
+story for just a minute and give you a few pointers? This is mostly for
+you and Hal. You'll never be able to fly unless you understand what the
+instruments on the dashboard are for. Of course a lot of the old flyers,
+like Patrick, here, flew just by instinct, and stuck their heads out
+over the cockpit to see what was happening. A real pilot nowadays,
+though, can be sealed in his cockpit and never see ahead of him from the
+time he takes off until he lands, just so long as his instruments are
+working. He can keep his course over any country, no matter how strange.
+You've got to know your instruments."
+
+"Well, tell us," said Bob.
+
+The Captain sat up. "I guess the first thing that Lindy watched was the
+tachometer. This is the instrument that shows the number of revolutions
+per minute, or R. P. M.'s that the engine is making. A flyer must know
+how many R. P. M.'s his engine must make to maintain a correct flying
+speed, or he'll go into a stall, which is bad. I'll tell you more about
+stalls later. The altimeter registers the height at which the plane is
+flying. It isn't very accurate at low altitudes, but it's all right
+higher up. You soon learn by the feel and the lay of the land how high
+up you are. The exact height doesn't matter in ordinary flying, just so
+that you keep a good altitude. Then there's that most important
+instrument, the earth inductor compass. This is much more accurate than
+a magnetic compass, and it keeps the ship on its course. It operates in
+regard to the electro-magnetic reactions of the earth's field, and
+directions are indicated in reference to magnetic north. To steer by
+this compass, you have to set your desired heading on the controller,
+and then steer to keep the indicator on zero. If you veer to the left,
+the indicator will swing to the left, and to keep on your course you
+must bring your plane back to the right. When he changes his course, the
+pilot consults his maps and graphs, and makes a change in the indicator
+of the compass.
+
+"Then there is the air speed indicator, which shows the speed of the
+plane in the air. This is necessary so that the engine is not
+over-speeded. A pilot never runs his plane at full speed as a general
+thing, because he'll wear out his engine. He keeps it at about 80 per
+cent of its potential speed, which is a good safe margin.
+
+"The turn and bank indicator also reads from zero, and deviates from
+zero when the plane dips. The bubble rides up to the left when the plane
+banks right, and rides up to the right when the plane banks left. When
+the ship is again on an even keel, the indicator goes back to zero. The
+pilot, when he isn't flying blind, can keep his plane level by noticing
+the position of the radiator cap or top of the engine in respect to the
+horizon. But in a heavy fog, or if he can't see over his cockpit, the
+horizon doesn't exist, and a bank and turn indicator is his instrument.
+
+"The instruments that are no less important than these are the oil
+gauge, the gasoline pressure gauge, and the thermometer, which shows
+whether the motor is overheating. If the oil gauge shows that the oil is
+at a good cool temperature, and the gasoline pressure gauge shows that
+the gas pressure is up, the pilot knows that his motor is running
+nicely. The gas pressure gauge won't tell you how much gas you have
+left, though. It's always best to figure how much gas you're going to
+need on a trip, and then take some over for emergencies. Most planes
+also have an emergency tank, so that if one tank gives out, the other
+can be switched on, and will give the flyer time to maneuver about until
+he finds a landing place." Captain Bill paused. "Well, those are your
+instruments. I'll probably have to explain them all over to you again
+when the plane comes, and I start to teach you to fly."
+
+"Oh, no, not to me, you won't," Bob said.
+
+Hal sat quietly looking out over the valley below, saying nothing. He
+had listened intently to the Captain's instructions, but there was an
+odd expression on his face.
+
+Finally Pat snorted. Bob and the others jumped.
+
+"Hi, what's the idea. Is there a story being told, or isn't there a
+story being told? Get on with you."
+
+"It's no fault of mine, Patrick," said Bob, looking meaningly at the
+Captain, who appeared as innocent as a lamb. "I'm always being rudely
+interrupted. But I'll go on. Where was I?"
+
+"The Lindbergh lad was at Curtiss Field, waiting this long time to be
+off," said Pat.
+
+"Oh, yes. Well, when he got word that the weather was O.K., he got his
+sandwiches, his canteens of water, and started off on the greatest
+flight in aviation history. And I've told you about that."
+
+"We seem to be right back where we started from," the Captain said. "Is
+that the end of your story?"
+
+Bob laughed. "By no means. You've got a lot to hear yet. What do you
+suppose I've been collecting dope for all these weeks? I've got a lot to
+tell you. Lindy wasn't satisfied with one great trip. He's been flying
+since, and has made some pretty important jaunts. Things happened to him
+after he got back to America loaded down with about every kind of medal
+that one man can get. And I'm going to tell you all of them."
+
+"I suppose we'll have to listen. It's part of the game," Pat said. "But
+not now, my lad." He rose stiffly from the grass. "You're mother will be
+looking for us, and wondering what's become of us. We'd better get for
+home."
+
+"How about continuing in the next issue?" laughed the Captain.
+
+"O.K." said Bob. "You get the rest of it tonight, whether you like it or
+not."
+
+Hal looked up fervently at Bob. "Oh, we like it, Bob. I think it's a
+great story. A great story." The boy's eyes shown in his pale face.
+"Golly, Bob, it must be wonderful to be able to do things like that."
+
+Bob looked uncomfortable as they walked over to the car. "Well, kid, I
+don't see why anybody can't do great things if he's got grit enough.
+That's what it takes--Grit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--More About The Eagle
+
+
+It was after dinner at the Martin's. Captain Bill, Pat, and the two boys
+had gone out to the garden. The Captain and Bob were stretched out in
+two deck chairs, the Captain's long legs sticking out a long way past
+the end of the low foot-rest. Pat lay in the glider, swinging himself
+lazily, squeaking in a melancholy rhythm at each forward and back push,
+Hal, who had got permission from his mother to eat dinner with the
+Martin's, lay on a rug thrown down on the grass. The dusk was turning to
+dark, and the Captain's pipe was beginning to show up as a dull glow in
+the fading light.
+
+For a while nobody spoke. Then Pat said, "Well, Robert, tell us the end
+of your story."
+
+"I've been thinking of where to start. We left Lindy over in Europe,
+coming back to the United States. He didn't come right back, though. He
+had to tour about some of the foreign countries, as an ambassador of
+good will, and get decorated with about every kind of medal that was
+ever made. It must have been pretty boring for him to go to banquet
+after banquet, and listen to all those speeches praising him. He must
+have blushed like anything at some of those flowery compliments. But he
+stayed calm, and didn't lose his head and get all swelled up over the
+receptions and cheers and everything. He knew that everybody meant every
+word he said, and that they were mighty pleased with him. They gave him
+all sorts of presents. He could have started a store with them. But I
+guess that most of them are in the Lindbergh museum now.
+
+"Well, the honors they heaped on Lindy in France and England and Belgium
+were nothing to what was waiting for him when he got back to the United
+States. New York turned out, it seemed, to a man. They had a parade
+miles long, with Lindy the chief attraction, sitting on top of an open
+car, smiling at the mobs of screaming, shouting people all along the
+way. It rained ticker tape for hours, and people in offices tore up
+telephone books and added the bits of paper to the rainstorm. Nobody
+could do enough for the Colonel." Bob looked around at the group. "He
+wasn't the Captain any more," he explained. "He was now Colonel
+Lindbergh. Well, anyway, there were banquets and parties, until Lindy
+had to leave. St. Louis started where New York left off. After all it
+was St. Louis where Lindy had found his backers, and naturally they were
+pretty proud of him there. Slim took it all smiling, just as modest as
+he'd been from the beginning. There was no fussing him. And the people
+loved it. Slim was the most talked-about hero the United States has ever
+adopted. Why, you remember that almost everything from candy-bars to
+swimming suits were named after him--and a whole lot of new babies, too.
+All the kids in America were crazy about him, and they all wore
+aviator's helmets and made plans to become aviators as soon as they were
+old enough. It seems that Lindy's plan was pretty successful. He wanted
+to get people to talking and thinking about airplanes, and believe me,
+they didn't talk or think about much else from the time he set out from
+Roosevelt field."
+
+"You'd think that he'd be tired and ready for a rest after his flight,
+and his receptions, but even though he may have been tired, he thought
+he'd strike while the iron was hot, and follow up his good work, this
+business of getting people aviation conscious. And I guess, too, he felt
+that he owed something to the people of the United States for being so
+kind to him, so Lindy set out on a trip around the country. He stopped
+at almost every important city, and covered every state in the union. He
+traveled almost 20,000 miles. And that's some traveling. Just think if
+he'd had to travel that distance in a train! He'd be going yet. Well,
+every place that he stopped gave him three rousing cheers, and then
+some. You'd think that by that time he'd be pretty tired. If it had been
+me, I'd have turned around and bitten some of the welcoming committee.
+But not Lindy. He stuck it out, and smiled at them all.
+
+"And after the country-wide tour was over, he took his Mexican and
+Central American and South American trip. It was this trip that clinched
+his name of 'Good Will Ambassador,' although he'd been one to all of the
+European countries that he went to. In December, seven months after his
+famous flight, he pointed the nose of the old Spirit of St. Louis south,
+and lit out for Mexico City.
+
+"They were pretty anxious to see him down there, and the Mexican
+National aviation field was crowded long before Lindy was due to get
+there. Everybody knew that this was one flyer who always got places when
+he said he'd get there. He was never off schedule. So imagine how
+everybody felt when the time set by him to reach Mexico City passed, and
+no Lindy showed up. Well, they were all set to call out the reserves,
+when Slim Lindbergh winged into sight, and made a sweet landing on the
+Mexican field.
+
+"There was some cheering--more, maybe than if he'd got there on schedule,
+although you don't see how that could be possible. They gave Lindy a
+chance to explain that he'd been lost in the fog, and then they went on
+with their entertaining and celebrating.
+
+"Mexico City was pretty important to Lindbergh, although nobody knew it
+then. Dwight Morrow was Ambassador to Mexico then, and he had a daughter
+named Anne. Well, I don't like to get sentimental--I guess I can't tell
+romantic stories--well, anyway, that part comes later."
+
+Captain Bill saw fit to interrupt the story here. He saw that Bob was
+embarrassed, and saw an opportunity to rub it in. "What part?" he asked,
+innocently, knocking the heel of ash from his pipe as he did so.
+
+"Oh, you know, Lindy's marrying Anne Morrow, and that."
+
+"Well, we certainly demand the whole thing. You can't leave anything
+out," insisted Bill.
+
+"Aw, all right, but it doesn't come in now."
+
+"We can wait," said Bill, and settled back satisfied.
+
+"From Mexico City," went on Bob, grateful that his ordeal bad been put
+off, "Lindy flew off down to Central America. First he zig-zagged a bit
+to get in all of the little countries, and went from Guatemala City to
+Belize in British Honduras, and then back again to San Salvador, and
+from then on straight down the narrow isthmus to Teguci--Teguci--well,
+that place in Honduras."
+
+"Tegucigalpa," said Pat.
+
+"That's it," said Bob. "And from Teguci--and from there, he went on to
+Managua, and then to Costa Rica--San Jose. Now he was just about three
+hundred and twenty-five miles from the Panama Canal, as the crow
+flies--or rather, as Lindy flies, which is much better than any crow I've
+ever seen. He didn't have any trouble making the flight, and say that
+they weren't glad to see him down there, especially in the Canal Zone,
+where the Americans lived. They entertained him royally, and he went
+into the jungles of Panama for a hunting trip, which must have been
+great. They have all sorts of wild hogs, deer and pheasants, and it must
+have made grand hunting.
+
+"But after all, Lindy couldn't stay anyplace very long. South America
+was waiting for him. So he packed himself off, and flew to Cartagena, in
+Colombia, adding another continent to his list. From Cartagena he flew
+to Bogota, and then straight across the top of South America to the east
+coast. He stayed at Maracay, Venezuela. I never heard of it before, did
+any of you?" Bob paused dramatically for a reply.
+
+There was only a dead silence for a second, and then, since none else
+spoke, Hal felt called upon to confess his ignorance, "I never did," he
+said. "And gee, Bob, how do you remember all these places that Lindbergh
+stopped at? I never would in a hundred years."
+
+"Oh, it's easy," said Bob airily. He did not tell them of the long hours
+that he had spent memorizing the towns and cities that Lindbergh had
+stopped at in his good will tour, nor the hundreds of times that he had
+wished that Lindy had flown to some easy place like Canada, where the
+names were all pronounceable. But then, Lindy might have flown to Wales,
+and Bob, having seen Welsh names, thanked his lucky stars for such
+places as Tegucigalpa and Bogota. And now, having at least impressed
+Hal, he went on with renewed enthusiasm.
+
+"Maracay," he said, "was the jumping off place for the thousand-mile
+jump to the Virgin Islands. You see, Lindy was on his way back to the
+United States. He hopped from island to island in the Caribbean Sea,
+stopping at San Juan, Porto Rico; Santo Domingo; Port-au-Prince in
+Hayti; and then to Havana. From Havana he made the biggest hop of all,
+and landed smack in St. Louis without sitting down once along the way.
+He made some twelve hundred miles in about fifteen and a half hours.
+
+"Somebody figured up how long he had flown, and how long he took for the
+whole 'good will' trip, and found out that he'd made sixteen flights to
+fifteen countries, and had gone 8,235 miles in one hundred and a half
+hours. Of course, that was actual flying time. The trip had taken him
+just two months, because he got back to St. Louis on February 13th, and
+he'd left Boiling Field at Washington on December 13th. But in those two
+months Lindy accomplished a great deal. He'd made friends with all the
+little countries down to our south, and with Mexico, too. They
+understood us better, and we got to understand them better. Gee,
+wouldn't it be great if airplanes would make people friendlier? I mean,
+we're so close to each other now, it seems as though we ought to know
+more about each other, and like each other better. I may not be saying
+that so well, but you fellows know what I mean, don't you?"
+
+"That's a very good philosophy," said Captain Bill, and Bob beamed as
+broadly as the moon that had risen over the trees and was shining over
+the little group in the garden. "Let's hope that you're right."
+
+"Well, Lindy palled around with his old buddies at St. Louis, and
+carried mail over his old route to Chicago. He broke up his flights with
+going to New York to get a medal from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for
+international peace and understanding, and then he went to Washington to
+get the Congressional Medal of Honor. And he had to get a new plane,
+too, from the Mahoney people who made the Spirit of St. Louis. I guess
+Lindy hated to part from the old bus. It was still in great condition,
+even though he'd flown 40,000 miles in it. But they wanted to put it in
+the Smithsonian Institution, and he had to get another.
+
+"It was just about this time, in April of 1928, that Lindbergh had to
+put his flying to a stiff test. He was in St. Louis when he learned that
+Floyd Bennett was very sick with pneumonia up in Quebec. Bennett was a
+great fellow, one of the most popular aviators of his time. He'd flown
+with Byrd to the North Pole, you remember. And in April, although he was
+sick, and knew he shouldn't have gone, he flew up to help Captain Koebl
+and Major Fitzmaurice and Baron von Huenefeld, who'd flown across the
+Atlantic, and were forced down off the coast of Labrador. Well, he
+landed with pneumonia in a Quebec hospital, and they needed some serum
+in a hurry to save his life. Lindy offered to fly with it, and took off
+right away for New York. It was 500 miles from New York to Quebec,
+mostly through fog and snow, and blizzards, but Lindy made it in three
+hours and thirty-five minutes. The serum didn't save Floyd Bennett,
+though. That plucky scout died the day after Lindbergh got there. He'd
+put up a great fight, but it was no use. The whole country felt gloomy
+over his death, and Lindy especially so, although he'd done his best to
+save his pal's life.
+
+"In June of that year, that is, in 1928, Lindy,--maybe I should call him
+Charles Augustus Lindbergh, was appointed the chairman of the technical
+committee of the Transcontinental Air Transport, the company sending
+planes cross-country. This gave him the chance to be right in on the
+ground--or rather right in the air--of aviation progress. It wasn't just
+an office job, either, because Lindy flew almost as much after his
+appointment as before.
+
+"In 1929 he kept right on flying. That's not really news. If Lindy
+stopped flying, that would be news. But in February of '29 he flew the
+first mail from Miami to Colon, in the Panama Canal Zone. This was the
+inauguration of the Pan-American Airways.
+
+"In February the Morrows announced the engagement of Anne Morrow to
+Charles Augustus Lindbergh. From then on the reporters and photographers
+hung around in order to be in at the wedding. But Lindy and Anne fooled
+them. They were married in April, and nobody knew anything about it.
+They just got quietly married, and left on their honeymoon in a yacht.
