Part 23 (1/2)

He tilted the elevator, and rose. But, as he was volplaning, this cut down the speed, and from a height of ten feet above a field the machine dropped to the ground with a flat plop. Something gave way--but Carl sat safe, with the machine canted to one side.

He climbed out, cold about the spine, and discovered that he had broken one wheel of the landing-cha.s.sis.

All the crowd from the flying-field were running toward him, yelling.

He grinned at the foolish sight they made with their legs and arms strewn about in the air as they galloped over the rough ground.

Lieutenant Haviland came up, panting: ”All right, o' man? Good!” He seized Carl's hand and wrung it. Carl knew that he had a new friend.

Three reporters poured questions on him. How far had he flown? Was this really his first ascent by himself? What were his sensations? How had his motor stopped? Was it true he was a mining engineer, a wealthy motorist?

Hank Odell, the shy, eagle-nosed Yankee, running up as jerkily as a cow in a plowed field, silently patted Carl on the shoulder and began to examine the fractured landing-wheel. At last the instructor, M.

Carmeau.

Carl had awaited M. Carmeau's praise as the crown of his long flight.

But Carmeau pulled his beard, opened his mouth once or twice, then shrieked: ”What the davil you t'ink you are? A millionaire that we build machines for you to smash them? I tole you to fly t'ree time around--you fly to Algiers an' back--you t'ink you are another Farman brother--you are a d.a.m.n fool! Suppose your motor he stop while you fly over San Mateo? Where you land? In a well? In a chimney? _Hein?_ You know naut'ing yet. Next time you do what I tal' you. _Zut!_ That was a flight, a flight, you make a flight, that was fine, fine, you make the heart to swell. But nex' time you break the cha.s.sis and keel yourself, _nom d'un tonnerre_, I scol' you!”

Carl was humble. But the _Courier_ reporter spread upon the front page the story of ”Marvelous first flight by Bagby student,” and predicted that a new Curtiss was coming out of California. Under a half-tone ran the caption, ”Ericson, the New Hawk of the Birdmen.”

The camp promptly nicknamed him ”Hawk.” They used it for plaguing him at first, but it survived as an expression of fondness--Hawk Ericson, the cheeriest man in the school, and the coolest flier.

CHAPTER XIX

Not all their days were spent in work. There were mornings when the wind would not permit an ascent and when there was nothing to do in the workshop. They sat about the lunch-wagon wrangling endlessly, or, like Carl and Forrest Haviland, wandered through fields which were all one flame with poppies.

Lieutenant Haviland had given up trying to feel comfortable with the naval ensign student, who was one of the solemn worthies who clear their throats before speaking, and then speak in measured terms of brands of cigars and weather. Gradually, working side by side with Carl, Haviland seemed to find him a friend in whom to confide. Once or twice they went by trolley to San Francisco, to explore Chinatown or drop in on soldier friends of Haviland at the Presidio.

From the porch of a studio on Telegraph Hill, in San Francisco, they were looking down on the islands of the bay, waiting for the return of an artist whom Haviland knew. Inarticulate dreamers both, they expressed in monosyllables the glory of bluewater before them, the tradition of R. L. S. and Frank Norris, the future of aviation. They gave up the attempt to explain the magic of San Francisco--that city-personality which transcends the opal hills and rare amber sunlight, festivals, and the transplanted Italian hill-town of Telegraph Hill, liners sailing out for j.a.pan, and memories of the Forty-niners. It was too subtle a spirit, too much of it lay in human life with the pa.s.sion of the Riviera linked to the strength of the North, for them to be able to comprehend its spell.... But regarding their own ambitions to do, they became eloquent.

”I say,” hesitated Haviland, ”why is it I can't get in with most of the fellows at the camp the way you can? I've always been chummy enough with the fellows at the Point and at posts.”

”Because you've been brought up to be afraid to be anything but a gentleman.”

”Oh, I don't think it's that. I can get fond as the deuce of some of the commonest common soldiers--and, Lord! some of them come from the Bowery and all sorts of impossible places.”

”Yes, but you always think of them as 'common.' They don't think of each other that way. Suppose I'd worked----Well, just suppose I'd been a Bowery bartender. Could you be loafing around here with me? Could you go off on a bat with Jack Ryan?”

”Well, maybe not. Maybe working with Jack Ryan is a good thing for me.

I'm getting now so I can almost stand his stories! I envy you, knocking around with all sorts of people. Oh, I _wish_ I could call Ryan 'Jack' and feel easy about it. I can't. Perhaps I've got a little of the subaltern sn.o.b some place in me.”

”You? You're a prince.”

”If you've elevated me to a princedom, the least I can do is to invite you down home for a week-end--down to the San Spirito Presidio. My father's commandant there.”

”Oh, I'd like to, but----I haven't got a dress-suit.”