t in the background
of memory, and one day it will be among the pleasantest of many
pleasant tales which I shall have in store for my grandchildren.

However, it is not their potentialities as memories which endear these
adventures now, but rather it is because they are in such contrast to
any that we had known before. We are always comparing this new life
with the old, so different in every respect as to seem a separate
existence, almost a previous incarnation.

Having been set right about my course, I pushed my biplane to more
level ground, with the willing help of all the boys, started my motor,
and was away again. Their shrill cheers reached me even above the roar
of the motor. As a lad in a small, Middle-Western town, I have known
the rapture of holding to a balloon guy-rope at a county fair, until
"the world's most famous aeronaut" shouted, "Let 'er go, boys!" and
swung off into space. I kept his memory green until I had passed the
first age of hero worship. I know that every youngster in a small
village in central France will so keep mine. Such fame is the only
kind worth having.

A flight of fifteen minutes brought me within sight of the large white
circle which marks the landing-field at R----. J. B. had not yet
arrived. This was a great disappointment, for we had planned a race
home. I was anxious about him, too, knowing that the godfather of all
adventurers can be very stern at times, particularly with his aerial
godchildren. I waited for an hour and then decided to go on alone. The
weather having cleared, the opportunity was too favorable to be lost.
The cloud formations were the most remarkable that I had ever seen. I
flew around and over and under them, watching at close hand the play
of light and shade over their great, billowing folds. Sometimes I
skirted them so closely that the current of air from my propeller
raveled out fragments of shining vapor, which streamed into the clear
spaces like wisps of filmy silk. I knew that I ought to be savoring
this experience, but for some reason I couldn't. One usually pays for
a fine mood by a sudden and unaccountable change of feeling which
shades off into a kind of dull, colorless depression.

I passed a twin-motor Caudron going in the opposite direction. It was
fantastically painted, the wings a bright yellow and the circular
hoods, over the two motors, a fiery red. As it approached, it looked
like some prehistoric bird with great ravenous eyes. The thing
s