+
+"From then on, whenever Lindy went on a trip, Anne Lindbergh went with
+him. She's a great flyer, and helps Lindy fly on long stretches. She
+pilots while he rests.
+
+"The first long trip they took was in '29. That was the one through
+Central America to Belize, in British Honduras. That covered 7,000
+miles. But they didn't stop long at Belize. They'd gone there for a
+reason. They headed their plane over the Yucatan peninsula, looking for
+Mayan ruins. You know, the Mayan Indians had a wonderful civilization
+all built up long before the white men came to Yucatan. They had a huge
+empire, and big cities with buildings as large as ours. Scientists are
+always digging around down there to uncover the ruins, so that they can
+find out about the Indians, and how they lived, and all that. But it's
+hard to find the places where the Maya Indians had their cities. The
+jungle has grown up so thickly all about them that it takes days and
+months to get to them. And those that aren't on rivers are almost
+impossible to get to.
+
+"So Lindy proved once more that the airplane was a help to science, and
+flew over the old Mayan hang-outs, looking for ruins. He skimmed his
+plane over the tops of the jungles, so low that it seemed he might
+almost reach out his hand and grab a branch of one of those giant trees
+that grow down there, and he flew slowly, too, so that the scientists
+that were with him could take pictures.
+
+"They found what they were after, three cities that hadn't ever been
+discovered before. And it took only four days, where it might have taken
+a party on foot months to do the same thing. Anne Lindbergh helped pilot
+the plane, and take pictures, too.
+
+"There weren't any more exciting flights that year, but early the next
+year, that is, in 1930, Lindy ordered a new plane. It was a
+Lockheed-Sirius, a monoplane with a Wasp motor. It had a
+flattish-looking nose, but it was graceful just the same. It had
+something new that Lindy had designed himself. That was two covers that
+could be slid over the cockpits, so that the pilots would be protected
+in bad weather.
+
+"Lindy and Anne had a use for the plane and the cockpit covers very
+soon. They flew across the country one day and broke the cross-country
+speed record that existed then.
+
+"Hardly anybody knew what they were up to, and there were just a few
+people at the Glendale airport, where they started from. It was a
+terrible day, cold and rainy, and the sun hadn't come up yet to dry
+things out. But the Lindberghs didn't care. They had on suits heated by
+electricity, because they knew that it was going to be even colder where
+they were going.
+
+"A basket of sandwiches, 400 gallons of gas, and they were ready. It was
+hard taking off, because the load was heavy, but Lindy got his
+flat-nosed Sirius into the air beautifully, and they disappeared from
+sight. Disappeared is the word, because for hours nobody saw them. They
+were looking for them, too, because you can bet on it that as soon as
+the Lindberghs took off, everybody knew about it. All over the west the
+cowboys and Indians were gaping up to see the blunt-nosed plane, but
+nobody saw it.
+
+"Then suddenly Anne and Lindy dropped out of the sky at Wichita, Kansas,
+said hello, they'd like some gas, they'd be in New York about eleven,
+and sailed off.
+
+"They were in New York around eleven, too, and New York was waiting for
+them, with auto horns, and whistles, and all the other noise that it can
+make for people who have gone out and done things. The Lindberghs
+certainly had done just that. They'd come across the country with one
+stop in 14 hours and twenty-three minutes and some seconds, and had
+clipped two and a half hours off the record then standing."
+
+"But what happened out' west?" asked Hal. "Why hadn't anybody seen
+them?"
+
+"Because you can't see 10,000 feet into the air, and that's where the
+Lindberghs were flying. Way above the clouds, from 10,000 to 15,000 feet
+high, flying blind, with the cockpits closed to keep out the cold. It's
+mighty cold 15,000 feet up in the air. Flying blind that way, they had
+to depend upon their sextant to keep their course, and Anne Lindbergh
+did her part by using this. She did all the navigating from the back
+cockpit, and took the controls part of the time when Lindy rested.
+
+"Lindy and Anne hadn't intended to set a record. At least, that wasn't
+what they set out to do. They wanted to test out flying at high
+altitudes, because Lindy believes that planes in the future will fly
+high to avoid storms and wind, and that blind flying should be
+encouraged. That's why they flew so high up, out of sight of all
+landmarks.
+
+"There was no flying for Anne and Lindy after that for a while, because
+in June that year little Lindy was born. It seems awfully sad now to
+talk about all the excitement not only in this country, but all over the
+world when that baby was born. Lindy was the world's hero, and his baby
+was adopted by everybody just as Lindy had been. Nobody could have
+dreamed what a terrible end the Lindbergh baby would come to."
+
+Bob paused. The events of the Lindbergh baby's kidnapping, and the
+finding of its body a few months later, after the whole world had
+searched for it, were still fresh. In fact, they were too fresh for Bob
+to talk about then, and with the silent consent of all the men there, he
+passed over the horrible details of the case, and in a few moments went
+on with his story.
+
+"The Lindberghs have another baby boy now and everybody in the country
+will protect this child. People all over the world were heartbroken at
+the death of their first baby.
+
+"It was when the baby was a year old, and didn't require so much
+attention, that Anne and Lindy started out on their longest trip, the
+flight across the Pacific to China and Japan. That was in July of 1931.
+There was some delay in choosing the route, because they had to consider
+all sorts of things, like chances for refueling, and over-water flying
+distances, but finally they decided that they'd fly across Canada to
+Point Barrow, in Alaska, and from there to Nome; then across the Ocean
+to Karaginsk, from there to Nemuro, and on to Tokyo."
+
+Captain Bill broke in. "Good for you for remembering that. Did you
+memorize the route?"
+
+"I did," said Bob proudly. "I even drew a map of it. They flew roughly
+northwest, and then south again, making the two sides of a triangle,
+with the point up at the top of Alaska.
+
+"Well, the Lindberghs made their usual careful preparations. They needed
+more than a ham sandwich for this trip. The plane they chose was a
+low-winged Lockheed Sirius with a Wright Whirlwind motor. It was a
+blunt-nosed ship, painted reddish orange and black. And since they were
+traveling over water, it had to be equipped with floats. These were a
+new kind of Edo float, which were grooved on at the bottom to make for
+less resistance of the water.
+
+"In the tail of the plane they had a pretty complete emergency kit,
+which would pop out automatically if the plane went under. It had a
+folding life boat in it, that they could fill from a bottle of
+compressed air. It was pretty smooth, with a mast and sail and
+everything, and though they didn't; have to use it, it was a mighty nice
+thing to have along in case they sat down in the middle of the ocean.
+Then, of course, they had food and water, and an emergency radio set,
+besides the one that Anne Lindbergh was going to use. This emergency one
+was ready for anything. You couldn't hurt it by getting it wet, or by
+dropping it. In fact, they tested it by dropping it from a hangar, and
+then soaking it in water for 24 hours. I wouldn't want anybody to do
+that to my radio set, but I guess nothing much happened, because the
+tough radio survived its tests, and went along with the Lindberghs to
+China. The rest of their equipment included fifty pounds of food, five
+canteens of water, blankets, and all that sort of thing.
+
+"On July 27th, Anne and Lindy started out. Washington was their first
+stop, to make the first leg official. From there they went to New York,
+bound for Maine, to say goodbye to the baby. But there was trouble right
+at the start. About two hours after they had left New York, the
+Lindberghs had to turn back again. Somebody had tampered with their
+radio, and put it out of working order. But this was fixed up all right,
+and they started out again. They got to North Haven, Maine, in about
+three and a half hours.
+
+"After spending some time at North Haven with Anne's parents and the
+baby, they left for Ottawa, and from Ottawa for Moose Factory. Just out
+of Ontario, though, they disappeared. The newspapers ran big headlines,
+'Lindberghs Missing.' But they weren't really missing. That is, the
+Lindberghs knew all along where they were, but their radio was out of
+order, and they couldn't tell anybody else. Pilots were sent out to
+search for them, and Pilot Clegg found them in Moose Factory, safe and
+sound.
+
+"Moose Factory sounds awfully funny, doesn't it? I'd never heard of it,
+before the Lindberghs landed there, but it's quite a place. All one
+hundred of its people came out to cheer the flyers.
+
+"On Sunday morning they left Moose Factory, for their 750 mile jump to
+Churchill Harbor, in Manitoba. The weather wasn't very good for
+flying--gray and stormy, and the country was gray and flat. All in all,
+it wasn't a very pleasant leg of their journey, and there was almost
+nine hours of it. I'll bet they were glad when they flew into Churchill
+Harbor, and saw the whole town waiting for them. There were only 2,000
+people in the town, but then, that probably looked like a pretty big
+crowd after all that flying over country without seeing anybody or
+anything. And those 2,000 made up for it by being awfully noisy.
+
+"Baker Lake is 375 miles from Churchill, and that was the next stop.
+Just three and a quarter hours after they'd left Churchill Harbor, they
+got into Baker Lake. Everybody was waiting for them, and everybody in
+this case was made up of Eskimos. There are only about six white people
+in the whole place, but they were out, too, and took charge of the
+Lindberghs when they landed that night. So far so good.
+
+"The Lockheed up to now was working perfectly--the trip was going off as
+scheduled--just as all of Slim's trips go off as scheduled. From Baker
+Lake the going was to be harder. The next stop was Aklavik, on the
+MacKenzie River. Aklavik is pretty far north, just about 130 miles
+within the Arctic Circle, and the route called for a jump of over 1,000
+miles across this cold country. But Slim and Anne made it. They did that
+1,000 miles in eleven and a half hours, which was some going. They had
+the Aurora Borealis with them, because the farther north they went, the
+brighter the lights grew, and flying at night was as easy as flying by
+day.
+
+"Aklavik may be cold, but it was warm to the Lindberghs. Slim and Anne
+saw a lot of things they'd never seen before, and they had what you'd
+call their first real taste of the arctic. There were all the people you
+read about up there--Mounties, and Eskimos and fur trappers, who'd
+trekked in from miles around to see the Lindberghs land. Eskimo kids
+trailed them around and grinned when they were spoken to.
+
+"They had a lot of time to look around, too, because they had to stay at
+Aklavik for three days. The weather grounded them, but on August 7th,
+the sky cleared, and they were off again, now for Point Barrow. Nome was
+next. But before they got to Nome there was trouble.
+
+"They'd started out from the Point in the morning, and flew all day. All
+they saw was packed ice for miles around. A thick fog was raising.
+Finally at 11 o'clock that night the fog grew so thick that the Colonel
+and his wife thought it would be best just to sit down and wait for the
+fog to clear. So that's what they did. They sat down in Shismaref Bay,
+on Kotzebue Sound."
+
+At this point Bob paused significantly, and waited. He had pronounced
+both words without hesitation of any kind, and he was waiting for the
+praise that he felt was due him. There was a strange silence. So Bob
+said again: "They sat down on Shismaref Bay, on Kotzebue Sound."
+
+This time Captain Bill realized what was required of him. "Good work,"
+he said "You got them both without a slip."
+
+Now Bob could go on. "They sat down," he began.
+
+"That they did," interrupted Pat. "They sat down on Shismaref Bay on
+Kotzebue Sound. What heathen names. But we've heard them, and get on
+with you, lad."
+
+"I am," said Bob, and got on. "They had to wait for ten hours for the
+fog to lift, and it must have been mighty uncomfortable in the cockpits
+of their planes. When they finally did get started, they found that they
+couldn't get to Nome after all. The fog drifted up again, and they had
+to come down--"
+
+Pat broke the silence with a mighty exclamation. "Not on Shismaref Bay!"
+
+Bob was cold. "Of course not. This time they came down on Safety Bay,
+and please don't interrupt."
+
+But there was another interruption, this time from Hal. "Where's Safety
+Bay?" he asked.
+
+Bob stretched out comfortably. He was satisfied with himself and his
+story. "I don't know whether you're just trying to test me, or not," he
+said, "but I'm prepared for you. I've been over every inch of the
+Lindbergh trip with an atlas, and I know where everything is located,
+and how to pronounce it."
+
+Hal, his pale face lighted up by the moonlight, was obviously impressed,
+and his large eyes beamed in the light. He was storing up notes for his
+own story that was to come later.
+
+"Safety Bay," said Bob, "is twenty-one miles from Nome, and mid-way
+between Nome and Solomon Beach. They call it Safety Bay because
+fishermen caught in storms out at sea used to come in to the bay for
+safety. It was a 'safety bay' for the Lindberghs, too, all right. They
+waited for the fog to lift again, and they finally got to Nome. Nome had
+been waiting so long for them that it gave them a right royal welcome.
+
+"Nome was an important stop, because the Lindberghs planned to use this
+as their jumping off place for the hop across the Pacific Ocean to
+Karagin Island, off the Kamchatkan Peninsula. The Pacific has been
+crossed before, and was crossed later, too, by Herndon and Pangborn. But
+it's a tricky place to cross, especially in the northerly part, where
+the Lindberghs were to cross. It's a place of fog and ice, and quickly
+changing wind currents, so that a fog can creep up on you and blot out
+the world in a split second.
+
+"Well, this was the ocean that the Lindberghs were going to cross. And
+they crossed it. On Friday, August 14th, they started out. They were the
+first to cross by that route, blazing a new aviation trail. For half an
+hour there was silence. Then the St. Paul Naval station in the
+Pribiloffs made the first radio contact. Anne Lindbergh signaled that
+everything was all right, the weather was good, and the flying fine.
+Every half hour the station sent out signals, and gave directions,
+because up north there, so near the magnetic pole, a regular compass is
+thrown way off.
+
+"St. Lawrence Island was the first land in their path; then from St.
+Lawrence to Cape Naverin the route was over water again, about 250
+miles. Finally the radio operator got the message that they'd sighted
+Cape Naverin, and that everything was O. K. They got to Karagin Island
+early in the morning. And that means they flew over 1,000 miles in less
+than 11 hours. Which is some flying over that treacherous route.
+
+"The Lindys stayed at the Island for just a little while to rest up, and
+then took off for the southern end of the Kamchatkan Peninsula, for
+Petro--Petro--" Bob paused, embarrassed. "Say, what's the name of that
+place at the southern end?" he asked.
+
+Bill felt called upon to answer. "Petropavlovsk," he said.
+
+Bob tried it. "Petro--Petro-what?"
+
+"Petropavlovsk," repeated Bill.
+
+They all tried it then, with varying degrees of success. Finally Bob got
+it. "Petropavlovsk," he said proudly, and was able to go on with his
+story. "It was an easy flight, and they made it in about four hours. But
+Nemuro was next.
+
+"Nemuro's on the tip of Hokkaido Island, and to reach it the Lindberghs
+had to fly across the Kurile Islands, the worst fog trap in the world.
+There's a warm Japanese ocean current that flows up here and hits the
+cold arctic blasts, so that there are sudden fogs that you can't
+possibly see through. And besides, there are volcanic peaks that stick
+their peaks up but of the water. Some are dead and some are alive, but
+they're all pretty bad news for an airplane if it happens to come in
+contact with one of them.
+
+"The start was pretty good. The sky was clear, and the visibility good.
+But they should have known better than to trust such luck. They'd been
+out about 500 miles when a thick blanket of fog came up from nowhere and
+wrapped them around. A minute before they'd been able to see Muroton
+Bay, but when they turned back, it had disappeared. There were two
+things for them to do, and neither one pleasant. They could either fly
+on in the fog, and risk hitting a peak or losing their course, or land
+in the water. This was hardly better than going on, because the currents
+are very dangerous around there, and their plane might easily be
+capsized. But they decided that it was better to land. They landed on
+the sheltered side of a place called Ketoi Island, and put their radio
+to work sending out an S.O.S.
+
+"It didn't take long for somebody to get to them. The Japanese
+government ordered two ships to Ketoi to help them. One was the
+Shimushiru, and it stood by all night, while the Lindberghs spent the
+night doubled up in the cockpit of their plane. They stood by because of
+the danger. You see, the island is pretty wild, and is inhabited by
+Hairy Ainus, who live in caves. They're white people, and they're
+supposed to have lived all over Japan once, but they're not very
+pleasant to have around, especially if you're unprotected. But with the
+Japanese ship standing by, the Lindberghs were safe.
+
+"In the morning the ship towed the Lockheed Sirius to Muroton Bay, and
+while it was sort of quiet, Lindy fixed up a wet spark plug and they
+were ship-shape again, and raring to go. But the fog wouldn't lift.
+Finally it seemed to lift, and they started off.
+
+"When they got to the island of Iturup a thick fog came up from nowhere
+and cut off their visibility again. Then a radio message told them that
+the safest place to land was at Shana, so at Shana they landed. And at
+Shana they stayed, too, grounded by the fog. But finally the fog lifted,
+and they were able to get to Nemuro.
