ther John, the latter a pilot in the government
Air Mail service, were known all over the State of New York as makers
of the best-flying model airplanes to be found anywhere. Ever since
they were small boys in grammar school, the brothers had been
constructing miniature monoplanes, biplanes, and seaplanes, which they
had pitted against the best product of other lads in the neighborhood
and surrounding towns, without once meeting defeat. Many of these
specimens of youthful ingenuity they still preserved, suspended in
bedroom and attic, where they were a never-ending source of interest to
visitors at the Ross homestead in the outskirts of Yonkers.

The war had called John into the aviation service of his country, but
Paul had still continued his experiments in making tiny airplanes,
getting his friend Robert Giddings, who lived in a fine house on
Shadynook Hill, to assist him in the flying. Thrown together by their
mutual love for mechanics, and being in the same classes all through
high-school, Paul and Bob had formed a strong attachment for each
other, although the latter's home was far more pretentious than the
former's, since Paul's mother was a widow in only moderately
comfortable circumstances, while Bob's father was the editor and owner
of the _Daily Independent_, one of the leading evening newspapers of
New York City.

When John returned from the war it was with an incurable passion for
flying, and within a few months he had re-entered the service of his
country in the peaceful but dangerous work of carrying Uncle Sam's
mails between Washington and New York in a big Martin bomber. He found
that his younger brother's love for aviation had also developed, as
well as his skill in constructing and flying model airplanes. Some of
these recent ones were so novel in design and of such wonderfully
ingenious workmanship, that John, who had won unusual honors as an
aviator on the French front, was quite thunderstruck, and determined to
encourage Paul's talents in this line in every way he could.
Therefore, when the boy graduated from the Yonkers high school, and
expressed a wish to take up a special course in aeronautical
engineering at Clark Polytechnic Institute, John backed him up, and the
mother, who would have preferred a less hazardous profession for her
younger son, sighingly consented.

Paul's chum, Robert Giddings, had also gone to Clark Polytechnic upon
leaving high school, his ambition being to become an