ittle larger
than the others, but of the same usual pattern. This was not
particularly exciting. He laid the kite down on the ground and ran into
the house again. In a moment, he was out again with another.

"Going to fly them tandem?" asked Ross.

Tom did not answer. He laid that one on the ground and returned into the
house again.

"Do you suppose he's got three?" Anton asked. This was amazing riches,
three kites. All the boys knew what a tremendous amount of careful and
exacting work went into the making of even one of them.

Out darted Tom and laid a third and then a fourth kite on the ground.
The four great kites, each of them with the forward part white and the
rear section painted black, made a noble showing in the afternoon sun.
Ralph, with his ever-ready camera, stepped forward.

"Wait a minute," said Tom, "I've got another one," and he darted into
the house to get it. He returned a moment later with a fifth kite,
similar in every detail to the other four and then, readily enough,
posed beside the kites for his picture. Overhead flew the Stars and
Stripes.

"I want that for the _Review_," said Fred.

"What are you going to do, Tom?" asked Ross.

Tom hesitated a moment and then announced:

"I'm going to try for a world's record!"

The audacity of this startled the boys for a moment, and then a shout
went up, while word was passed around the crowd that Issaquena County
was going to try for the kite record of the world.

The first kite, which no one but Tom and the Forecaster had yet seen in
flight, took the air and was off. Tom gave it four hundred feet of line
and then fastened his second kite, which he let run up until eight
hundred feet more of the line was out. The wind was now stronger,
registering twenty-two miles an hour. The three lower kites were run in
tandem, about two hundred feet of line apart. When the last of the five
kites was still on the ground, the topmost one was out of sight, and the
kites were carrying only a fraction of the weight of wire that their
lifting surface could bear.

"I'm afraid of it, sir," said Tom, his finger on the wire that was
running from the reel, "it doesn't feel right."

"Probably your lower kite is in gusts," the Forecaster answered. "Let
her go up, there may be calmer wind higher. Fasten on your three small
ones, now, Tom; you might as well have all the sail area that you can."

The eighth kite was started on its journey upwards. Only those with the