e
the difficulties of attempting the first trials of a flying machine in a
25-mile gale. As winter was already well set in, we should have
postponed our trials to a more favourable season, but for the fact that
we were determined, before returning home, to know whether the machine
possessed sufficient power to fly, sufficient strength to withstand the
shock of landings, and sufficient capacity of control to make flight
safe in boisterous winds, as well as in calm air. When these points had
been definitely established, we at once packed our goods and returned
home, knowing that the age of the flying machine had come at last.'

CHAPTER II

THE AEROPLANE AND THE AIRSHIP

The age of the flying machine had come at last. A power-driven aeroplane
had been built, and had been flown under the control of its pilot. What
remained to do was to practise with it and test it; to improve it, and
perfect it, and put it on the market. The time allowed for all this was
not long; in less than eleven years, if only the world had known it, the
world would be at war, and would be calling for aeroplanes by the
thousand.

Romance, for all that it is inspired by real events, is never quite like
real life. It makes much of prominent dates and crises, and passes
lightly and carelessly over the intervening shallows and flats. Yet
these shallows and flats are the place where human endurance and purpose
are most severely tested. The problem of flight had been solved; the
people of the world, it might be expected, springing to attention, would
salute the new invention, and welcome the new era. Nothing of the kind
happened. America, which is more famous for journalistic activity than
any other country on earth, remained profoundly inattentive. The Wrights
returned to their home at Dayton, and there continued their experiments.

A legend has grown up that these experiments were conducted under a
close-drawn veil of secrecy. On the contrary, the proceedings of the
brothers were singularly public--indeed, for the preservation of their
title to their own invention, almost dangerously public. 'In the spring
of 1904,' says Wilbur Wright, through the kindness of Mr. Torrence
Huffman, of Dayton, Ohio, we were permitted to erect a shed, and to
continue experiments, on what is known as the Huffman Prairie, at Simms
Station, eight miles east of Dayton. The new machine was heavier and
stronger, but similar to the one flown at Kill Devil Hill. When it