+
+"Tokyo next. And Tokyo was glad to see them! There were over 30,000
+people at the airport when they landed. The Lindys were just as popular
+as ever, and just as much the good will ambassadors as ever. They were
+taken all over Tokyo, ate with chopsticks, lived through a little
+earthquake, and did as the Japanese did generally.
+
+"Lindbergh told the Japanese people what he had set out to do, and that
+he hoped that there'd be a regular airplane route between Japan and the
+United States. He said that he thought the route would be from the
+north, too, but a little south of the one that he and Anne had taken.
+
+"Japan liked the Lindberghs, but they had to leave, bound for China.
+That was in September. Japan and China hadn't decided yet to go to war,
+but things were pretty bad in China, anyway. The Yangtze Kiang and the
+Hwai river had overflowed and flooded hundreds of villages and cities.
+Together they'd covered about 1,000 square miles of land, so you can
+imagine in what sort of condition China was then. Everything that goes
+with flood had come to China too, including starvation and disease. The
+Relief Committee was doing all that it could to help the inland people,
+but it couldn't do much, because there was no way of communicating with
+them, and of finding out who needed aid, and what towns had been
+flooded.
+
+"As soon as Lindy landed in Nanking, he volunteered to help the Chinese
+government by making surveys of the flooded land. The government
+accepted his offer, and Lindy flew over the country, making reports of
+districts that were under water. He found a lot of places that no one
+knew about, and did wonderful work. At one place he landed on the water
+in a village that was completely covered. He had a doctor and medical
+supplies with him, but the poor Chinese thought that he had brought
+food. They paddled over to the plane, grabbed the supplies and tore them
+to shreds, looking for something to eat. Lindy and the doctors took off
+as soon as they possibly could. As a result of this, Lindy advised that
+all supplies should be brought by armed guards, and that food was the
+most urgent need at the moment. Because of the good work that he did,
+the President of China gave Lindy another medal to add to his
+collection, the Chinese Aviation Medal.
+
+"In October the Lindbergh's trip was suddenly cut short, in the first
+place, by an accident that might have proved pretty serious. The
+Colonel, Anne, and a doctor were setting out for a survey of the
+Tungting Lake district, and were to take off in the Yangtze. But just as
+they were about to leave the water the current caught one of the wings,
+and it crumpled up. The plane turned over, and threw them all into the
+river. They were all weighed down by their heavy suits, and could easily
+have drowned, but they were pulled out of the water. The Lockheed was
+pulled up on board a British carrier, and Anne and Lindy decided to go
+to Shanghai with it and wait while it was being repaired.
+
+"While they were on board the Hermes, the aircraft carrier, they got
+word that Dwight Morrow, Anne's father, had died. This meant that their
+trip was over, since they had to get back to the United States as
+quickly as possible. They took a steamer to Vancouver, and then flew
+across the country to Maine."
+
+"From then on the Lindberghs dropped out of the news, because they
+wanted to. And they didn't figure in the news again until that terrible
+day when their baby was kidnapped. That was on March 1st, you remember.
+But in spite of everything that's happened, Lindy is carrying on, and so
+is Anne Lindbergh. They're still the country's most loved couple.
+
+"Lindy's still working hard at aviation, and trying to make the world
+aviation conscious. That's what he says his aim is, and that's what he
+makes his trips for. He wants people to get so used to airplanes that
+they'll ride in them just like they ride in automobiles, without
+thinking twice about it. He hasn't had any serious accidents, because
+he's always careful that everything's in perfect order before he starts
+on a flight. That's part of his program. He wants to make people see
+that if you're cautious enough, flying isn't dangerous.
+
+"I think that Lindy's succeeded in what he's tried to do. The world, and
+especially the United States was never more interested in aviation than
+in the year that Lindy flew across the Atlantic. That made them sit up
+and take notice. The United States was way behind Europe in air service,
+but since it perked up and got interested in what could be done, why,
+its been getting ahead by leaps and bounds.
+
+"And we mustn't forget that the most important thing about Lindy is that
+he was born with wings. He wasn't made a flyer, he just was one. I've
+seen him give an exhibition, when we went to see the air races, and
+golly, you could tell his plane from anybody else's in the world. He
+handles it so easily, and takes it off like a thistle and brings it down
+like a feather. A plane's just part of him.
+
+"And besides that, he's as modest as they come. Of course, that's an old
+story. Everybody knows that. But it still strikes me as pretty marvelous
+that a man can make a big success when he's only 25, and then go on as
+though nothing had happened, sticking to his work, only working harder
+than ever. If anybody gets my vote, it's Lindy, even if he was running
+for President, and I was old enough to vote." Bob stopped. "Well," he
+said then, "I guess that's the end of my story."
+
+It was pretty late. The moon had gone down, and the garden was dark,
+with the four men making four mounds of deeper black where they sat.
+Suddenly a light in the house switched on, sending out a stream of light
+that picked out Bob, his hair tousled, his eyes blinking in the sudden
+glare.
+
+Hal started. "It must be late," he said anxiously. "I'd better be
+getting on. The night air--I shouldn't have stayed so long."
+
+The screen door of the house slammed, and a figure approached, then down
+the garden walk, strangely burdened.
+
+"Hang around," said Captain Bill, starting up. "This is going to be
+interesting." He hurried down the path and met Bob's mother, whose
+strange burden turned out to be a tray with glasses and a covered dish.
+He took the tray from her. "You can't go now," he called to Hal. "Look
+what we've got." He set the tray down, and lifted the napkin from the
+plate. "Home baked cookies," he said, and took one. "You should have
+joined our group sooner," he said to his sister, between bites.
+
+"Because I brought cookies, I suppose, if for no other reason," she said
+with a laugh.
+
+"Why, Meg, you know that you'd be welcome even without cookies. You
+should have been here to hear your son and my nephew tell a grand story
+in a grand way."
+
+Bob felt himself blushing in the dark. Praise from Bill was rare and
+much sought after. "Aw," he said, "it wasn't anything."
+
+"It was a good yarn," said Bill, emphatically.
+
+"If it was a good yarn, then he's your nephew, all right," said Mrs.
+Martin. "There was never anybody like you for yarning. And good ones,
+too."
+
+Captain Bill laughed, and took another cookie. "If I can tell stories
+the way you bake cookies--"
+
+He didn't finish his sentence. Hal had been standing nervously at the
+edge of the group, waiting for a chance to break in. Now he broke in,
+chance or no chance. "I've got to go, really I do," he said. "My mother
+will be worried. Thanks a lot for everything. Goodnight." He broke into
+a run, and disappeared into the darkness.
+
+Captain Bill looked after him. "Say, what's the matter with Hal? What
+was his hurry?"
+
+Bob was a little embarrassed. He hated to talk disloyally about his
+friend, but he felt that Bill ought to know. "I guess he's afraid to be
+out so late alone. You see, Hal's pretty much of a baby yet. He's afraid
+of a lot of things he oughtn't to be afraid of, and he's always afraid
+that his mother's worrying about him."
+
+"I think that it's his mother's fault," said Mrs. Martin. "She's
+pampered him and spoiled him until he can't do a thing or think for
+himself. She just didn't know that the best way to rear a boy is to give
+him plenty to eat and a place to sleep and let him take care of
+himself."
+
+"That's why I turned out so well, isn't it, Mother?" said Bob.
+
+His mother laughed. "Oh, I don't know about you. You must be the
+exception that proves the rule."
+
+Bill spoke suddenly. "There ought to be something done about Hal," he
+said. "I like that boy. He's got the stuff there, but he needs something
+to bring it out. How about it, Bob?"
+
+"I think so, Bill," said Bob, pleased that Captain Bill had seen so much
+in his friend. "I've been trying to help Hal, and I think that he's
+getting much better than he was, don't you, Mother?"
+
+"I have noticed an improvement," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+"There'll be more before I go home," said Captain Bill.
+
+"Don't hog the cookies," said Pat, making his first, but most important
+contribution to the conversation. But Pat, though he had said nothing,
+had thought a lot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--A Close Shave
+
+
+The next two weeks were hectic ones for Pat, the Captain and their two
+friends, with Pat teaching the boys to fly, the boys learning to fly,
+the Captain generally directing all activities, and three of them
+planning and preparing for their flight to the Adirondacks. Hal couldn't
+go. It was with real sorrow that he told them that his mother would not
+permit him to go with them. Hal was beginning to enjoy better his
+flights into the air, and his companionship with his new friends. Pat
+did not frighten him at all now, and his happiest hours were those that
+he spent with him, Bob and Captain Bill. He knew that he would be very
+lonesome if they went off without him, but no amount of persuasion on
+his part would move his mother in her determination that he should not
+go. She had so many arguments on her side that Hal was completely
+floored when he tried to point out to her the reasons why it would be
+perfectly safe for him to go with his friends.
+
+Bob was downcast. He knew that he would have a good time with Pat and
+Bill, but he knew too that he'd have a better time if someone his own
+age were along. After all, he couldn't do anything as well as Pat and
+Bill. He couldn't fly a plane, although he was learning rapidly, and
+would soon be able to take a solo flight; he couldn't shoot as
+accurately as they; nor land a mountain trout so well. Hal, who was also
+a novice, would have been just as inexpert as he was at all these
+things, and would have made him feel not quite so stupid. And then there
+were always things to talk about to Hal that the others wouldn't be able
+to understand--in fact, Hal and he spoke a language of their own. It
+would have been fun if Hal could have come along--but if he couldn't go,
+he couldn't go. Bob decided that he'd better take the matter
+philosophically. So he joined in the plans of the Captain and Pat with
+all his usual energy. Hal helped, too, Even if he was not going with
+them, he wanted to get the thrill at least of being in on the start.
+
+They were all down at the airport every day, rain or shine. Pat gave
+them a good background of ground work, and then let them fly with him.
+Bob, with his natural quickness, could have flown solo almost after his
+first flight, but Pat would not take the responsibility of letting the
+boy go up alone.
+
+Hal, on the other hand, had more obstacles to overcome. The first was
+the terror that he had felt on his first flight. However, after repeated
+flights, and the feeling of power that he gained from actually having
+the controls in his hands, he overcame his fear enough to fly with Pat,
+and fly well.
+
+Two days before their departure for the mountains, Pat and Bill decided
+that the boys ought to make their solo flights, so that Hal would have
+made a solo flight before they left him.
+
+Pat had taken the Marianne up into the air, had "taken a look about,"
+and landed her again. He turned to the two boys and asked, "who's
+first?"
+
+"Me," said Bob.
+
+"All right," said Pat, and Bob climbed into the cockpit smiling
+confidently.
+
+"See you soon," called Bob, and waved a hand in farewell. He taxied the
+plane out over the runway, turned her nose into the wind, and felt her
+rise from the ground. He felt a thrill of power as the machine responded
+to the slightest movement of the stick. He had control of all the
+boundless energy stored in that motor, and could direct this huge craft
+in any direction he chose. He felt the blast of wind against his face.
+He was off the ground now, flying low, just clearing a small tool house.
+He pointed the nose of the Marianne up and climbed slowly, then leveled
+off again. His instruments showed that he was flying at about a thousand
+feet up. The motor sounded good. The air was smooth. Bob felt a keen
+exhilaration. He wanted to shout in triumph. At last he was flying a
+plane, alone.
+
+Again he pointed the nose up into the air, and climbed to about 5,000
+feet. The sky was clear and cloudless. He lost all track of time and
+space. He seemed to be by himself in the universe. But he knew that he
+wasn't. The others would be expecting him back. Reluctantly he banked
+and turned around, and headed once more for the airport. He throttled
+down the motor and glided swiftly to earth. He saw the grass below turn
+green as he approached it; he leveled off. In his excitement, he kept
+the tail of the plane a little too high, his front wheels landed too
+soon, and he felt for a breath-taking moment that he was going over on
+his nose. But the Marianne righted herself, and taxied docilely along
+the ground.
+
+Bob jumped out, pushing back his goggles. "How was that?" he shouted to
+Pat and Bill, who came running up to him.
+
+Pat glowered. "What a landing!" he said, in disgust. "Young man, is that
+the sort of landing I taught you?"
+
+Bob's smile faded, and he looked crestfallen. "I didn't level off," he
+said.
+
+"Of course you didn't. A blind man could tell you that." Then Pat's
+voice suddenly changed. "But you handled her like a veteran," he said.
+"You've got the makings of an ace in you, lad."
+
+Bob's ready grin spread quickly over his face again. "Did I really?" he
+cried. "Bill, what did you think?" He was perfectly willing to hear
+himself praised, now that he was sure that his performance has been
+good.
+
+"Oh, you're all right," said Bill grudgingly. "How about Hal? It's his
+turn now." He turned to Hal. "You show this young fellow how to make a
+three point landing," he said, and gave Hal a little clap on the
+shoulder.
+
+Hal came forward. He was unusually silent, and his face was pale. He had
+struggled with his fear and he felt that he had conquered it. He had
+come to have confidence in his handling of the Marianne with Pat or Bill
+in the other cockpit, ready to take the controls if anything went wrong.
+Now he would have confidence taking her up alone. He set his jaw grimly
+and got into the cockpit. The motor was warm, and sounded good. Hal took
+the Marianne into the air with a grace that made Pat and Bill look at
+each other with surprise and congratulation.
+
+"The kid's got the stuff, all right," said Bill. "I knew he had. Who
+said he didn't have nerve?"
+
+"He's better for it, too," said Pat. "It's done him good, all right."
+They watched the plane climbing into the cloudless skies. Then suddenly
+the sound of the motor ceased. "Good grief," cried Pat. The others were
+too horrified even to cry out. They saw the plane stall, then fall nose
+down, spiraling as it went.
+
+When he heard the motor conk, Hal's heart stood still. He tried the
+stick frantically. The rudder, the ailerons, would not respond. The
+throttle brought no answering roar of power. The Marianne had become
+suddenly a mad thing, an enemy, bent on his destruction. She
+side-slipped, her nose dipped down, an she went into a tailspin.
+
+Hal was frantic. His first impulse was to pull up on the stick, in order
+to bring up the tail. Then some glint of reason came through his terror,
+and he remembered Pat's warning that this was the last thing he should
+do to pull himself up. But what had Pat said? He couldn't remember. Then
+suddenly it came to him. Push forward on your stick! With an effort he
+made himself push forward. The Marianne gave a convulsive shudder. But
+the action had taken her out of her spin. With a feeling of unutterable
+relief Hal felt her come out of her spin and go into a glide. He looked
+over the side of the plane. He was rushing toward a brick building, at
+the furthest end of the airport! There was nothing to do now but crash.
+He was too close to stretch out the glide!
+
+With a last desperate movement, Hal opened the throttle of his engine.
+The motor caught! With a thrill of joy he heard the roar of the motor as
+it started again, and felt the stick respond to his touch. He pulled
+back the stick, the nose of the plane lifted, and he zoomed into the
+air.
+
+Down on the ground Pat, Bill and Bob had gone through the tortures of
+the damned, watching Hal fall to what seemed certain death, while they
+stood helplessly below. When they saw him zoom once more into the air,
+their hearts bounded with him.
+
+"The gas-line must have been clogged!" shouted Pat. "It cleared itself
+out when they dived!"
+
+"Thank God," said Bill.
+
+Bob could say nothing, but kept shouting Hal, Hal, Hal, over and over
+again. Hal was gliding in, now, to land.
+
+He got out of the cockpit, white and shaking. The others, beside
+themselves with joy, surrounded him, shaking his hand, hugging him,
+patting his shoulder. But Hal did not seem to notice what was happening.
+
+"You handled that plane like Lindbergh!" shouted Pat. "Good boy."
+
+But all that Hal said was, "I'm never going up again."
+
+Pat had gone over to the plane to look it over. "It seems all right," he
+said, turning off the motor that he had tested. "But there must have
+been a bit of dirt in the line leading from the gas tank. You had a
+lucky escape, lad. It was quick thinking that you did up there. I'm
+proud of you."
+
+But Captain Bill saw that Hal was in no mood for praise. He knew, too,
+that the best cure for the boy was to take him right up again into the
+air, so that he would have no time to develop a phobia against going up.
+But he would not risk taking up the Marianne until it had had a thorough
+overhauling.
+
+The Captain put his arm around Hal's shoulder. "You mustn't say that
+you're never going up again, Hal, old man," he said. "You proved
+yourself up there. You're going to make a great flyer."
+
+"It was great, Hal, great," said Bob. "I would have crashed the old bus
+and killed myself. I couldn't have kept my head."
