nd the
upper air by the hot odor of many bodies, he examined the monoplane
and found that she had merely fractured the propeller and smashed the
rudder.

Some one was fighting through the crowd to his side--Tony Bean--Tony
the round, polite Mexican from the Bagby School. He was crying:
"_Hombre_, what a landing! You have saved lives.... Get out of the
way, all you people!"

Carl grinned and said: "Good to see you, Tony. What time did Tad
Warren get here? Where's----"

"He ees not here yet."

"What? Huh? How's that? Do I win? That----Say, gosh! I hope he hasn't
been hurt."

"Yes, you win."

A newspaper-man standing beside Tony said: "Warren had to come down at
Great Neck. He sprained his shoulder, but that's all."

"That's good."

"But you," insisted Tony, "aren't you badly jarred, Hawk?"

"Not a bit."

The gaping crowd, hanging its large collective ear toward the two
aviators, was shouting: "Hoorray! He's all right!"--As their voices
rose Carl became aware that all over the city hundreds of
factory-whistles and bells were howling their welcome to him--the
victor.

The police were clearing a way for him. As a police captain touched a
gold-flashing cap to him, Carl remembered how afraid of the police
that hobo Slim Ericson had been.

Tony and he completed examination of the machine, with Tony's
mechanician, and sent it off to a shop, to await Martin Dockerill's
arrival by speed-boat and racing-automobile. Carl went to receive
congratulations--and a check--from the prize-giver, and a reception by
Yale officials on the campus. Before him, along his lane of passage,
was a kaleidoscope of hands sticking out from the wall of
people--hands that reached out and shook his own till they were sore,
hands that held out pencil and paper to beg for an autograph, hands of
girls with golden flowers of autumn, hands of dirty, eager, small
boys--weaving, interminable hands. Dizzy with a world peopled only by
writhing hands, yet moved by their greeting, he made his way across
the Green, through Phelps Gateway, and upon the campus. Twisting his
cap and wishing that he had taken off his leather flying-coat, he
stood upon a platform and heard officials congratulating him.

The reception was over. But the people did not move. And he was very
tired. He whispered to a professor: "Is that a dormitory, there
behind us? Can I get into it and get away?"

The professor beckoned to one of the collegians, and replied, "I
think, Mr