be found in this region, rough,
hilly country, much of it covered with forests. I chose a miniature
sugar-loaf mountain for landing-ground. It appeared to be free from
obstacles, and the summit, which was pasture and ploughed land, seemed
wide enough to settle on.

I got the direction of the wind from the smoke blowing from the
chimneys of a near-by village, and turned into it. As I approached,
the hill loomed more and more steeply in front of me. I had to pull up
at a climbing angle to keep from nosing into the side of it. About
this time I saw the cows, dozens of them, grazing over the whole
place. Their natural _camouflage_ of browns and whites and reds
prevented my seeing them earlier. Making spectacular _virages_, I
missed collisions by the length of a match-stick. At the summit of the
hill, my wheels touched ground for the first time, and I bounded on,
going through a three-strand wire fence and taking off a post without
any appreciable decrease in speed. Passing between two large apple
trees, I took limbs from each of them, losing my wings in doing so. My
landing chassis was intact and my Spad went on down the reverse
slope--

"Like an embodied joy, whose race is just begun."

After crashing through a thicket of brush and small trees, I came to
rest, both in body and in mind, against a stone wall. There was
nothing left of my machine but the seat. Unscathed, I looked back
along the wreckage-strewn path, like a man who has been riding a
whirlwind in a wicker chair.

Now, I have never yet made a forced landing in strange country without
having the mayor of the nearest village appear on the scene very soon
afterward. I am beginning to believe that the mayors of all French
towns sit on the roofs of their houses, field-glasses in hand,
searching the sky for wayward aviators, and when they see one landing,
they rush to the spot on foot, on horseback, in old-fashioned family
phaetons, by means of whatever conveyance most likely to increase
expedition their municipality affords.

The mayor of V.-sur-I. came on foot, for he had not far to go. Indeed,
had there been one more cow browsing between the apple trees, I
should have made a last _virage_ to the left, in which case I should
have piled up against a summer pavilion in the mayor's garden. Like
all French mayors of my experience, he was a courteous, big-hearted
gentleman.

After getting his breath,--he was a fleshy man, and had run all the
way from his ho