p.... I guess it would be better to try to
make a Chanute glider--just a plain pair of sup'rimposed planes,
instead of one all combobulated like a bat's wings, like Lilienthal's
glider was.... Or we could try some experiments with paper
models----Oh no! Thunder! Let's make a glider."

They did.

They studied with aching heads the dry-looking tables of lift and
resistance for which Carl telegraphed to Chicago. Stripped to their
undershirts, they worked all through the hot prairie evenings in the
oil-smelling, greasy engine-room of the local power-house, in front of
the dynamos, which kept evilly throwing out green sparks and rumbling
the mystic syllable "Om-m-m-m," to greet their modern magic.

They hunted for three-quarter-inch willow rods, but discarded them for
seasoned ash from the lumber-yard. They coated cotton with thin
varnish. They stopped to dispute furiously over angles of incidence,
bellowing, "Well, look here then, you mutton-head; I'll draw it for
you."

On their last Sunday in the town they assembled the glider,
single-surfaced, like a monoplane, twenty-two feet in span, with a
tail, and with a double bar beneath the plane, by which the pilot was
to hang, his hands holding cords attached to the entering edge of the
plane, balancing the glider by movements of his body.

At dawn on Monday they loaded the glider upon a wagon and galloped
with it out to a forty-foot hill. They stared down the easy slope,
which grew in steepness and length every second, and thought about
Lilienthal's death.

"W-w-well," shivered the Turk, "who tries it first?"

All three pretended to be adjusting the lashings, waiting for one
another, till Carl snarled, "Oh, all _right_! I'll do it if I got to."

"Course it breaks my heart to see you swipe the honor," the Turk said,
"but I'm unselfish. I'll let you do it. Brrrr! It's as bad as the
first jump into the swimming-hole in spring."

Carl was smiling at the comparison as they lifted the glider, with him
holding the bars beneath. The plane was instantly buoyed up like a
cork on water as the fifteen-mile head-wind poured under it. He
stopped smiling. This was a dangerous living thing he was going to
guide. It jerked at him as he slipped his arms over the suspended
bars. He wanted to stop and think this all over. "Get it done!" he
snapped at himself, and began to run down-hill, against the wind.

The wind lifted the plane again. With a shock Carl knew that his feet
had left