+
+Hal said nothing except that he wanted to go home. Pat stayed behind
+with the plane while the other three went over to the parking lot to get
+their machine. "Don't say anything to my mother, whatever you do," said
+Hal. "I don't want her to worry. After all, nothing really happened to
+me, and why should she be frightened for nothing?"
+
+Bob and the Captain promised to say nothing. In fact, they spoke very
+little on the way home. Hal was worn out emotionally and the others were
+occupied with their own thoughts.
+
+The Captain was worried by the new turn that affairs had taken. He was
+disappointed that all the progress that had been made in Hal's education
+had been ruined on the first solo flight. It would have been all right
+if he had been able to take Hal into the air again, but he couldn't.
+Tomorrow they would be too busy with their preparations to do any
+flying, and the day after that, they would start for the Adirondacks,
+leaving Hal behind. Without his friends, and with the memory of his
+terror fresh in his mind, Hal would fall back into his old fears, and be
+actually worse off than ever. The time to cure Hal was at once, if at
+all.
+
+Captain Bill had an idea. He thought about it rather carefully most of
+the way home, and when they were almost home, he broached his plan.
+"Say, Hal, how about coming over tonight--with your mother? I'm going to
+tell my story after dinner, tonight, and I thought maybe she'd like to
+hear it."
+
+Hal was rather surprised. His mother rarely visited, and did not see
+very much of the Martins. In fact, she had been to the Martins only
+twice since they had been neighbors, and one of those visits had been to
+return Mrs. Martin's formal call upon her new neighbor when the Greggs
+had moved into the house next door. But Hal said, "Why, I'll ask Mother.
+I don't think she's busy, and I guess she'd like to hear your story,
+Captain Bill. I've been telling her about the stories, you know."
+
+"Good," laughed the Captain. "Don't tell her too much, though. I want
+her to come to hear them."
+
+"I think she'll like to come," said Hal. Thinking it over, he felt
+convinced that his mother should hear Captain Bill's story that night.
+He knew she would enjoy the evening with them all. They were a jolly
+lot, and Mrs. Martin often was lonesome when Hal went off and left her
+alone. She would be better for a night of company. And perhaps--well, Hal
+could not dare to hope--perhaps she would approve more of his going on a
+trip with these men if she knew how splendid they were. But then Hal
+shuddered. They were going to fly to the mountains. And he was never
+going to fly in a plane again. He felt that he would rather do anything
+in the world than put himself in a position again where he might
+experience the awful horror of feeling himself going into a nose dive.
+
+They let Hal off at his home. When Bob and the Captain were alone, Bob
+asked why Bill had thought of inviting Hal's mother to hear his story
+that night.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Gregg's a nice woman. Don't you think that I should have
+invited her?" asked the Captain, with a twinkle.
+
+"Oh, but you must have some other reason," said Bob. "You don't want her
+to come over just because you want an audience for your story."
+
+"Well, to tell the truth," the Captain answered, "I have a motive. Can I
+count on you to help me?"
+
+"If it's not murder," said Bob.
+
+"Nothing like it," the Captain said. "This is my plan, Bob. You know
+that we want Hal to come along with us on our trip, now more than at any
+other time. If we leave him now, all the good that flying and being with
+us has done him will be wasted, and Hal will be the same fraid-cat that
+he was before we began to educate him. Now, I'm going to tell the story
+of Byrd tonight. Byrd started on his adventures when he was very young.
+He had a brave mother, who saw that following his own inclinations was
+good for her son. That much is for Mrs. Gregg. Second--Byrd had to
+overcome a great many obstacles before he reached his goal. That part is
+for young Hal. Now, if the Gregg family takes my story seriously
+tonight, I think that we may have Hal with us on our flight. And Hal
+will be a new boy. How about it?"
+
+Bob looked admiringly at his uncle. "Gee," he said, "that's a great
+idea. But I think that you'll have to tell a pretty convincing story."
+
+"Don't you think that I can?"
+
+"Golly, I'm not going to worry about that," said Bob. "I'm sure you
+can."
+
+When they got in, they found Mrs. Martin sewing, and lost no time in
+telling her first the events of the day, and second, their plans for the
+evening.
+
+"But why didn't you invite her to dinner?" asked Mrs. Martin. "I'm sure
+we'd enjoy having them with us."
+
+"I didn't think of that," said the Captain, "or rather, I thought that I
+was taking enough liberty in just inviting somebody to your home for the
+evening."
+
+"I'll call her," said Mrs. Martin firmly. A far away look came into her
+eyes. "You know," she said, "I think that I shall do some talking to
+Mrs. Gregg myself, I have some things to tell her about raising her own
+son. I suppose she will resent it, but I shall at least have the
+satisfaction of getting it off my chest, and perhaps of helping poor
+Hal."
+
+"Hal's the one I'm interested in," said the Captain. "He acted like a
+real hero in that plane today. Kept his head, and saved himself and the
+plane. He's got the stuff, all right, and he can handle a plane."
+
+"I'm with you, Captain," said Bob. "And with you and Mom on the job, I
+don't see how anybody can possibly get away with anything. You two could
+convince anybody of anything."
+
+His mother looked at him speculatively. "Can I convince you right now
+that you ought to go up and wash? Believe me, young man, you can't get
+away with looking that dirty, if that's what you mean."
+
+Grinning sheepishly, Bob went out of the room. "You win," he called.
+"And I'm betting on you tonight, too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--North Pole and South
+
+
+Dinner was a jolly affair. Everybody was in excellent humor. Hal had
+quite recovered from his afternoon's experience; Pat had succeeded in
+getting the Marianne into perfect shape; Bill looked forward to his
+evening's plans with relish; and Bob was happy just on general
+principles, anticipating a great evening, and because he was usually
+happy. Mrs. Gregg, who often became lonely by herself, was glad of being
+in such pleasant company.
+
+They went into the garden after dinner, and the Captain, after filling
+up his ever-present pipe, began his story.
+
+"Well," he said, "there's only one way to begin the story of anybody's
+life. That's by telling when he was born, because after all, that's the
+first thing that happens to a man, isn't it? Well, Admiral Richard
+Evelyn Byrd was born on October 25, 1888, in Winchester, Virginia, where
+there had been Byrds ever since anybody could remember. In fact, the
+first Byrd settled in America about 1690, and the name has been a
+prominent and honored one ever since. There were Byrds fighting in the
+Revolution and in the Civil War, so it wasn't from nowhere that our
+Richard Evelyn got his courage and grit that carried him through the
+dangers of being the first man to cross both the North and the South
+poles in a plane.
+
+"He had a grandmother, too, who gave him a goodly supply of what it
+takes to do great deeds. That was Jane Byrd, who was the sort of person
+around whom legends spring up, and are carried down from generation to
+generation. In fact, one of them was a famous story of her killing of a
+huge blacksnake. It was during the Civil War. Her husband and her
+brother were both fighting for the Confederacy, and Jane Byrd was left
+alone to manage the great plantation and farm. And manage it she did.
+One day she went to gather the eggs in the chicken house, and found a
+great blacksnake had swallowed twelve prized guinea eggs that had been
+set under a setting hen. She clubbed the snake to death with a club,
+taking care not to strike the twelve bumps that showed all down its body
+the places where the twelve guinea eggs reposed. Then she cut the snake
+open and took out the eggs and put them back under the hen, without a
+bit of fuss or excitement. She took seriously the charge that she must
+take care of the estate while her men were away fighting.
+
+"Richard Byrd couldn't have had better ancestors to back him up in his
+adventures, but every ounce of courage, every bit of perseverance that
+he inherited, he needed. He was a man who met with hundreds of
+disappointments, and innumerable obstacles in carrying out the plans
+that meant so much to him and to the world. But he was never downed by
+them. Set-backs that would have made other men, men of lesser caliber
+turn from their paths and give up their plans, were just so much more of
+a spur to him.
+
+"Dick Byrd was never a robust man. He had the physical handicap of a bad
+ankle to overcome, and his general build has always been slight. He is
+not the huge, strapping hero of story-book fame; he was the little
+Napoleon with a great determination that outweighed any physical
+weakness. A man doesn't have to be big to get places. A little fellow,
+if he wants to badly enough, can accomplish a lot.
+
+"And Dick Byrd certainly wanted badly to go to the Pole. Even when he
+was a kid in school, it was his ambition to be the first man to reach
+the North Pole. Somebody beat him to it. Peary got there first, but it
+took him a long time, and he had to go on foot. Byrd flew, and
+accomplished in a few hours what had taken days and weeks to do before.
+
+"Not only did he want to go to the Pole--he wanted to go to all sorts of
+places, and he did, too. Before he was fourteen years old, Richard Byrd
+traveled alone around the world! That took nerve. And not only nerve on
+Richard Byrd's part, but on the part of his mother! The trip wasn't a
+regular round-the-world tour that anybody can make today on a boat
+that's like a little palace, but it was a rough, adventurous voyage on
+an army transport, and a British tramp.
+
+"It was like this. You see, Dick had struck up a friendship with Captain
+Kit Carson. After the Spanish American War, Carson went to the
+Philippines as a Circuit Court Judge. But he didn't forget his friend
+Dick. They exchanged letters. In one letter the Captain mentioned that
+it would be a fine idea if Dick Byrd came down to the Philippines to see
+the exciting time that they were having down there. Dick took him up on
+the idea, and made plans to go. At first his mother was horrified at the
+idea, since Dick was not a strong boy. But with unusual intelligence,
+she decided to let him go, since the trip would be an educational one,
+and would do the boy more good than any possible harm that could come to
+him. The very fact that he wanted so badly to go, and planned his trip
+so carefully, made her feel that he had reached an age where he must be
+allowed to decide for himself. This was a very wise decision on her
+part, since it was probably this trip, with its adventures in
+self-reliance that made Richard into the successful adventurer that he
+is."
+
+"The trip to Manila was made exciting by a typhoon that stuck the
+transport--something that the boy would not have wanted to miss, although
+the Captain of the transport could have done very well without it--he
+said it was the worst that he'd ever been through.
+
+"They got to Manila, though, safe and sound, and Dick was greeted by his
+friend Carson. Manila was intensely amusing for a boy of fourteen.
+Amusing, and mighty exciting. The excitement included a lone combat with
+a gang of angry rebels armed with knives--from which the young Dick
+escaped only by the fleetness of his pony's heels. That's the sort of
+adventure young boys dream of, and that's the sort they should have to
+look back on, if they are to live the full sort of life that Richard
+Byrd did.
+
+"From Manila, Dick went visiting to Darim Island. On the island the
+cholera plague was raging, and Dick got exposed to the disease. They put
+him into quarantine. He didn't get the cholera, but all around him men
+were dying in terrible agony. Finally the doctor managed to get Dick to
+the seaport, and he got a boat for Manila. They were glad to see him
+back, and he was glad to be back.
+
+"After Manila, Dick went on his merry way around the world by way of
+Ceylon and the Red Sea to Port Said, where he reshipped for the last lap
+of his cruise. It was a wonderful trip for a boy, and there's no doubt
+that it had a great influence on all that he did later.
+
+"When Richard got back, and had settled down more or less, his parents
+decided that he should go to Virginia Military Institute. He was popular
+at the Institute, as he was popular wherever he went, for his
+spirit--that old spirit that carried him around the world, and later
+across both of the earth's poles. It was the same spirit that made him
+try out for the football team at V.M.I.--and carried him to the position
+of end on the first team. It was at that time that an incident occurred
+which was to be very significant in his later life. In one game of the
+season he broke his ankle. This was not important in itself--but it
+happened to be the first break of an ankle that was going to bother Dick
+again and again--and almost at one time defeat him entirely.
+
+"But I'm getting ahead of my story. After being graduated from the
+Military Institute, Dick Byrd went quite naturally to Annapolis. He
+entered in 1908. He carried his popularity and his success with him to
+this place. His grades were not of the highest, but he excelled in
+athletics, going out for football again, besides track, boxing, and
+wrestling.
+
+"In his last year at Annapolis, Dick's ankle made itself felt again.
+Dick was Captain of his gym squad, which was competing in the big
+exhibition of the year. Dick, as Captain, wanted to make a spectacular
+showing, and cinch the meet for his team. To do this, he invented an
+intricate, complicated series of tricks on the bars, calculated to stir
+up the most lethargic members of the audience. It would have been a
+great trick--if it had succeeded--but it didn't. Dick slipped, somehow,
+and his hands failed to connect with the bars. Down he went--on the same
+ankle, breaking it once more.
+
+"In 1912 he got his commission, and became an ensign. And he also began
+to formulate plans for his great adventures. Connected with the
+Navy--there was no telling what opportunity for adventure would come to
+him. But he reckoned without his ankle. It gave way a third time--this
+time while he was going down a gangway, so that he was pitched headfirst
+down. They tried to fix up the ankle--in fact, they joined the bones
+together with a silver nail. That is, Byrd thought that they had used a
+silver nail--and when he discovered that just a plain, ordinary nail had
+been used, he felt very much deflated. Nail and all, Byrd walked with a
+limp, and an ensign with a limp was just useless, so far as the Navy was
+concerned. So Byrd was retired.
+
+"That must have been an awful blow to him. Not only was the only career
+open to him cut short, but he had been married the year before, to Marie
+Ames, a childhood sweetheart from Winchester. So that his retirement
+affected not just himself, but another as well.
+
+"It might have floored a lesser man. But not Dick Byrd. In 1917 the
+United States went into the World War, And Byrd, who had been rejected
+by the Navy, and who doubtless could not have found a place in the army,
+decided to go into the branch of the service that wouldn't ask questions
+about his bad leg--because it didn't matter whether he had a bad leg or
+not--in aviation. So to aviation he turned.
+
+"He entered the Naval flying school at Pensacola, Florida. It was a
+lucky day for Byrd and for aviation that he took to the air. It seems
+that the air was where he belonged. He was a Byrd by birth, and might
+have been born with wings, for the ease with which he took to flying.
+
+"He became assistant superintendent of the school, and was on the
+commission to investigate accidents. There were a lot of them, then. The
+planes were not so highly developed as they are now--and the green
+youngsters who were entering the service could not handle them. You can
+imagine how horrible it was to see some friend's plane come crashing
+down into the ocean, and have to be the first to go out in the rescue
+boat, in order to do what was possible to rescue him, and to discover
+what had caused the accident. A warning from the observation
+tower--somebody was in tailspin. A deafening crash! And the rescue boat
+would be put out before the waves from the great splash had subsided. At
+this work Byrd learned that more than half of the accidents could have
+been avoided with care--either in inspecting the machine before going up,
+or in handling it up in the air.
+
+"Dick Byrd was just too good. That was his tough luck at this point in
+his career. He was too good to be sent over to France, where he wanted
+to go. He was sent instead to Canada, where he was chief of the American
+air forces in Canada. At this job, as well as at any other that he
+undertook, Byrd acquitted himself admirably. And even though he chafed
+at being kept in America, he did his job well.
+
+"But his mind was soaring across the ocean. As early as 1917 Byrd wanted
+to fly the Atlantic. But there was always something that interfered.
+After the war, he petitioned the Navy again about a cross-Atlantic
+voyage, and was given permission to go over to England and sail the ZR-2
+back to America. How tragically this may have ended for Byrd you can
+see. The ZR-2, on a trial flight suddenly burst into flames and crashed
+into the Humber river. Forty-four of the passengers were killed, among
+them friends of Byrd. It was Richard Byrd's task to investigate the
+wreck that might very easily have claimed him for one of its victims.
+
+"In 1924 his hopes seemed about to be realized at last. He was assigned
+to the dirigible Shenandoah, and was to fly it across Alaska and the
+North Pole. But the Shenandoah, too, met with disaster, and Byrd's hopes
+were again dashed. The Navy rejected his petition to go with Amundsen on
+the trip that he planned over the Pole, and all hope seemed gone. In
+fact, as a final blow, Byrd was retired from the aviation service
+altogether.
+
+"But he was as undaunted by this setback as he had been by his
+retirement from the Navy. He set about immediately to organize his own
+Polar expedition, which was to be climaxed by his flight over the Pole
+in 1926.
+
+"Floyd Bennett, whom Byrd often said was the best man in the world to
+fly with, helped him plan his expedition which was to be the realization
+of all his boyhood dreams and visions. It wasn't easy to plan, and the
+foresighted planning, they knew, would mean the success or failure of
+their project.
+
+"They chose a three-motored Fokker monoplane, with 200 horsepower Wright
+air-cooled motors. It was 42 feet 9 inches long, with a wing spread of
+over 63 feet. It was capable of a high speed of 120 miles an hour.
