Based on his hasty examination of the aeroplane, young Osborne instantly suggested a few improvements or reinforcements. As most of the work yet to be done, such as the attachment of the rudder, landing skis, and wheels, would increase the car so much in size that it could not be taken in and out of the shop, everything was immediately moved out of doors.

Then, before actual labor began, Captain Anderson suggested that they go into the house for a few moments. Andy chuckled. He knew that the captain wanted to acquaint his suspicious wife with the turn in affairs—possibly the captain was afraid that Mrs. Osborne might make a real attack with her skillet.

Andy could not but envy the young aviator’s natty figure and the professional look about him. It was with considerable pride that he presented Osborne to Mrs. Anderson and his mother.

“Maybe you don’t know about him,” began[134] Andy while Roy protested and grew red in the face, “but there isn’t anyone in America, young or old, who knows any more about flyin’ machines than he does. There’s a book about him, and he ain’t but—how old are you?” exclaimed the boy.

“Oh, I can’t vote yet,” laughed Roy. “This is certainly a beautiful place for a home, Mrs. Anderson.”

“And that book tells how he figured out an aeroplane express in the deserts of Utah and found a lost tribe of Indians—”

“But I can’t see that anything I did was half as remarkable as the making of a complete aeroplane down here,” broke in Roy.

“I never saw a regular flying machine,” said Mrs. Anderson, “but this one doesn’t look like one to me. Do you think it is all right?”

“No aeroplane is absolutely all right,” answered Roy smiling. “But this one out there is correct so far as I understand aeroplanes. Anyway, I’m going to test this one out, and I don’t expect to kill myself doing it.”

“How far can you go in it?” asked Mrs. Leighton.

“If it works all right, I could go easily from here to Lake Worth, or back over the Everglades, or even across to the Bahamas—”

[135]

“To the Bahamas?” broke in Andy.

“Certainly,” affirmed Roy. “I understand they aren’t over eighty-five or ninety miles away. But I shan’t do any of these things. I’ll make a thorough test of the apparatus and then show Andy how to operate it.”

“Andy!” exclaimed Mrs. Leighton in alarm.

“I promised to,” explained Roy, surprised. “That is, if he wants to try it.”

But Mrs. Leighton was shaking her head.

“That’s part of my business, you know. I’ve taught a good many persons and have never yet had an accident.”

“I don’t think I want him to learn,” said Mrs. Leighton slowly.

“Mother,” spoke up Andy, with energy, “didn’t you say I could try to operate this car when Captain Anderson asked you to let me do it?”

“I—believe I did,” conceded that lady hesitatingly.

“Well, Captain Anderson,” exclaimed Andy stoutly, “don’t you want me to try it?”

“If Mr. Osborne tests it out and takes you up and shows you how, I think it’ll be all right.”

“There,” urged the boy facing his mother, “are you going to keep your word?”

[136]

“Let’s see what Mr. Osborne has to say about it after he has tried it,” pleaded the boy’s mother.

That was all the concession Andy wanted.

At three o’clock the Pelican was completed.

“You have to wait for the wind to go down, don’t you?” asked Captain Anderson. “That’ll be about five o’clock.”

Roy shook his head.

“Some do,” he said, “but with a perfectly-made machine and a powerful engine, I like a fair breeze.” He looked about. “I’m all ready.”

The river shore at each side of Captain Anderson’s place was crossed by a wire fence. On the south side of the pier, the hard, white sand stretched like a road for miles. Here and there was a little driftwood. Captain Anderson removed the fence with a few blows of an axe, while Andy ran down the shore to remove the driftwood.

“I suppose you think it strange I don’t help,” said Roy to Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Leighton, who were on the pier. “But that’s the first thing an aeroplane operator has to learn. When I make an extensive flight, I do no work that day if I can help it. My assistants[137] fill the tanks and get the car in place. I save every bit of muscle and nerve force I have.”

“You haven’t stuck to your rule to-day,” suggested Mrs. Leighton a little anxiously. “You’ve worked harder than the others.”

“Oh, this isn’t a real flight,” explained Roy. “I mean one in which you’re going to do stunts in the way of an exhibition. I shan’t go high or far. If I were going up several thousand feet—”

“Several thousand feet!” exclaimed both ladies.

“The safety in aeroplane work,” Roy explained, “is in going very high or very low—no middle ground. Either go so low that a fall won’t hurt you, or get up so high that if anything happens, your machine will have time to get into a glide.”

The fence having been removed and the beach cleared, the taut, bird-like aeroplane was carefully trundled around the pier and out on the sand facing south, from which direction the breeze was blowing. Andy and the captain were visibly nervous.

Then, as if it had just occurred to him, Roy said he would test the engine once more. Mrs.[138] Anderson and Mrs. Leighton had followed close behind. Roy turned with a smile.

“You ladies had better step to one side,” he suggested. “There’ll be quite a commotion behind. Take hold of her,” he said to the captain and Andy.

He located Captain Anderson and Andy at the rear of the car on opposite sides of the rudder frame and told them to sit on the ground and dig heel holes in the sand as if pulling on a rope in a tug-of-war.

“And pull your hats over your eyes,” he ordered. “Hold your heads down and hang on until you get the word to ‘let go’.”

The captain, not less eagerly than Andy, did as directed, and Roy, having turned the propeller blades into place, started the engine. The first whirr of the big blades began to agitate the loose sand and dry grass. Then the young aviator turned on more power. The agitation grew into a breeze, and that into a tornado-like storm of wind. The boy and the man on the ground felt the aeroplane pulling, and as it began to tug at its human anchors and rock from side to side, Roy quickly shut off the engine.

“Fine,” he remarked without excitement,[139] as the dust and gras............