smiling.

* * * * *

The Bagby camp broke up on the first of May, with all of them, except
one of the nondescript collegians and the air-current student, more or
less trained aviators. Carl was going out to tour small cities, for
the George Flying Corporation. Lieutenant Haviland was detailed to the
army flying-camp.

Parting with Haviland and kindly Hank Odell, with Carmeau and
anxiously polite Tony Bean, was as wistful as the last night of senior
year. Till the old moon rose, sad behind tulip-trees, they sat on
packing-boxes by the larger hangar, singing in close harmony "Sweet
Adeline," "Teasing," "I've Been Working on the Railroad."... "Hay-ride
classics, with barber-shop chords," the songs are called, but tears
were in Carl's eyes as the minors sobbed from the group of comrades
who made fun of one another and were prosaic and pounded their heels
on the packing-boxes--and knew that they were parting to face death.
Carl felt Forrest Haviland's hand on one shoulder, then an awkward pat
from tough Jack Ryan's paw, as Tony Bean's violin turned the plaintive
half-light into music, and broke its heart in the "Moonlight Sonata."

CHAPTER XX

"Yuh, piston-ring burnt off and put the exhaust-valve on the blink.
That means one cylinder out of business," growled Hawk Ericson. "I
could fly, maybe, but I don't like to risk it in this wind. It was bad
enough this morning when I tried it."

"Oh, this hick town 's going to be the death of us, all right--and
Riverport to-morrow, with a contract nice as pie, if we can only get
there," groaned his manager, Dick George, a fat man with much muscle
and more diamonds. "Listen to that crowd. Yelling for blood. Sounds
like a bunch of lumber-jacks with the circus slow in starting."

The head-line feature of the Onamwaska County spring fair was "Hawk
Ericson, showing the most marvelous aerial feats of the ages with the
scientific marvels of aviation, in his famous French Bleriot
flying-machine, the first flying-machine ever seen in this state, no
balloon or fake, come to Onamwaska by the St. L. & N." The spring fair
was usually a small gathering of farmers to witness races and new
agricultural implements, but this time every road for thirty-five
miles was dust-fogged with buggies and democrat wagons and small
motor-cars. Ten thousand people were packed about the race-track.

It was Carl's third aviation event. A neat, though not imposing
figure