Chapter XIII: On the Wing

The ground Matt selected for his initial experiments lay about a quarter of a mile from the post trader's store on the road toward Lallie, Minnewaukon, and Oberon. For a long distance, at this place, the road was level, flat as a board, and smooth as asphalt. It was just the right bottom to give the aëroplane a good start on the bicycle wheels.

This part of the road, too, was free from timber, so there could be no accidents from collisions with stationary objects.

Lieutenant Cameron had a large "A" tent brought down from the post, and pitched in a place convenient to Matt's field of operations. Here the young motorist and his assistants could rest, when they so desired, and make their headquarters at all times.

Four dismounted cavalrymen were to be constantly on guard, each detail relieving the other, morning and night.

The post farrier placed his working tools at Matt's disposal, and hammers, hatchets, and wrenches were carried down to "Camp Traquair," as the aëroplane headquarters came to be called, and Matt set actively to work uncrating the machine.

The two big planes of the flying machine measured thirty-two feet in length by five in width. For convenience in packing, carrying, and stowing, these planes had been cut into halves, one half dovetailing into the other by means of iron sockets.

In assembling the aëroplane, Matt worked from memory alone--his study of the model serving him in good stead.

Both of the thirty-two-foot planes were put together first, and then joined, in a double-deck arrangement, by tough spruce rods, which held the planes six feet apart. The rods were further braced by wire guys, which could be tightened at will by means of turn-buckles.

For a width of about five feet the middle section of the lower plane was reënforced with light, tough boards. This platform formed a bed for the engine, the gasoline tank, the mechanism-operating propeller and bicycle wheels, and afforded seats for the operator and one passenger, as well as giving a rigid support for the various levers controlling motor and rudders.

The sliding wing extensions, so necessary for keeping the machine's equilibrium while in the air, gave Matt the most trouble of all. They slid on ball bearings from under each plane, and were so adjusted that when one extended the other contracted in the same proportion; for, if there was too much air pressure under one wing, it was necessary that the area of that wing should be reduced, while the area of the other was enlarged.

The putting together of the two large planes consumed the afternoon; and when Matt, weary and tired, answered the mess call of the colored cook sent down from the post, he was able to see that the aëroplane was gradually taking shape.

"Looks about as much like a bird as I do," commented McGlory.

The next morning Matt went to work on the two smaller planes which, in flight, went ahead of the machine, guiding up or down, and doing something toward distributing the air pressure. The vertical plane, which had its place in the rear, was likewise adjusted.

So rapidly did the work proceed that, by noon, Matt was ready to install the motor.

Traquair, it was evident, had built the aëroplane, put it together, and adjusted every part before shipping it to Fort Totten. The result of this forethought was apparent in the installing of the engine. Every piece had its place and dropped into it readily. The exact point for every bolt and screw was marked.

By seven o'clock the second night the aëroplane was ready.

McGlory, just before he, Matt, and Ping went for their belated supper, stood in front of the forward planes.

"Every boat, pard," said he, "whether she sails the ocean or the sky, has got to have a name; therefore I, by virtue of my authority as assistant to the big high boy who is to navigate the craft, name this aëroplane the _June Bug_."

With that, the cowboy broke a bottle of Adam's ale over the lower plane.

"No likee _June Bug_," chattered Ping. "Him velly bum name. Why you no callee him _Fan Tan_, huh?"

"_Fan Tan!_" jeered McGlory. "Why, you squint-eyed heathen, this ship's no gamble, but a sure thing. Remember the lines of that beautiful poem:

"The June bug has no wings at all,
But it gets there just the same."

"That's good enough," laughed Matt. "I'm going to eat and turn in, for to-morrow I fly."

The motor was a four-cylinder, and Matt judged, after taking measurements, that it would develop about twenty-five horse power.

The next day came on with a very high wind, so high that Matt deemed it worse than foolish to attempt his first flight. It was hoped that, later in the day, the wind would go down. Time was not lost while waiting, however. Gasoline was secured from the fort, together with a quantity of oil, and the motor was disconnected and given its own particular try-out.

It worked splendidly.

Next the power was connected with the bicycle wheels, and the _June Bug_ was sent along the road under its own power. Matt, in the driver's seat, came very near taking a fly in spite of himself, for the wings caught the wind and lifted the aëroplane some four feet in the air. With a twist of the lever, Matt quickly pointed the smaller planes downward, and glided into the road again without a jar.