+
+"That was the plane, the Josephine Ford. Their ship was the Chantier,
+given him by the Shipping Board. The crew was made up of picked men, and
+Byrd knows how to pick them. Not one of them failed to live up to his
+expectations on that trip.
+
+"On April 5, 1926, all of the plans being completed, and the last
+supplies of food to last fifty men for six months being stowed away, the
+Chantier sailed from New York for King's Bay, Spitzbergen. They got
+there on April 29th, after an uneventful trip, and anchored in the Bay.
+But the problem of getting the plane to shore arose. They solved it by
+building a huge raft, loading the heavy ship onto it, and towing it to
+shore through the choppy, ice-blocked water.
+
+"When they got the plane onto the shore, the wheels sank into the snow,
+and they had to replace them with skis, which seemed ample to sustain
+the weight of even that great craft. How frail they really were was to
+be proved later.
+
+"Byrd and his men set up camp, and prepared for the take-off to the
+Pole. They had to work fast. The Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile Expedition
+with its dirigible the Norge was well on its way with its preparations,
+and while there was no bitter rivalry between the two expeditions,
+nevertheless the distinction of being the first to fly over the Pole was
+one not to be sneezed at. Everybody worked--eighteen hours a day, with
+meals taken on the run. And nobody thought to complain--the morale never
+broke once. That's the sort of man Byrd picks to take with him--and
+that's the sort of respect they have for a man who chooses them. Byrd's
+a leader. No matter where he has come in contact with men, he has won
+their love and respect, and has got more work out of them by his
+kindness and gentleness than anybody else could have by slave-driving.
+They worked for Byrd because they liked to, not because they had to. He
+imbued them with his spirit of adventure, so that every man of them was
+determined that his expedition should be successful, and that Byrd
+should be the first man to fly across the Pole.
+
+"One of the hardest jobs of all was packing down the snow into a hard,
+smooth runway for taking off. They had to take off going down hill,
+since there was no level stretch of snow for their start, and this hill
+had to be smoothed and leveled. The first attempt at a take-off was
+disastrous. The plane landed in a snowdrift, with a broken ski. The
+carpenters worked for two days and nights to make new skis, and the ship
+was ready for its second attempt.
+
+"The second trial flight was a huge success. The ship rolled down the
+incline and took gently and gracefully into the air. At least they would
+be able to get off. The landing, too, was beautiful. So far, so good.
+They discovered by this trial flight that they could make the North Pole
+and return without landing once, as they had planned before.
+
+"The Josephine Ford was a mighty heavy craft, and loaded with fuel and
+supplies, which they would need in case of a forced landing and overland
+trek, she weighed five tons. This accounts for the terrible job getting
+her off the ground and into the air.
+
+"Well, finally everything was ready, the weather was just right; the
+motors had been warmed up, and Bennet and Byrd climbed into the plane,
+ready to start. Down the runway they coasted. There was a tense moment.
+Would she lift? With a groan, the men on the ground saw her lurch, roll
+into a snowdrift, and all but turn over.
+
+"A lesser man, as I said once before, would have been discouraged. But
+not Byrd! He got out, inspected the plane, and found to his joy that it
+had not been damaged. No delay! Off again. They lightened the load as
+much as they dared by taking off some fuel, then taxied the Josephine
+Ford up the hill again. The men worked like Trojans to get the runway
+lengthened and smoothed out again. At last everything was ready.
+
+"Byrd and Bennett decided to stake everything on that last trial. They
+decided to give the engine all the speed they could, so that at the end
+of her run she'd either rise into the air, or crack up once and for all.
+Even as they planned, they hoped against hope that it would be the
+former, and not the latter. The weather was perfect. It was a little
+past midnight. The men of the expedition were gathered about, anxiously
+awaiting the take-off. Byrd and Bennett shook hands with them, stepped
+into the cabin of the ship and started down the runway. The great ship
+rose laboriously into the air. There was a shout from their comrades.
+They were off for the North Pole! Those on the ground cheered lustily.
+The Great Adventure, for which one of those men in the air had been
+preparing all his life, had begun.
+
+"They had to navigate first by dead reckoning, following the landmarks
+in the vicinity of King's Bay. They climbed to a good distance so that
+they could get a perfect view of the land below them, and looked down
+upon the snowy mountains, scenery grander than any they had ever seen
+before, and terrifying, too. In a short time they left the land behind,
+and crossed the edge of the polar ice pack.
+
+"There are no landmarks on the ice, and when they reached the ice pack,
+they had to begin their careful navigating. In the first place, they had
+to hit the Pole exactly, chiefly because that was the place they had set
+out for, and then because if they didn't hit it exactly, they would have
+no way of reckoning their path back to Spitzbergen, and would be lost in
+the arctic wastes.
+
+"But expert navigating was Dick Byrd's strong point. He had developed a
+sextant by which the altitude of the sun could be gaged without
+reference to the horizon line, and that was exactly what he needed now,
+because due to the formations of ice, the horizon was irregular. But
+figuring out position by means of the sextant requires at least an hour
+of mathematical calculation, and by the time the position had been
+figured, the men in the airplane had advanced about a hundred miles or
+more. So they used a method that they had learned, whereby their
+position could be judged by means of taking the altitude of the sun and
+laying down the line of position on a sort of graph.
+
+"Their compass was of little value. They were too near the North
+Magnetic Pole, which had a tendency to pull their magnet from the
+geographical Pole to its own position, about 1,000 miles south. So they
+used a sun compass, that indicated their position by means of the sun.
+Of course, the fact that they had sun throughout the whole trip was an
+advantage. I doubt if they could have made it otherwise. Navigating up
+there is too difficult. Then they had to figure on wind drift. The wind,
+blowing pretty hard, say, about 30 miles an hour at right angles to
+their plane would cause it to drift thirty miles an hour out of its
+course. This they were able to make up for by means of the drift
+indicator, which compensated for the drift.
+
+"Bennett piloted first. He would glance back to the cabin where Byrd was
+busy with the navigating instruments, and Byrd would indicate to him how
+to steer his course by waving his hand to the right or the left. When
+they were certain of their course, Byrd looked down on the land that he
+had desired to see since he had been a boy in school. Below them,
+stretching for mile upon mile was the ice pack, criss-crossed with
+ridges, seeming like mere bumps in the ice from their altitude, but
+really about 50 or 60 feet high. Every now and then they saw a lead,
+opened by the movement of the water--those treacherous leads that had led
+many a hardy explorer to his death.
+
+"Byrd took the wheel. He steered with one hand while he held the compass
+in the other. Bennett poured gasoline into the tanks, and threw
+overboard the empty cans, to relieve the plane of weight. From then on
+they took turn and turn about at the wheel, Byrd navigating incessantly,
+until he had a slight attack of snow blindness from looking down at the
+snow so constantly.
+
+"Soon they came to land where no man had ever been before. It was then
+that Byrd felt that he was being repaid for all the planning, all the
+hard work and heart-breaking disappointments that he had experienced.
+The sun was shining, the Josephine Ford functioning perfectly.
+
+"Perfectly? Just a minute. They were about an hour from the Pole. Byrd
+noticed through the cabin window a bad leak in the oil tank of one
+motor. If the oil leaked out, the motor would burn up and stop. Should
+they land? No. Why not go on as far as they could, perhaps reach the
+Pole? They would be no worse off landing at the Pole than landing here,
+and they would have reached their goal. So on they kept. Byrd glued his
+eyes to the oil pressure gauge. If it dropped, their motor was doomed.
+But they would not land, or turn back.
+
+"Luck was with them. At about two minutes past nine o'clock, they
+crossed the Pole. It takes just a minute to say it, but how many years
+of planning, how many years of patiently surmounting obstacles had
+prepared for that minute's statement!
+
+"Below them was the frozen, snow-covered ocean, with the ice broken up
+into various formations of ice fields, indicating that there was no land
+about. Byrd flew the plane in a circle several miles in diameter, with
+the Pole as a center. His field of view was 120 miles in diameter. All
+this while he was flying south, since all directions away from the Pole
+are south. And now, his purpose accomplished, his hardest task faced
+him. He had to fly back to Spitzbergen.
+
+"Soon after he left the Pole, the sextant that he was using slid off the
+chart table, breaking the horizon glass. He had to navigate the whole
+trip back by dead reckoning! With the oil fast spurting out, and the
+motor threatening to stop any minute, and no sextant to show his
+position, Byrd had his hands full. They lost track of time. Minutes
+seemed like hours, hours like ages. Then they saw land dead ahead. It
+was Spitzbergen! Byrd had flown into the unknown, 600 miles from any
+land, had turned about, and come back to the very spot from which he had
+started.
+
+"Maybe you don't realize what wonderful navigating this was. But anybody
+who has navigated a plane by dead reckoning knows that it was a feat
+that called for great skill.
+
+"Nobody was prouder of what Byrd and Bennett had done than the men who
+had worked so hard to make the trip a success, and who had stayed behind
+at Spitzbergen, without glory or reward except in knowing that they had
+been a necessary feature in the success of that journey. The whistle of
+the Chantier blew a shrill whistle of welcome. The men ran to greet Byrd
+and Bennett, and carried them in triumph on their shoulders. Among the
+first to greet them were Amundsen and Ellsworth, whom Byrd had beaten in
+the race to be the first to cross the Pole by air. But they shook hands
+with vigor. They were glad that it was Byrd who had beaten them, if it
+had to be anybody. Byrd affects people that way. He's just as well liked
+after successes as before them. That's the sort he is.
+
+"They were pretty glad to see him when he got back to the United States,
+too. There were plenty of whistles blowing, plenty of ticker tape, and
+parades for the returning hero. But Dick Byrd stayed modest through all
+of it. In the first place, he never gets fussed. He isn't a southern
+gentleman for nothing. And in the second place, he realized that the
+shouting wasn't so much for him as it was for the thing that he did. He
+had brought the United States the honor of sending the first men over
+the Pole. And the United States was applauding the deed, not himself.
+But he seems to have forgotten that if it hadn't been for his years of
+planning, striving and struggling the deed never would have been
+accomplished.
+
+"Well, Dick Byrd had accomplished his life's ambition. But it didn't
+mean that he was ready to quit. There were new fields to conquer. How
+about flying the Atlantic? He'd always wanted to fly the Atlantic.
+Anything that was all adventure appealed to him. So when they hoisted
+anchor at Spitzbergen after the flight across the Pole Byrd said to his
+companion Bennett, 'Now we can fly the Atlantic.'
+
+"The plan to fly the ocean had its origin in the same motives that the
+North Pole flight had. Byrd wanted to make America aviation conscious;
+and he wanted to make American aviators conscious of the benefits of
+careful planning. Dozens of lives had been lost in unsuccessful
+trans-oceanic flights--the lives of young men full of the love of
+adventure, who made hasty plans, or no plans at all for spanning the
+ocean--who had no qualifications except a great ambition to see them
+through the great grind that was before them. Byrd wanted to show all
+fool-hardy young flyers that care, care, and more care was needed in
+their preparations. He had to prove to the United States, too, that if
+care were exercised in these flights, they were not necessarily
+dangerous. All this Byrd had to prove. And in the meantime he'd have the
+time of his life, steeped in the adventurous sort of work that he
+craved.
+
+"So Byrd and Bennett started their plans. The first step, of course, was
+the choosing of the plane. Opinion was in favor of a single-motored
+plane for a cross-Atlantic flight, since a single-motored plane would
+have a greater cruising range; offer less resistance in the air; and be
+less complicated to handle than a multi-motored craft. But Byrd held out
+for the tri-motor, the same type of plane as the Josephine Ford, which
+had carried him over the Pole. There was this to say for it: if one
+motor stopped, the other two would still function; and it might be the
+solution to the problem of what kind of plane would cross the Atlantic
+in the future, when planes ran on regular schedule. They wanted a bigger
+plane than the Josephine Ford, though. So they had one designed with a
+wing spread of 71 feet, which meant that they got an increased lifting
+power of about 3,000 pounds. That enabled them to take along about 800
+pounds of equipment above what they actually needed, to show that a pay
+load could be carted across the water in a plane.
+
+"They needed plenty of equipment, though. There was a special radio set,
+rockets to shoot off as signals if anything went wrong; two rubber boats
+for the crew; and emergency food and equipment of all sorts for forced
+landings; and even a special apparatus for making drinking water out of
+salt water so that they would not go thirsty. In fact, they could have
+survived for three weeks in case of an accident. They? Why, Byrd decided
+that besides himself and Bennett, they would take along passengers, also
+to prove something--this time that passengers could be carried across to
+Europe by plane.
+
+"They successfully petitioned the Weather Bureau to make predictions for
+the trans-Atlantic flights, and for the first time in history regular
+weather maps for aviation were made of the North Atlantic.
+
+"At the end of April, in 1927, the plane was ready for its factory test.
+Byrd planned to make his flight in May, which he figured was a good
+month. It happened that there were at the time several other planes
+preparing to cross the ocean. Byrd was in no race, however. Of course,
+it would have been nice to be the first man across the Atlantic, as he
+had been the first man over the Pole--but he encouraged the others who
+were preparing and made no effort to be the first to start. However, his
+plane was ready before the others.
+
+"Byrd, Bennett, Noville, who was going with them, and Fokker took her up
+for her first flight. Fokker was at the controls; the other three,
+passengers. Everything went smoothly. She took off well; her motors
+functioned perfectly. But as soon as the motors were turned off for the
+glide, they felt her nose dip. She was nose-heavy. When they tried to
+land, they knew definitely that she was nose-heavy, and zoomed into the
+air again to plan what they should do. However, they couldn't stay up
+indefinitely--they hadn't much fuel. Down they glided again. The wheels
+touched the ground. Fokker jumped. But the other three were caught.
+
+"Byrd felt the fuselage heave up. The plane went over on her nose,
+turned completely over. Something struck him with an awful impact, and
+he felt his arm snap. They had to get out of this! They were trapped in
+a mass of wreckage which might at any moment burst into flames and burn
+them to death before they had a chance to escape. Noville, beside Byrd,
+broke a hole in the fabric with his fist, and they crawled out. The
+wreckage did not burn. Someone had turned off the switches of all three
+motors.
+
+"Bennett? He was hanging head down in the pilot's seat, unable to free
+himself. His leg was broken; his face bleeding. He was badly injured--so
+badly that for a week it was thought that he would never recover. But he
+did--of course. His iron nerve and grit pulled him through. But any
+thought of his going on the trip was out. This was a blow to Byrd. There
+was no man he would rather fly with than Bennett, Floyd Bennett, the
+cheerful companion, the willing worker, himself an expert pilot, and
+able to divine instructions before they were even given. Tough luck!
+
+"But tough luck, too, was the fact that the plane was almost irreparably
+damaged. Byrd set his arm on the way to the hospital, had them put it in
+a sling so that it would be out of the way, and went back to the factory
+to supervise the repairing of the America. It took over a month of work
+night and day to repair the damage that had been done, and re-design the
+nose so that the craft would be balanced.
+
+"May 21st was set for the christening of the plane. The christening-was
+changed into a celebration of the successful flight of Lindbergh.
+Bennett was pleased with Lindy's achievement, since Lindy had proved the
+very things that Byrd himself had set out to prove--that with careful
+preparation, the ocean could be spanned; and that a successful ocean
+flight would stir the imaginations of the people, making them more
+conscious of aviation and its strivings. Then, too, Lindbergh cemented
+relationships between France and the United States, which was one of
+Byrd's purposes in flying to France instead of to England, or any other
+country.
+
+"Well, after the ocean had been crossed, there was no need for hurry.
+Not that Byrd had been in a rush; but there was a great deal of
+criticism concerning the delay of his trip. Nobody knows how these
+things start, or why. It seems that it should have been Byrd's, and
+Byrd's business alone, as to when he chose to cross the ocean. After
+all, it was his life being risked, and his glory if the flight were
+successful. But a great many people in the United States felt that there
+must be some ulterior motive in his not starting immediately; and that
+he had been bested by a mere boy when he let Lindbergh be the first man
+to conquer the ocean.
+
+"But Byrd didn't care. He knew what he was about. He was a southern
+gentleman, and he said nothing to his defamers. And he went on
+completing his preparations. Chamberlin, with his passenger Levine,
+broke the world's record for flying to Germany, in a remarkable flight.
+Byrd hailed their success.
+
+"Then at last, on June 29th, early in the morning the weather man
+reported that weather conditions, while not ideal, were favorable. Dick
+Byrd decided to delay no longer. He called together his crew, and met
+them on the field at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. It was a miserable
+morning, and a light rain was falling. By the light of torches the crew
+was putting the finishing touches on the huge' America. There she was,
+atop the hill that they had built for her, so that she would get a good
+fast start. And a good fast start she needed, all 15,000 pounds of her.
