e
boys flying kites in the open space. He shouted to them to take hold of
his trailing guide-rope and run with it against the wind. They
understood at once and as instantly obeyed. The wind had the same effect
on the air-ship as it has on a kite when one runs with it, and the speed
of the fall was checked. Man and air-ship landed with a thud that
smashed almost everything but the man. The smart boys that had saved
Santos-Dumont's life helped him pack what was left of "Santos-Dumont No. 1"
into its basket, and a cab took inventor and invention back to Paris.

In spite of the narrow escape and the discouraging ending of his first
flight, Santos-Dumont launched his second air-ship the following May.
Number 2 was slightly larger than the first, and the fault that was
dangerous in it was corrected, its inventor thought, by a ventilator
connecting the inner bag with the outer air, which was designed to
compensate for the contraction of the gas and keep the skin of the
balloon taut. But No. 2 doubled up as had No. 1, while she was still
held captive by a line; falling into a tree hurt the balloon, but the
aeronaut escaped unscratched. Santos-Dumont, in spite of his quiet ways
and almost effeminate speech, his diminutive body, and wealth that
permitted him to enjoy every luxury, persisted in his work with rare
courage and determination. The difficulties were great and the available
information meager to the last degree. The young inventor had to
experiment and find out for himself the obstacles to success and then
invent ways to surmount them. He had need of ample wealth, for the
building of air-ships was expensive business. The balloons were made of
the finest, lightest Japanese silk, carefully prepared and still more
vigorously tested. They were made by the most famous of the world's
balloon-makers, Lachambre, and required the spending of money
unstintedly. The motors cost according to their lightness rather than
their weight, and all the materials, cordage, metal-work, etc., were
expensive for the same reason. The cost of the hydrogen gas was very
great also, at twenty cents per cubic meter (thirty-five cubic feet);
and as at each ascension all the gas was usually lost, the expense of
each sail in the air for gas alone amounted to from $57 for the smallest
ship to $122 for the largest.

[Illustration: SANTOS-DUMONT IN HIS AIR-SHIP "NO. 6" ROUNDING THE EIFFEL
TOWER ON HIS PRIZE-WINNING TRIP]

Nevertheless, in November of 1