beat in his throat, a suffocating
fulness in his chest. His moment had come, he thought swiftly, as one
thinks when facing a sudden, whelming event. The biggest moment in his
life--the moment that he had dreamed of--the culmination of all his hopes
while he studied and worked--the moment when he took flight in an
airplane of his own!

"Easy on the controls, bo, till you get the feel of it." Bland leaned to
shout in his ear. "You can over-control, if yuh don't watch out. You feel
my control. Don't try to do anything yourself at first. You'll come into
it gradual."

He sat back, and Johnny waited, breathing unevenly. He had meant to wave
a hand nonchalantly to Mary V, but when the time came he forgot.

The motor drummed to a steady roar. The plane started, ran along the sand
for a shorter distance than before, smoothed suddenly as it left the
ground, climbed insidiously. The beat in Johnny's throat lessened. He
forgot the suffocated feeling in his chest. He glanced to the right and
looked down on the ridge that held the hangar in its rocky face. A
perfect assurance, a tranquil exaltation possessed him. Godlike he was
riding the air--and it was as though he had done it always.

He frowned. The earth, that had flattened to a gray smoothness, roughened
again, neared him swiftly. Ahead was a bare, yellow patch--they were
pointed toward it at a slackened speed. They were just over it--the
wheels touched, ran for ten feet or so, bounced away and returned again.
They were circling slowly, just skimming the surface of the ground. They
slowed and stopped, the plane quivering like a scared horse.

"Fine!" Bland shouted above the eased thrum of the motor. "You done
fine, but seems like you showed a tendency to freeze onto the wheel
when we were coming down; yuh don't wanta do that, bo. Keep your control
easy--flexible, like. Now we'll go back where the girl is and make a
landing there. And then we'll make a flight--as far as is safe on our
teacup of gas!"

"I brought five gallons; that ought to run us a ways," Johnny pointed
out. "I didn't want to land, that is why I froze to the wheel, as you
call it. I wanted to keep a-goin'!"

"You get me the gas, and we'll keep a-goin', all right, all right! I got
a hunch, bo, you're holding out on me."

"Forget it! Let's go!"

Again the short run, the smooth, upward flight, the slower descent, the
bouncing along to a stop.

"You done better, bo. I guess this ain't the first time yo