+Think of the speed they had to get up in order to lift that bulk from
+the ground! They'd have to be going a mile and a half a minute!
+
+"Bert Acosta was at the wheel; Noville, recovered from his serious
+injuries in the trial crash, sat with his hand on the dump valve, by
+means of which he could dump a load of gasoline if they didn't rise into
+the air; Bert Balchen, the young Norwegian relief pilot and mechanic,
+was busy with the spare fuel.
+
+"The engines were warmed up. The great ship was ready--no, not quite
+ready. But she was eager to be off. The America broke the rope that held
+her, and glided down the hill on which she had been held. It was a tense
+moment. Would they be able to get this great hulk into the air? Along
+the ground she sped, gathering momentum. Her wheels lifted. There was a
+shout. She had cleared the ground. But the danger was not over. They
+must fly to at least 400 feet. Then the America showed her metal. She
+climbed on a turn, and they were flying at an altitude of 400 feet. They
+were off!
+
+"On they sped to their destination at last. The wind was behind them,
+helping them; the weather was disagreeable, and slightly foggy, but this
+did not bother them. They reached Nova Scotia easily. But when they got
+there they got a horrible shock. They had run into a fog. But what a
+fog! One so thick that they couldn't see the land or ocean under them.
+And they flew for 2,000 miles like this, absolutely blind, with black
+towering clouds ahead of them, below them, and when they ran through
+them, all around them.
+
+"The strain was terrible. In addition, Byrd calculated that they had
+used more fuel than he had expected, because of climbing so high to get
+over the clouds, and they might not have enough to take them to Europe.
+But they did not want to turn back. They would take their chance.
+Balchen and Acosta piloted with great skill, and Byrd took his turn at
+the wheel while they slept. The wind was with them, and they made
+excellent speed. Radio messages came to them clearly. They judged their
+position, and their gas supply, and found that they had underestimated
+their remaining gas. They could get to Rome.
+
+"On the afternoon of the second day they came out of the thick fog, and
+saw the welcome water beneath them. They were bound for France, and they
+hit the coastline at Finisterre. They headed for Paris. Then they
+radioed ahead for the weather report. Fog! Fog and storm, with its
+center at Paris. This was the worst thing that could possibly have
+happened to them, this arriving at their destination in a fog. But they
+went on. It would be a triumph, and an addition to aviation knowledge if
+they could land in a storm, after coming all the way from America.
+
+"They figured finally that they must be almost over Paris. But suddenly
+the fog below them was pierced by a queer light. It was the revolving
+signal of a lighthouse! Their compass had gone back on them, and they
+had made a circle, coming out not at Paris, but back to the coast of
+France.
+
+"They turned around, after adjusting their compasses, and made once more
+for Paris by dead reckoning. They were above Le Bourget. But what could
+they do? They could see nothing below them, only an inky blackness that
+nothing could penetrate. Landing would have meant not only death to
+themselves, but perhaps to many people who had gathered to watch their
+triumphal landing. Their gas was getting low. Byrd saw only one
+solution. They turned and flew once more back to the coast. They were
+heading for the lighthouse that they had come upon accidentally before.
+They flew very low, over the sleeping towns and villages that they knew
+were below them, but which were shrouded in pitch blackness. A revolving
+light pierced the blackness, and they were at the seacoast. But over the
+water it was just as inky black as over the land.
+
+"Balchen was at the wheel. Byrd gave the signal to land. They threw over
+a line of flares that gave them some idea as to where to land, then
+descended. The force of their impact with the water sheared off the
+landing gear. The plane sank to the wings in the water, and the fuselage
+filled rapidly.
+
+"Byrd was thrown into the water. He swam to the plane. Noville was
+climbing out. The other two were nowhere to be seen. Byrd called to
+them. He swam over to the plane, which was almost submerged. Balchen was
+caught in the wreckage, but managed to extricate himself. Then Acosta
+swam up from nowhere. His collar bone was broken. But a hasty survey
+assured Byrd that the others were all right. Almost exhausted, they got
+out the collapsible boat, blew it up, and paddled to shore. It was a
+mile to the village, and they trudged wearily on.
+
+"They certainly did not look like a triumphal parade when they got to
+the village, four tired, wet, dirty men, who looked more like tramps
+than aviators. They tried to arouse the villagers, but they could not. A
+small boy riding by became frightened when they spoke to him, and
+scooted away. Finally they approached the lighthouse, aroused the
+lighthouse keeper and his wife, and made them understand what had
+happened.
+
+"From then on, all was beer and skittles. There wasn't enough that the
+villagers could do for the Americans who had landed so unceremoniously
+in their midst--or practically in their midst. They rescued the plane,
+and the mail that was in it.
+
+"Paris was next, and the real triumphal parade started then. The flyers
+were almost overwhelmed with the wonderful greeting that the Parisians
+gave them. It was worth all of the hours of agony that they had gone
+through. They had accomplished what they had set out to accomplish,
+after all.
+
+"Then America. Once more the American people welcomed Dick Byrd back as
+the hero of the moment. He had excited interest in aviation; he had
+proved many valuable scientific facts; he had proved a hero under trying
+circumstances; he had added to the friendly feeling felt by the French
+for the American people; in fact, he had done all things except one. He
+had not extinguished his spirit of adventure.
+
+"No sooner was Admiral Byrd back from his trip across the Atlantic when
+he was planning another voyage, this time reflecting again the boyish
+dreams of his early youth. He planned to go to the South Pole to make
+certain scientific studies, and to fly across the Pole when he was
+there.
+
+"Very carefully he began to plan. He first obtained his ships. The
+_Larsen_ and the _Sir James Clark Ross_ were to be used as supply ships.
+_The City of New York_, once an ice breaker, was to be his chief ship,
+and the _Eleanor Bolling_, named in honor of his mother, was to be the
+chief supply ship. He took, too, four planes, three for observation
+flights, and the huge three-motored Fokker, the _Floyd Bennett_. Every
+division of the expedition was equipped with radio sets. Every division
+of the expedition was further so equipped that in case of accident, or
+in case it should be separated from any other unit, it could rescue
+itself.
+
+"Among the preparations was the purchase of about a hundred eskimo dogs,
+which were to be used in the arctic. Ships, planes, cameras, radios,
+footgear, and a thousand other details Byrd had to plan carefully.
+Almost a million dollars had been spent before the ships even left New
+York.
+
+"In the midst of the preparations Admiral Byrd received a terrible blow.
+This was the death of Floyd Bennett, that someone has already told
+about. Bennett flew to the aid of Major Fitzmaurice, Captain Koebl and
+Baron von Huenefeld, who had been forced down in the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence, during the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic. At
+Murray Bay, Quebec, he developed influenza, which turned into pneumonia.
+He died in Quebec. Colonel Lindbergh rushed to Quebec with serum to save
+his life, but it was of no use. Floyd Bennett, whom everybody loved, and
+one of the greatest pilots of his day, had flown his last flight.
+
+"It meant a loss to all aviation, but to Dick Byrd especially, since the
+two men had been close friends. There was no man with whom Byrd would
+rather have flown over the South Pole, as he had flown over the North.
+In memory of his friend, Byrd named the plane with which he was to fly
+over the Pole the _Floyd Bennett_.
+
+"Preparations had to go on. It came time to choose the crew and staff
+which was to go with Byrd, to be gone for such a long time in the arctic
+wastes. The prospect does not seem inviting--the leaving of comfortable
+homes, of families, in order to spend a year in the coldest climate that
+will sustain life. But so great is the spirit of adventure in man that
+15,000 people volunteered to go on the expedition. The men who were
+finally chosen were picked men--all physically in perfect health, and
+mentally alert. True, some of them shipped in positions in which they
+had had no training, but Admiral Byrd could safely say that he had made
+a mistake in no case. Every man that he chose proved himself worthy of
+the choice.
+
+"Finally all was ready. On August 26, 1928, the _City of New York_
+started out. _The Eleanor Bolling_, a steamship, started later, as did
+the supply ship, the _Larsen_. _The City of New York_, a sail boat, got
+to New Zealand about the middle of November, the last to arrive. The
+_Larsen's_ cargo was shifted to the other ships. On December 2, the
+_Eleanor Bolling_ and the _City of New York_ sailed for the ice pack. In
+about two weeks it came into sight. Then the latter ship took over the
+former's cargo, and while the sail boat sailed back for New Zealand, the
+steamer went on to penetrate the ice pack and steam at last into the
+Ross Sea.
+
+"The ship and its precious cargo went on to the ice barrier, and it was
+on the ice barrier that Little America, the base of the expedition, that
+was to be the home of Byrd and his men for a rigorous year and a half,
+was built.
+
+"The village they built was complete in every detail. As soon as they
+landed, the men started in with the building program. There were three
+clusters of buildings set in a circle about a thousand feet around.
+These included the Administration Building, containing living quarters,
+dispensary and radio reception room, a meteorological shelter, etc. Then
+there was the general dormitory, and the observation igloo. Other
+buildings included the store houses and medical supply store-house; a
+Mess Hall, which was reached by a tunnel, and contained the dining room,
+and more living quarters.
+
+"The community was a comfortable one. There was plenty of work, of
+course, but there was time for leisure, too, and the men could listen to
+the radio, play with the dogs, read one of the books of the large
+library; play cards, in fact, do any one of a number of things. The food
+was good. Dried vegetables and fruits had been taken down in quantities.
+There was plenty of meat, both smoked, and fresh killed seal meat. They
+had electric light, and plenty of heat to keep them warm. In fact, the
+life was pleasant if anything.
+
+"Of course, the most significant part of the whole expedition was Byrd's
+flight over the Pole. As in the other flights, the building of the
+runway was the greatest task, and one of the most important. It took the
+whole crew of 60 men to keep the runway in condition. On January 6th,
+the Commander made his first flight in Antarctica, making many
+photographs from his plane. After that, many trips were taken, new land
+discovered, and scientific observations made.
+
+"The long night set in, and meant less activity, but in the Spring the
+sun rose once more, and activity broke out with renewed vigor,
+especially around the planes. Men had been sent ahead to cache food for
+emergency, in case of a forced landing of the _Floyd Bennett_. Byrd,
+Harold June, Bernt Balchen and Ashley McKinley were to make the flight.
+Everything was at last ready, and they were waiting only for favorable
+weather conditions in order to start.
+
+"On November 27, this was in 1929, came a weather report that satisfied
+Byrd, no fog, and plenty of sun. The next day was bright and fair. The
+plane was given a final overhauling. It was carefully warmed; the oil
+was heated and poured in. Into the cabin went the dogs, and the dog
+sledge, the food and other supplies that the men would have to use in
+case of a forced landing. Into the plane, too, went Ashley McKinley's
+camera, which was to take records of the crossing of the Pole.
+
+"Finally Byrd gave the signal. _The Floyd Bennett_ was rolled out of its
+hangar to the runway. Balchen was to pilot first. He opened the throttle
+of all three motors. There was a roar, and they were on their way.
+
+"Away they flew, into the cloudless sky. June and Balchen piloted, Byrd
+navigated. They flew high, and in spite of their load of 12,000 pounds,
+almost as much as they had had on the _America_, they attained an
+altitude of some 10,000 feet. This was necessary in order to clear the
+highest of the glaciers. On flew the _Floyd Bennett_, gayly as a bird.
+
+"The craft had left Little America just before three o'clock in the
+afternoon. In ten hours she had covered 700 miles. Then suddenly they
+were over the Pole. They circled around in a great circle, whose center
+was the South Pole, and then turned back. At a little after ten the next
+morning they sped wearily into camp at Little America. In nineteen hours
+they had been to the South Pole and back, and Dick Byrd, even though he
+couldn't have been the first man at the North and South Poles,
+nevertheless found himself the only man in the world who had flown over
+both the North and South Poles.
+
+"There was a let-down in the community's enthusiasm. The great task had
+been accomplished. They awaited the City of New York which was to come
+to take them home. Preparations were made for the homeward journey. It
+was with joyous cries that the steamer City of New York was greeted, and
+with pleasure that the men left Little America for New Zealand. By April
+they had left hospitable New Zealand behind, too, and had started for
+the United States.
+
+"Once more his countrymen turned out to honor Byrd. Dick Byrd was now
+Rear-Admiral Byrd, but the same Dick Byrd as he had always been before.
+There were banquets, and medals, and many honors heaped upon him. All
+over the world movies which had been taken of the expedition were shown
+to entranced millions. Everybody shared in the work, the good times, the
+adventures of that group of men.
+
+"And here was little Richard Evelyn Byrd, who had been the undersized,
+delicate boy, with a will of iron, and a spirit for adventure, the
+leader of it all, the prime force behind the whole expedition. He
+accomplished all that he sat out to accomplish, and more. The scientific
+data that he collected proved valuable; and interest in aviation was
+beyond a doubt stimulated. And that's that. How's that for a little
+fellow with a bum ankle? Pretty good, eh?"
+
+Nobody answered the Captain at first. There seemed no answer. Each of
+them was busy with his own thoughts. Or her own thoughts, because the
+feminine minds in that gathering were working very fast.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Martin at last, "I am usually the last person to point
+a moral, but I do think that there's a moral in that story." She saw her
+opportunity at last. "I think that Dick Byrd's parents were responsible
+for the boy's success. If they had squelched his adventurous spirit at
+the beginning, he would probably never have got any place."
+
+Mrs. Gregg smiled to herself in the darkness. "Do you believe in young
+boys going off by themselves, Mrs. Martin?"
+
+"It teaches them self-reliance," said Mrs. Martin firmly.
+
+"Do you think that they ought to fly planes by themselves?"
+
+"And why not? After all, there isn't very much to flying a plane, if you
+keep your wits about you. And I'm sure that both of our boys have their
+wits about them. I think that the earlier you learn a thing, the better
+it is for you. It makes everything else easier, too."
+
+There was a silence for a while. Then Mrs. Gregg said, with a laugh in
+her voice, "I think that I'm being worked upon. First by the Captain
+with his story, and then by you. I'm afraid I have no defense." She
+turned to Hal, who had not spoken at all, but who had been thinking a
+great deal during the story of Byrd, and the obstacles that he had
+overcome. "Well, Hal," she said, "what do you think? Shall we yield to
+these people? Shall the Greggs yield to the Martins?"
+
+Hal had not seen his mother so light-hearted and gay for a long time.
+The pleasant evening and the story had had a decided effect upon her.
+
+Hal didn't know exactly what to say, But his mother went on, "I think
+we're beaten, Hal. Do you want to go to the mountains with your
+friends?" Nobody there knew the effort that that sentence cost Mrs.
+Gregg, but she had said it, and she stood committed.
+
+Hal was at a still greater loss as what to reply. His heart was beating
+wildly. There was nothing that he desired more now than to go to the
+mountains, but he felt the effort that his mother had put behind her
+words. Should he go? He wanted to. He wanted to show them that he wasn't
+afraid. And he wouldn't be afraid, either. Not any more. Other people,
+little fellows, too, had done things, had gone places, and they weren't
+afraid. So Hal said, "Well, I'd like to."
+
+"If you wish to, you may," said Mrs. Gregg.
+
+Bob, who had listened breathlessly to this conversation, could restrain
+himself no longer. "Whoopee!" he yelled. "Hal's coming along! Hal's
+coming along!" He jumped up and started to execute a war dance, dragging
+Hal after him.
+
+Captain Bill was pleased. His story had made a hit--more of a hit than he
+had even hoped for.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--Four Women Flyers
+
+
+Mrs. Martin, too, was pleased. She had gained her point, and now had
+another surprise for the company. "Did it ever occur to you that there
+are famous flyers who aren't men? It's just like you to neglect the
+women altogether."
+
+"Aw," said Bob, "we can't go telling stories about women. We're sticking
+to men."
+
+"It seems to me that the women oughtn't to be neglected," said his
+mother. "After all, when we women do things, we like to be recognized."
+
+The Captain broke in, then. "Well, how about some of the women? he
+asked. Of course, being a woman yourself, you can't enter our
+story-telling contest, but you can amuse us from a purely amateur love
+of getting in your feminine licks."
+
+Mrs. Martin smiled in the dark. "You think that I won't," she said. "But
+I will. I've been doing reading of my own, you know."
+
+"Tell away, Mater," said Bob. "You're better than any of us."
