this important question for years, because it was pretty generally
understood that when this condition had been really attained, the
sport of aviation would advance with great bounds. Make navigating
the upper air currents practically safe, and thousands would take up
flying just as they had the driving of automobiles when the road
racers had been perfected as they are to-day.

The huge packages which the two scouts had staggered under during
their weary hike from the road where the accommodating farmer had
dropped them, really contained the said model. It was not of very
large size, and the little engine which was to drive it really
weighed as much as the rest of the thing; but Bud declared that it
would answer all his purposes, and prove whether he had been wasting
his time and spending money uselessly of late or not.

Once the breakfast had been disposed of, Bud was trembling with
eagerness to get started. He could not understand why the others
should delay so, when time was slipping away.

Presently they left the cabin, closing the door behind them. All of
the blankets, as well as their food supplies, had been left inside,
and they did not want any wandering wild animal like a 'coon or a fox
to make way with the latter during their absence at the proving
grounds. It was this same caution that urged Hugh to cover up the
aperture through which they had obtained fresh air during the night
just past, and which went by the name of a window.

The open field which Bud had once before mentioned as the very place
for the trial spins with his aeroplane model was not very far distant.
The man who had originally started to make a farm away up here had
diligently cut down trees for a space of several acres. He had also
grubbed the ground so thoroughly that it had remained clear all these
years, save for an annual crop of grass, now withered and dead.

"If we can help any, Bud, just tell us what to do," Hugh said to the
inventor, after the three boys had come to a halt on the border of
this open space.

"That's the kind of talk I like to hear, Hugh," the other replied,
looking up with a smile on his anxious face. "Just wait till I get
these covers off, and then you'll see what I've been doing all these
months when some of the fellows were kidding me on being a regular
old book worm and not wanting to come out and play even football
with them. It was the hardest kind of work, but if she even goes a
little, I'll th