tartled by a gull's plunging up through
the mist ahead of him, and disappearing. He was the more lonely when
it was gone. His eyebrows and cheeks were wet with the steam. Drops of
moisture shone desolately on the planes. It was an unhealthy shine. He
was horribly lonely.

He pictured what would happen if the motor should stop and he should
plunge down through that flimsy vapor. His pontoonless frail monoplane
would sink almost at once.... It would be cold, swimming. How long
could he keep up? What chance of being found? He didn't want to fall.
The cockpit seemed so safe, with its familiar watch and map-stand and
supporting-wires. It was home. The wings stretching out on either side
of him seemed comfortingly solid, adequate to hold him up. But the
body of the machine behind him was only a framework, not even
inclosed. And cut in the bottom of the cockpit was a small hole for
observing the earth. He could see fog through it, in unpleasant
contrast to the dull yellow of the cloth sides and bottom. Not before
had it daunted him to look down through that hole. Now, however, he
kept his eyes away from it, and, while he watched the compass and
oil-gauge, and kept a straight course, he was thinking of how nasty it
would be to drop, drop down _there_, and have to swim. It would be
horribly lonely, swimming about a wrecked monoplane, hearing steamers'
fog-horns, hopeless and afar.

As he thought that, he actually did hear a steamer hoarsely whistling,
and swept above it, irresistibly. He started; his shoulders drooped.

More than once he wished that he could have seen Forrest Haviland
again before he started. He wished with all the poignancy of man's
affection for a real man that he had told Forrest, when they were
dining at the Brevoort, how happy he was to be with him. He was
horribly lonely.

He cursed himself for letting his thoughts become thin and damp as the
vapor about him. He shrugged his shoulders. He listened thankfully to
the steady purr of the engine and the whir of the propeller. He
_would_ get across! He ascended, hoping for a glimpse of the shore.
The fog-smothered horizon stretched farther and farther away. He was
unspeakably lonely.

Through a tear in the mist he saw sunshine reflected from houses on a
hill, directly before him, perhaps one mile distant. He shouted. He
was nearly across. Safe. And the sun was coming out.

Two minutes later he was turning north, between the water and a town
which his map