+
+Mrs. Martin began her story. "There are four women who stand head and
+shoulders above the rest in the United States," she said, "when it comes
+to flying. They are that oddly-assorted group--tall, slender, boyish
+Amelia Earhart, who's Amelia Earhart Putnam, now; little Elinor Smith,
+who doesn't weigh much over a hundred pounds: medium-sized, gracious and
+charming Ruth Nichols, who belongs to the Junior League; and short,
+sturdy, daring Laura Ingalls.
+
+"Amelia is probably the first lady of the land, or I should say, first
+lady of the air in the United States now, since her solo trans-Atlantic
+flight on May 20, 1932. It was fitting that she should make her flight
+on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's flight to Europe, because she's
+always been called the Lady Lindy. She looks like him, you know--long,
+lean, blonde, with a shock of unruly curly hair, and a shy, contagious
+smile. She has even his modest nature, and the ability to win the hearts
+of everybody with whom she comes in contact.
+
+"The solo flight wasn't Amelia Earhart's first trip across the ocean by
+plane. You remember her first flight, when she went as a passenger on
+the Stultz-Gordon flight in 1928. She's the first person now who has
+ever crossed the ocean twice through the air. Amelia is a real
+pioneer--she must have adventure and excitement in life--that's why she
+gave up social service work, and made flying her profession. It wasn't
+easy for her to learn to fly--she just had evenings and Sundays to get in
+her practice flights, but she stuck to it, and finally had a sufficient
+number of hours in the air to get her pilot's license. Of course, she is
+interested in the progress of aviation. Everybody who flies has this
+interest at heart--but the love of adventure is uppermost in her mind
+when she makes her record flights.
+
+"It was that that sent her across the Atlantic, through storms and sleet
+and fog, with no thought of turning back, in spite of decided defects in
+her motor that threatened to land her in the middle of the ocean and
+send her to certain death.
+
+"There wasn't much publicity before her flight. Since it was going to be
+for her own satisfaction, she wanted to keep it to herself. She took off
+quietly from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. The weather was fairly good,
+but when she got out a few hours, she met with the same terrifying
+flying conditions that her solo predecessor, Lindbergh, had. Fog
+enveloped her plane. She could not see in front of her, or to either
+side. Ice formed on the wings of her plane, and threatened to break them
+off. Gradually the temperature rose, and the ice melted. But new dangers
+threatened. A weld in the exhaust manifold broke, and the manifold
+vibrated badly; leaks sprang in the reserve gas tanks in the cockpit,
+and then--the altimeter broke.
+
+"Now the altimeter, as I suppose you all know, records the altitude at
+which the plane is flying. Amelia Earhart had never flown without one,
+and now she realized the hazards of not knowing how high she was flying
+through the fog. Sometimes she would drop so low that she came suddenly
+out of the fog, but so close to the water she could see the white caps
+on the surface.
+
+"The girl realized that she must make a landing as soon as possible, and
+that was when she reached Culmore, Ireland, a tiny place five miles from
+Londonderry. She landed in a field, scaring a team of plow horses, who
+had never before seen a woman landing after a trans-Atlantic flight. She
+went by automobile to Londonderry, and there received the rousing
+welcome that was due her.
+
+"Europe entertained her royally. She was awarded the Distinguished
+Flying Cross; she was received by the Prince of Wales; she was partied
+and banqueted. And through it all she kept her poise, and modestly
+accepted the acclaim that was showered upon her. She was the first woman
+to fly solo across the Atlantic, but not only that, she had set a new
+speed record for the North Atlantic Ocean, flying a distance of 2,026
+miles in about thirteen and a half hours. She had at the same time
+broken Ruth Nichols' long distance record for women, which had been set
+at 1,977 miles from Oakland, California, to Louisville, Kentucky.
+
+"Ruth Nichols has a habit of setting records. She started to fly at
+about the same time that Amelia Earhart started, and has kept nip and
+tuck with her, except for the fact that proposed plans of hers to fly
+the Atlantic have not as yet been carried out. She was graduated from
+Wellesley College, and was a member of the Junior League, which rates
+her pretty high in the social scale, but her overwhelming desire for
+adventure and pioneering, led her, as it led Amelia Earhart, to choose
+aviation as her profession. Ruth Nichols held the long distance record
+for women until it was broken by Amelia Earhart. She holds the altitude
+record for women, though, and broke the altitude record for Diesel
+engines in 1932, at a height of over 21,000 feet.
+
+"Elinor Smith was, in a way of speaking, born in an airplane cockpit.
+Her father was a pilot; Elinor made her first flight as a passenger at
+the age of eight; took over the controls at twelve; and made her first
+solo flight at fifteen. She was so small that her head did not reach
+over the top of the cockpit, and the other pilots called her 'the
+headless pilot.' It was a funny sight to see a plane land gracefully on
+a field apparently with no one to guide it. Then out would pop Elinor, a
+grimy little girl, covered with grease from the motor, and with a
+cheerful grin on her impish face. It was Elinor, who at seventeen, set
+the women's solo endurance record by staying in the air alone for 26
+hours and 21 minutes. Elinor should do great things in aviation. She
+knows her planes inside and out; she's had the opportunity such as no
+other woman has had, to learn the technicalities of aviation when she
+was young that she absorbed them as part of herself. Elinor Smith is one
+of the most popular women in aviation now.
+
+"Laura Ingalls is the stunt flyer of the women. She came out of the
+middle-west, from Missouri. She took to music and dancing first to
+express her restless spirit, and then found that it was flying that
+would express her best. So she went to a government-approved school, and
+became an expert, daring flyer. She is the holder of the record for
+loop-the-loops for women, and of the barrel roll record for both men and
+women. She is interested in the progress of aviation, but gets a great
+thrill out of merely flying for its own sake."
+
+Mrs. Martin paused. "I guess that gives you an idea," she said, "what
+women are doing nowadays."
+
+"Women have always done the great things in aviation," said Mrs. Gregg.
+"They stay home and wait while the men are risking their lives. Waiting
+is harder than doing.
+
+"Women haven't a monopoly on that," said Bob. "What about Mr. Putnam,
+who waited at home while his wife flew the ocean?"
+
+Everybody laughed. "You're right, Bob," said Mrs. Gregg. Then she added,
+"It's getting pretty late. How about our going, Hal?"
+
+The two of them cut across the garden to their home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--Hawks and Doolittle
+
+
+The next day was spent in a pleasantly muddled state, getting Hal ready
+to go with them, and putting the finishing touches to their own
+equipment. Stout boots, fishing lines, flies, everything on their lists
+was gradually being checked off. Late in the afternoon they had a
+breathing space, and Bob remembered that it was Pat's turn to tell his
+story.
+
+"Come on, Pat, you might as well get it over with," said Bob. "We
+haven't anything else to do, anyway."
+
+"You're mighty impudent for a young one, Bob, my lad," said Pat. "Just
+because you've made a solo flight doesn't mean that you're wings are dry
+yet. You might know that any story I'd tell would be good."
+
+"Oh, Patrick, you'll have to prove that," said the Captain. "I've heard
+some pretty awful ones from you. Haven't I?"
+
+"It must have been two other fellows," said Pat. "But I'll begin. And I
+won't take so long, either. I'm not one of these long winded story
+tellers," he said significantly.
+
+"Get on, get on." This from Captain Bill.
+
+"My two boys are the speedy two, all right," began Pat. "Speed was their
+middle name. Their real names were--well, you probably have guessed. It's
+not a secret--Frank Hawks and Jimmie Doolittle. Beg pardon, maybe I had
+better say Lieutenant Commander Frank Hawks of the United States Naval
+Reserve, the holder of some 30 inter-city aviation records, etcetera,
+etcetera; and maybe it would be more proper to talk about James
+Doolittle, M.S.; D.A.E.. But what's the use of the titles? They're just
+Frank and Jimmie, two of the squarest shooters in the game.
+
+"Frank was born, of all places for a flyer to be born, in Marshalltown,
+Iowa, on March 28, 1897. Iowa's flat, you know. Wouldn't think that
+there'd be much inspiration for flying out there. But maybe all that
+flat prairie was just so much inspiration to get away from it all, and
+get up into the air. Anyway, young Frank put plenty of grey hairs in his
+mother's head with his love for climbing. Just crazy about high places.
+Always up a tree, so to speak.
+
+"Little Frank was mighty pretty, I guess. Maybe he wouldn't like my
+saying it, but he must have been a smart kid, too. At a very tender age,
+my lads, our friend Frank Hawks was playing children's parts in
+Minneapolis. But then the family moved to California--maybe to live down
+the scandal of a performing son, and Frank got serious, being mightly
+busy just going to high school.
+
+"Maybe it was fate, but something happened that changed Frank Hawks'
+ideas about what he wanted to be when he grew up. The Christofferson
+brothers, who were pretty great shakes in those days, and pioneers in
+flying, set up a shop on the beach outside Frank's home town. They took
+up passengers. But they charged plenty for it, and Frank, while he hung
+around a lot, never had the money to go up, although he was mighty
+anxious to fly.
+
+"Finally he got an idea. If he couldn't get up in the usual way, he'd
+find a way he could go up. So young Frank got himself a pencil, a
+notebook, and a mighty important look, and approached one of the
+Christoffersons. 'I'm from the newspaper, Mr. Christofferson,' he says,
+'and I'd like an interview with you.' And he interviewed him just as
+serious as you please, with Christofferson pleased as could be, thinking
+of the publicity and the new passengers he'd get. Then young Frank asked
+if he couldn't go up, in order to write his impressions of an airplane
+ride. Of course, of course.
+
+"So Frank Hawks got his first ride in an airplane, and decided on his
+future career. Aviation got a recruit and Christofferson waited a long
+time for his interview to appear. In fact, he waited indefinitely.
+
+"The problem for Frank then was to get another ride. He finally went to
+the flyer, and told him what he had done. He was forgiven, and worked
+out his passage for that ride and other rides by working around the
+flying field. It was then he learned to fly. But business was not too
+good, and the brothers moved on. Frank Hawks went on with his high
+school work, and was graduated in 1916. Thought he ought to have more
+book learning, so he went on to the University of California.
+
+"But the war stopped that. When he was twenty, Hawks joined the army,
+the Flying Corps. He was too good, though. Too good for his own good.
+They never sent him to France, where he wanted to go. Instead, they made
+him an instructor, so that he could teach green recruits how to fly. At
+the end of the war he was discharged, with the title of Captain.
+
+"The five years after that were hectic ones. Aviation was still
+new--interest in it had been stirred up by war flying, and all sorts of
+men, young, old, every kind, bought up old planes from the government
+and went barnstorming around the country, taking people up on flights,
+stunting, flying in air circuses, balloon jumping, and doing anything
+they could to make money with their tubs. Some of these planes were no
+more than old junk, and the flyers no more than the rankest amateurs.
+But there were some of them who were good, and one of these was Hawks.
+He went dizzily stunting around the country, until' he got himself the
+reputation of being just plain crazy, but a great flyer.
+
+"There were ups and downs, to be sure. And I don't mean to be funny,
+either, my lads. The people in the United States were getting just a
+little weary of going up in airplanes just for the fun of the thing--they
+were getting too common. But--there were people down in Mexico who had
+never seen a plane, much less flown in one, so down to Mexico went
+Hawks. He gave. Mexico plenty of thrills, and Mexico gave him some, too.
+The country was unsettled at the time, upset with revolutions. Hawks got
+a job flying a diplomat from Mexico City to his ranch, because they'd be
+safer in the air than going by automobile through the mountains. Hawks
+even tried ranching for a while, but it didn't work.
+
+"He decided to go back to the United States, and when he went back he
+married Edith Bowie, who hailed from Texas. Down in Texas Hawks flew
+over the cotton fields with arsenic to kill the boll weevils. He worked
+in the oil fields, too, as a driller. It was good experience for him.
+They found out that he could fly, and he got a job piloting officials of
+the oil company from place to place in the oil country. They found that
+they were saving time and money.
+
+"At this time Lindy flew over the Atlantic. Hawks bought the Spirit of
+San Diego, which was the sister ship to the Spirit of St. Louis, and
+flew across the country to greet Lindbergh when he came back. He flew
+4,000 miles on a National tour with the Spirit of San Diego, and then
+7,000 miles criss-cross.
+
+"Luck was with him. He was going to reap his just rewards. He became a
+member of one of the country's richest oil companies, as their technical
+flying expert. He advised them in buying planes, and chose their pilots
+for them, and in addition, had to sell flying to the country.
+
+"And maybe he didn't set out in earnest to make the country sit up and
+take notice then! There was a Wasp-motored Lockheed Air Express
+monoplane at the manufacturers' in Los Angeles, and it had to be flown
+to New York. Hawks got the bright idea that he could fly it across the
+country without a stop. And he did.
+
+"It was his first cross-country flight, and his hardest. In the first
+place, it was February, and the weather was pretty bad for flying--so
+uncertain that they couldn't predict what he'd run into. But he decided
+to take his chance. This was in 1929. Of course, its being 1929 didn't
+make it any harder, but I just thought I ought to tell you what year it
+was. The start from Los Angeles wasn't bad. He had a mechanic with him
+to keep filling the gasoline engines, a fellow by the name of Oscar
+Grubb. They hadn't flown for very long when they ran into a fog. Hawks
+thought he'd try flying below the ceiling--but he ran into a snow storm.
+Then he tried climbing above it. He couldn't get over it.
+
+"And in the midst of all this terrible strain of flying through fog so
+thick that he couldn't see the nose of his plane, the engine began to
+miss. The tank was empty. He switched on the other tank. It was empty,
+too. Why hadn't Oscar warned him that the fuel supply was out? What had
+happened to it? Hawks looked back. There was Oscar, sprawled out, fast
+asleep. But he woke up. Pretty lucky for Oscar Grubb that he did, and
+typical Hawks luck. The tanks were filled, and on they flew through the
+murk and fog. The fog cleared a little when they got to Kentucky, but
+Hawks didn't know where he was, anyway. It wasn't until they got to
+Washington that he recognized his position, by the Capitol dome. From
+there he sped to New York, where everybody was glad to see him. No
+wonder. This speedy gentleman had made the trip in 18 hours, 21 minutes,
+breaking all speed records then existing for non-stop cross country
+flight.
+
+"It got to be a habit, this record-breaking. His next venture was New
+York to Los Angeles and back. He left Roosevelt field at 8 o'clock in
+the morning, and was in Los Angeles in the evening. Seven hours later he
+turned back and in 17½ hours more he was back again at Roosevelt field.
+It was dark coming down, and he broke a wing, but he escaped unhurt.
+He'd broken the east-west, west-east, and round trip records, all of
+them, making the round trip in 36 hours and 48 some minutes.
+
+"Hawks never let people forget him for long. He was out to sell speed to
+the country, and he knew that the way to do it was by speeding. In July
+everybody began to hear about the 'mystery ship' that was being built
+for him. It was a monoplane. On August 6th, it was a mystery no longer.
+Hawks was going to race with the sun. The sun had always beaten him so
+far, and he wanted a return match, for revenge.
+
+"So he lifted his monoplane into the air in New York, just as the sun
+was rising, at about 6 in the morning. He flew right with that sun and
+got into Los Angeles before it had set, or just about 10 minutes before
+6 o'clock in the evening. He'd beaten dat ol' davil sun, all right. One
+week later, and he was on his way back across the continent again, and
+got to New York in less than 12½ hours.
+
+"Well, he'd proved how quickly you could get across the United States in
+an ordinary plane. Then he showed how you could cross with a glider,
+towed by an engined plane. Why, you ask. Well, in the first place, it
+attracted attention to gliders. And gliders are important in aviation.
+And then, if towed gliders are practical, they might solve the problem
+of carrying pay loads in cross-country flights. The glider could be
+loaded up, hitched to an airplane, and go from New York to any point
+west. That was the idea. Well, Hawks did attract attention. It took him
+six and a half days to get from San Diego to New York, stopping off at a
+lot of cities, and just generally bumming around the country.
+
+"In 1930 about the only spectacular flight that Frank Hawks made was the
+tour with Will Rogers, when they flew around the country seeking help
+for the drought victims. They covered 57 cities in 17 days, which meant
+a lot of work, because they put on a show wherever they stopped. Hawks,
+with his stage experience behind him, fitted in perfectly with the plan.
+He not only could fly, but he developed a patter, modeled after Will
+Rogers' and came out chewing gum and swinging a lariat.
