avier-than-air machine; but at all events the new
design certainly appears to give greater stability, and it is to be
hoped that by this and other devices the progress of aviation will not
in the future be so deeply tinged with tragedy.

CHAPTER XXXI. The Romance of a Cowboy Aeronaut

In the brief but glorious history of pioneer work in aviation, so far as
it applies to this country, there is scarcely a more romantic figure to
be found than Colonel Cody. It was the writer's pleasure to come into
close contact with Cody during the early years of his experimental work
with man-lifting box-kites at the Alexandra Park, London, and never will
his genial smile and twinkling eye be forgotten.

Cody always seemed ready to crack a joke with anyone, and possibly there
was no more optimistic man in the whole of Britain. To the boys and
girls of Wood Green he was a popular hero. He was usually clad in a
"cowboy" hat, red flannel shirt, and buckskin breeches, and his hair
hung down to his shoulders. On certain occasions he would give a "Wild
West" exhibition at the Alexandra Palace, and one of his most daring
tricks with the gun was to shoot a cigarette from a lady's lips. One
could see that he was entire master of the rifle, and a trick which
always brought rounds of applause was the hitting of a target while
standing with his back to it, simply by the aid of a mirror held at the
butt of his rifle.

But it is of Cody as an aviator and aeroplane constructor that we
wish to speak. For some reason or other he was generally the object of
ridicule, both in the Press and among the public. Why this should have
been so is not quite clear; possibly his quaint attire had something
to do with it, and unfriendly critics frequently raised a laugh at his
expense over the enormous size of his machines. So large were they
that the Cody biplane was laughingly called the "Cody bus" or the "Cody
Cathedral."

But in the end Cody fought down ridicule and won fame, for in
competition with some of the finest machines of the day, piloted by
some of our most expert airmen, he won the prize of L5000 offered by the
Government in 1912 in connection with the Army trials for aeroplanes.
In these trials he astonished everyone by obtaining a speed of over 70
miles an hour in his biplane, which weighed 2600 pounds.

In the opening years of the present century Cody spent much time in
demonstrations with huge box-kites, and for a time this form of kite was