The wind held until nightfall, and, of course, all hope of a fly for that day went down with the sun.

On the following morning there was hardly a breath of air stirring. All the troopers came down from the fort, and every person from the immediate vicinity of the trader's store assembled to see how well Matt would acquit himself of his first attempt at flight in an aëroplane.

After making sure that everything was properly adjusted and in perfect working order, Matt had the _June Bug_ pushed to the centre of the hard road. McGlory was stationed at one wing, and Lieutenant Cameron at the other, in order to run with the machine and help give it a start.

"Nervous, Matt?" queried Cameron, as the king of the motor boys took his place on the seat and lifted his feet to the foot rest.

"Not half so nervous as you are, old chap," smiled Matt. "Here, feel my pulse."

"I'll take your word for it. Don't go very high."

"So far as results are concerned, if I'm going to fall it might just as well be from five hundred feet as from fifty. All ready?"

"All ready!"

McGlory's voice was a bit husky, for he was even more nervous than Cameron.

The engine was already humming like a swarm of bees.

"Let her go," said Matt, switching the power into the bicycle wheels.

In less than a dozen feet, the aëroplane was traveling too fast for Cameron and McGlory, and they dropped out. Standing breathless where the _June Bug_ had left them, they watched the machine rush faster and faster along the road, then, suddenly, swing into the air and glide upward.

Cheers rang out from half a hundred throats, only to be suddenly stifled as the great wings tilted, fifty feet above ground, into an almost vertical position. Matt, they could see, was almost hurled from his seat.

A groan was wrenched from Cameron's lips, and he turned away.

"Sufferin' thunderbolts, but that was close!" the lieutenant heard McGlory mutter, and then the cheering was renewed.

Cameron looked again. The _June Bug_ had righted herself, and was rushing off toward the lake, mounting steadily, higher and higher.

"That feller's head's level, all right," remarked Benner.

"How's that?" asked Cameron.

"Why," laughed the post trader, "if he takes a tumble he intends comin' down in the water."

"Don't you believe it!" cried McGlory. "He don't intend to take a tumble. That pard of mine has his head with him, at every stage of the game."

At the watchers judged, the _June Bug_ passed over the post some two hundred feet in the air. The contortions of the machine were alarming. First one side would tilt, and then the other. Half a dozen times it looked as though the _June Bug_ must surely go over on its back, and come down a wreck with her intrepid young driver mangled in the machinery.

But Motor Matt, calm and clear brained, was working to "get the knack." Every second he was studying. Not once did thoughts of a mishap flash through his brain.

At the end of ten minutes he returned from the lake, glided downward, and brought the bicycle wheels to a rest in the road within a hundred feet of the place from which he had started.

His face was flushed, and his gray eyes shining as he stepped from the machine to receive the congratulations of everybody, even of the bluff post trader.

"I'll try it again this afternoon," said Matt. "That's enough for this morning. I want to think over my experience, and see if I can improve my work in any particular point."

"You wabble a good deal," said Cameron.

"I won't--when I get the knack."

So that afternoon, and day after day thereafter, Motor Matt went up and practiced to acquire the "knack." Little by little it came to him, every flight teaching him something that it was necessary for him to know.

He went up in still air, in light winds, and in breezes that made his friends tremble for his safety; but not once did he get a spill, not once did anything go wrong with the machinery, and not once did he fail to bring the _June Bug_ back to earth as gently and easily as he had done on the morning of his first flight.

Greater and greater crowds assembled to witness the trials. The people came from Minnewaukon, from Oberon, and from Devil's Lake City. Even the Indians gathered from various parts of the reservation, and gazed stolidly while "Boy-That-Flies-Like-the-Eagle"--as they called Matt--continued to keep on the wing, and learn the knack.

As Tuesday--the day of the government test--drew nearer, the railroads advertised excursions, and from the Department of the Missouri came sundry men, high in the councils of the war department, to see how well Motor Matt would meet the supreme test.

On Monday afternoon, after Matt had finished a flight during which he had kept the _June Bug_ almost level in the air, Lieutenant Cameron caught his hand in a convulsive grip.

"I'm ready, Matt," said he; "you've got the knack."