+
+"In 1931, having about exhausted record-breaking in the United States,
+our friend Mr. Hawks left these shores, and went off to Europe to sell
+speed and airplanes to that continent. No sooner had he landed than he
+started to break their records, too. The first one to fall was the speed
+record from London to Berlin, a distance, of 600 miles, which he made in
+2 hours and 57 minutes. This was just about half the time that the
+regular passenger planes take. He had a light tail wind behind him, to
+help him, and a bad fog over the channel to hinder him. He flew the
+whole distance by compass.
+
+"About a week later the United States again heard from Frank Hawks. They
+heard that he'd dined in three European capitals on the same day. Left
+Bourget before breakfast, had breakfast in London, kippers, I suppose,
+or kidneys, at the Croydon Field. That was about 9:30. He left Croydon
+for Berlin, and got there 3 hours and 20 minutes later, in time for
+lunch at the Tempelhof Airdrome. He flew back to Paris, for tea at Le
+Bourget, and then motored into the city for a good dinner. The dinner he
+didn't pay for. It was on some friends who had bet him that he couldn't
+make it. He did. Don't bet against Frank Hawks. It isn't good business.
+
+"The next month, on June 17, Frank felt hungry again, and maybe tired of
+the food he'd been getting, anyway. So he got into his plane, at London,
+just after breakfast; had luncheon in Rome, and got back in time for tea
+in London. He'd made the round trip in 9 hours and 44 minutes, actual
+flying time. Of course, a man has to take time out to eat. Getting to
+Rome and back meant that he'd beaten the Alps twice. He enjoyed that
+trip. He'd had a head wind with him all the way, and was pretty glad
+about beating the Alps. They look less mighty and dangerous when you're
+looking down at them from a safe plane, in the cleat sunshine. Almost
+gentle.
+
+"Speedy Hawks decided to come back to America. But he didn't come back
+to rest. He went right on breaking records, and making up new ones to be
+broken. In January of 1932 he flew from Agua Caliente to Vancouver,
+British Columbia, in 13 hours and 44 minutes. That was called his famous
+three-flag flight. It was a grand flight, too, and the first of its kind
+to be flown in one day. It wasn't non-stop; he'd stopped at Oakland,
+California and Portland, Oregon, both on the way up and the way back,
+for fuel. The trip was about 2,600 miles long, and he'd averaged about
+180 miles per hour.
+
+"Hawks is certainly accomplishing what he set out to do. He's never had
+to bail out, and he's never had a serious accident. He was pretty well
+banged up when he didn't clear the ground and crashed into some wires
+early in 1932, but he pulled out of that all right. Flying fast was no
+more dangerous than flying slowly, if a man could handle his plane. What
+the country needed was speed and more speed, and Hawks gave it to them.
+It helped, too. The whole commercial system in the United States has
+speeded up. Two hours have been cut off the transcontinental trip, and
+more will undoubtedly be cut off. In June of '32 Hawks was made
+Lieutenant Commander Hawks. And it's no more than he deserves. He's a
+great lad.
+
+"And so is Jimmie Doolittle. There's some say that Jimmie is the
+greatest flyer of them all, but he says he isn't. I don't know whether
+we should take his word for it or not. He may be prejudiced. Anyway,
+he's one of the best liked flyers in the country. James Doolittle is a
+little fellow. That is, he's short. Just 5 feet 2, but every inch a
+scrapper, and every inch nerve.
+
+"Anybody who talks about Doolittle likes to tell the story of the time
+he went down to Chile for the Curtiss Company to demonstrate a new type
+of flying plane to the government. The Chilean government was pretty
+particular. It wanted only the best, so it decided to have five
+countries compete in a mock fight, England, France, Germany, Italy and
+the United States, and the plane that won the battle would be the one
+bought for the Chilean army.
+
+"Well, Curtiss asked the Army Air Service if they could borrow the
+Army's crack test pilot, Jimmie, and the Army lent him. Doolittle went
+down there all set to win. But there was a party for the aviators before
+the battle, and the aviators, all being young, and good fellows, got
+very jolly, and decided that each of them would have to put on a stunt
+to entertain the others. Now Doolittle decided that his best bet was
+acrobatics, so he balanced on the window ledge, to show his best
+handstands and other tricks that he'd learned in college. A brace or
+something on the window gave way, and down went James into the street,
+landed on both feet, and broke both ankles. Just before the big show!
+Well, they took him to the hospital and put both ankles in a plaster
+cast.
+
+"The show went on, and the hero wasn't there. But was he resting
+peacefully at the hospital? He was not. With the help of a friend, he
+cut off the plaster cast, had himself hoisted into an ambulance, and
+taken to the field. When he got there, they strapped his feet to the
+rudder bar, and he was all set to go into his act. Only the German plane
+was in the air. Doolittle zoomed up, and there followed one of the
+prettiest dog fights that anyone there had ever seen. Doolittle
+maneuvered and bedeviled that German plane until it turned tail and
+retired. James circled around once or twice to show that he was cock of
+the walk, and then came down to get the Chilean contract for the Curtiss
+people. That's the way James Doolittle does things.
+
+"How did he get so scrappy? Well, he was a born fighter. And then, he
+grew up in a gold camp in the Klondike, and if there was any place
+harder than a gold camp in Alaska in those days, it would be hard to
+find. Jimmie was born in Alameda. California, in 1896. His father was a
+carpenter and miner, and left for the Klondike in '97, the year before
+the big rush to Dawson in '98. Well, two years later he sent for his
+wife and the boy James.
+
+"Jimmie's first scrap was with an Eskimo child. He drew blood, and was
+so frightened that he cried as loudly as the Eskimo warrior. But he
+never stopped fighting after that first fight. Maybe it was because he
+was so small that he had to fight. Anyway, he usually was fighting boys
+bigger than himself, and he got so good that he'd whip them to a frazzle
+every time. It gets to be a habit, you know, and any way, he was born
+scrappy. Ask anyone.
+
+"The Doolittles left the Klondike, and moved back to California with
+their obstreperous son, and I imagine the Klondike parents breathed a
+little easier. In California Jimmie went to school, and on the side
+became Amateur Bantamweight Champion of the Pacific Coast.
+
+"When he'd been graduated from High School Jimmie went on to the
+University of California, same college that Hawks had attended. He went
+on fighting, still in the bantamweight class. But one day down in the
+gymnasium, the boxing coach put him in the ring with a middleweight for
+some practice. Jimmie knocked him out. And he knocked out the second
+middleweight, and the third middleweight. So the coach, seeing that he
+had struck gold, entered Jimmie in the match with Stanford, but in the
+middleweight class. The crowd roared when they saw the little bantam
+getting into the ring with a pretty husky middle. The middleweight
+thought that it was a joke on him, and was careful not to hit hard. But
+he needn't have been so kind. Jimmy Doolittle retaliated by knocking him
+stiff and cold in a few minutes.
+
+"Jimmie didn't graduate. In 1917 he married Jo, and settled down to
+serious things, such as going out to Nevada and becoming a gold miner,
+and later a mining engineer. I might say a word about Jim and Jo.
+They're known as the inseparables. They're always together. They've got
+two kids, who are thirteen and eleven years old, and who can fly in
+their daddy's footsteps. The family leads a gypsy life, flying from one
+army field to another, but they have a great time.
+
+"Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. Let's get back to the War. Because
+the war broke out then, you know, and Jimmie joined the air service. His
+first lesson, they turned him over to an instructor by the name of Todd.
+They were still on the ground, when they heard a crash, then another
+crash. Two planes had collided in the air. First one dropped, then the
+other, close to Jimmie's plane. One of the pilots was killed; the other
+pilot and his passenger were badly hurt. Doolittle helped them out, and
+went back for his first lesson.
+
+"Jimmie, like Hawks, was just too good. They didn't send him to France
+at all, but made him an instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, where
+he became known as one of the star aviators in the air service. He was
+pretty angry when he found that he couldn't go to France. He went out to
+relieve his feelings. He picked out an innocent soldier walking down the
+road, and made for him. He didn't have any grudge against that soldier,
+just against the world. But that soldier had to bear the brunt. Jimmie
+swooped down on him. The soldier wouldn't move out of the way or flatten
+out. Jimmie swooped closer and closer. The soldier stood his ground.
+Finally Jimmy came so close that his wheels nicked the soldier, and down
+he went. And away flew Jimmie, but so low that he couldn't rise again in
+time to clear a barbed wire fence at the side of the road. He got caught
+in the fence and smashed up. They gave him a month in the barracks to
+think over how smart-aleck he'd been, and then Jimmie was out again. The
+soldier had a bump on the head to remind him that he'd been in the way
+when Jimmie Doolittle was mad.
+
+"Jimmie had other crashes. One was just before he made his famous flight
+in 1922 across country from Pablo Beach to San Diego. On his first
+attempt at a take-off one of his wheels struck some soft sand, and over
+he turned, being thrown into the water, plane and all. His second
+take-off was more successful--in fact, it was perfect. He got to San
+Diego in 22½ hours.
+
+"Jimmie's greatest achievements have been in testing and experimenting.
+After the war he went to the Army technical school at Dayton. He got an
+honorary degree from the University of California, and then he went to
+Boston with Jo, and entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
+With Jo's help he did four years' work in three, and got the degrees of
+Master of Science, and Doctor of Aviation Engineering--the first flyer to
+get the D.A.E. degree there.
+
+"He resigned from the army to join the Shell Petroleum Corporation,
+Curtiss borrowed him again, though, and he went to Europe to demonstrate
+speed planes for Curtiss to 21 European governments. He's a marvellous
+tester. He got the D.F.C. for his transcontinental flight. In 1925 he
+got the Schneider Cup in the International races, and in 1929 the medal
+of the Federale Aeronautique Internationale for his outstanding
+achievements in aviation.
+
+"I haven't told you the most outstanding, feats, Doolittle was one of
+the pioneers in blind flying. He experimented for the Guggenheim
+Foundation, testing instruments to be used for blind flying. He also
+tested the stress and strain that flying has on the human body. He would
+go into right spirals, risking his life, in order to see under what
+pressure a man becomes unconscious. It's a dangerous business, but great
+for aviation.
+
+"In September, 1931, Doolittle won the air derby, flying from Los
+Angeles to New York to establish a new transcontinental West to East
+record on 11 hours and 15 minutes. He won at the same time the Los
+Angeles-Cleveland Bendix trophy when he crossed the finish line of the
+National Air Races at the Cleveland airport. His time to Cleveland was 9
+hours and 10 minutes, an average speed of 223 miles per hour. As if that
+wasn't enough, he flew back to St. Louis to sleep, making a trip of
+3,300 miles in 19 hours. He'd broken Hawks' record then standing. Both
+the boys are still going strong. You never knew when you're going to
+wake up and find that one of them has flown across the country so fast
+that he ended up right where he started from, only two hours earlier.
+But now I'm getting fantastic," said Pat. "I must be getting tired, and
+no wonder. It's time we were getting to bed, if we want to leave at any
+hour tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--Hal Comes Through
+
+
+The day of their departure dawned bright and clear. There was a high
+ceiling, the air was crisp and cool, with a fresh wind blowing. The boys
+could hardly control themselves in their impatience to be off. Bob's
+parents and Mrs. Gregg drove down to the airport with them to see them
+off. In spite of the excitement of the boys, there was an undercurrent
+of restraint in the group. Nobody talked very much except Bob and Hal,
+who never stopped talking.
+
+The cabin plane had been taken out and warmed up by the mechanics of the
+port. It looked sleek and beautiful in the early morning light. Pat was
+going to fly her. He walked over to the Administration Building to make
+final arrangements with their friend Mr. Headlund. He took a short cut
+across the field. The port wasn't very busy. But there was some
+activity--activity that Pat, intent upon his business, did not notice. A
+student pilot, taxiing his plane across the field for his first solo
+flight, was coming straight toward him. Pat did not notice the student,
+the student was too rattled to see him.
+
+Bob was the first to notice what was happening. "Look put!" he screamed.
+"Pat, look out!"
+
+The student pilot suddenly saw Pat. He veered his plane, but a corner of
+the wing just grazed Pat's head, and knocked him flat. He was already
+getting to his feet when the others got to him.
+
+"Are you hurt, old fellow?"
+
+Pat was rubbing his head. "No, I don't think so. That is, no, I'm not at
+all. Just nicked me. I'll be all right in a second." He shook his head
+to clear it. "Gave me a bit of a bump. I'll be all right."
+
+The student pilot, white and shaking, came over to them. "Hurt badly?"
+he asked anxiously.
+
+Pat laughed. "No such luck, lad. You missed me that time. Better luck
+next time. You might try picking on somebody who's not so tough, next
+time."
+
+Pat was himself again, and the others, thankful that he had not been
+seriously hurt, watched him go into the Administration Building. When he
+came out, Bill asked. "Do you want me to pilot?"
+
+Pat looked scornful. "Since when did a little bump on the head put me
+out of commission? I'm driving the bus."
+
+All the baggage stowed away, the boys, the Captain and Pat got into the
+plane. They waved good bye to the others outside, the huge craft taxied
+over the field, turned into the wind and rose into the air. It was
+pleasant being off at last. There was the grand trip before them, and
+then the vacation itself, fishing, swimming, shooting. Hank had filled
+their heads full of the glories of his private mountain, as he called
+it. The cabin with its huge open fireplace built of stones, the bunks in
+two tiers like the berths on a pullman. Bob and Hal had already decided
+that they would have to take turns sleeping in the upper one, because
+surely the upper one would be the most fun.
+
+Their thoughts kept returning to the cold mountain streams filled to the
+brim with scrappy fish, and the waterfall that Hank said he used as an
+outdoor shower. A whole month of it! The boys could hardly sit still on
+the leather cushions.
+
+"Want something to eat?" said Bill.
+
+"Of course," they said, almost together.
+
+Bill reached for the lunch hamper. Then something seemed to go wrong.
+The plane lurched. But they hadn't struck an air pocket. It's nose fell,
+and the three were almost thrown into a heap, one atop the other. The
+plane was going into a spin! Beyond the glass partition, Pat lay slumped
+over his wheel.
+
+Something had to be done at once. And it was Hal who did it. He pushed
+open the glass partition, and got somehow to the pilot's seat. With all
+his strength, and his excitement gave him a strength that he had never
+before possessed, he pulled Pat out of his seat, and pushed him through
+the door, where the Captain and Bob were waiting to take him. Hal
+slipped behind the wheel, and neutralized all controls.
+
+Thank God, they had been flying at a high altitude. The spin wasn't a
+tight one, but a loose one. Hal pushed her nose down. That was what Pat
+had told him, wasn't it? Don't try to pull her nose up. Push it down,
+and she'd come out of it and go into a glide. At first nothing happened.
+Hal was trembling, not so much with fear as with exaltation. He felt the
+great ship respond. They were coming out of it! They were gliding
+swiftly down to earth. He had her perfectly under control. Slowly he
+pulled her up, then, and they were flying quietly and steadily with the
+horizon again.
+
+The Captain was at the door behind him. "You're great, Hal, you're
+great. You had more guts than any of us. I knew you had it in you, and
+you've showed us, Hal."
+
+Hal was happier than he had ever been in his life. He felt that he was
+master of the world now. He'd saved his pals, and now he would never
+have to be afraid of anything again. "How's Pat?" he asked.
+
+"We're turning around. He hasn't come to," said the Captain. "I'm afraid
+he was hurt more badly than he thought."
+
+Hal banked and turned. It was good to feel the ship respond to him,
+dipping one huge wing slowly, and turning about gracefully in a great
+circle. If not for Pat, his happiness would have been complete.
+
+They got Pat to the hospital, where it was found that the nasty crack on
+the skull had given him a slight concussion. But you couldn't keep Pat
+down. It merely meant postponing that trip, not cancelling it.
+
+Hal was the hero of the day. The newspapers, who got the story at the
+airport, hounded him until he conquered his shyness, just to get rid of
+them. They made the most of the story, and Hal was almost afraid to
+leave the house, for fear some of his friends would meet him in the
+street, because Hal was still the same modest retiring soul that he had
+been.
+
+But he did leave the house to go down to the hospital to see Pat, along
+with Bob and Captain Bill. Pat was sitting outside in a wheelchair when
+they came, and they sat down on the grass beside him, and talked about
+their postponed trip.
+
+"Do you know," said Captain Bill, "when we come back from our trip,
+there's something that's going to keep me busy."
+
+"What's that?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'm going to collect all of those stories we told into a book. What do
+you think of that for an idea?"
+
+"Great!" said Bob. "All of our stories? Mine, too?"
+
+"Sure, all of them."
+
+"But Hal won't have a story. He hasn't told one," said Bob.
+
+"Hal's going to be the hero," said the Captain.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Famous Flyers, by J. J. Grayson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS FLYERS ***
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