 CHAPTER XIX Not all of their days were spent at work. There were mornings when the wind would not permit an ascent, and when there was nothing to do in the workshop—they sat about to the lunch-wagon wrangling endlessly, or like Carl and Forrest Havlin, wandering through fields which were all on flame with poppies. Lieutenant Havlin had given up trying to feel comfortable with the Naval Ensign student, who was one of the solemn worthies who cleared their throats before speaking, and then speak in measured terms of brands of cigars and weather. Gradually working side by side with Carl, Havlin seemed to find him a friend in whom to confide. Once or twice they went by trolley to San Francisco to explore Chinatown, or drop in on soldier friends of Havlin at the Presidio. From the porch of a studio on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, they were looking down on the islands of the bay, waiting for the return of an artist whom Havlin knew. In articulate dreamers both, they expressed in monosim obels, the glory of blue water before them, the tradition of RLS and Frank Norris, the future of aviation. They gave up the attempt to explain the magic of San Francisco, that city personality which transcends the opal hills and rare amber sunlight, festivals, and the transplanted Italian hill-town of Telegraph Hill, miners sailing out for Japan and memories of the 49ers. It was too subtle a spirit, too much of a lay in human life, with the passion of the Riviera linked to the strength of the North, for them to be able to comprehend its spell. But regarding their own ambitions to do, they became eloquent. I say, hesitated Havlin, why is it I can't get in with most of the fellows at the camp, the way you can. I've always been chummy enough with the fellows at the point, and at posts. Because you've been brought up to be afraid to be anything but a gentleman. Oh, I don't think it's that. I can get fond as the deuce of some of the commonest common soldiers. And Lord, some of them come from the Bowery and all sorts of impossible places. Yes, but you always think of them as common. They don't think of each other that way. Suppose I'd worked—well, just suppose I'd been a Bowery bartender. Could you be loafing around here with me? Could you go off on a bat with Jack Ryan? Well, maybe not. Maybe working with Jack Ryan is a good thing for me. I'm getting now so I can almost stand his stories. I envy you knocking around with all sorts of people. I wish I could call Ryan Jack and feel easy about it. I can't. Perhaps I've got a little of the sublatern snob someplace in me. You? You're a prince. If you've elevated me to a Princeton, the least I can do is invite you down home for a weekend, down to the San Spirito Presidio. My father's commandant there. Oh, I'd like to do that, but I haven't got a dress suit. Buy one. Yes, I could do that, but all rats forced. I've been knocking around so long I feel shy about my table manners and everything. I'd probably eat pie with my fingers. You make me so darn tired, Hawk. You talk about my having to learn to chum with people and overalls. You've got to learn not to let people in evening clothes put anything over on you. That's your difficulty from having lived in the back country these last two or three years. You have an instinct for manners, but I did notice that as soon as you found out I was in the army, you spent half the time disliking me as a militarist, and the other half expecting me to be haughty. Lord knows what over. It took you two weeks to think of me as forced haveland. I'm ashamed of you. If you're a socialist, you ought to think that anything you like belongs to you. That's a new kind of socialism. So much the better. Me and Karl Marx, the economic inventors. But I was saying, if you act as though things belong to you, people will apologize to you for having borrowed them from you. And you've got to do that, Hawk. You're going to be one of the best known fliers in the country. And you'll have to meet all sorts of big guns, generals and senators and female climbers that work the peace societies for social position, and so on. And you've got to know how to meet them. Anyway, I want you to come down to San Spirito. To San Spirito they went. During the three days preceding Karl was agonized at the thought of having to be polite in the presence of ladies. No matter how brusquely he told himself, I'm as good as anybody. He was uneasy about folks in slang and fingernails, and look forward to the ordeal with as much pleasure as a man about to be hanged. Hanged in a good cause, but thoroughly. Yet when Colonel Haviland met them at San Spirito Station, and Karl heard the kindly salutation of the gracious, fat, old Indian fighter, he knew that he had at last come home to his own people. An impression that was the stronger because the house of Oscar Erickson had been so much house and so little home. The Colonel was a widower, and for his only son he showed a proud affection, which included Karl. The three of them sat in state after dinner, on the porch of quarters number one, smoking cigars and looking down to a spur of the Santa Lucia mountains, where it plunged into the foam of the Pacific. They talked of aviation and eugenics, and the Benet-Mercier gun of the post-doctor sister who had come from the east on a visit, and of a writing test, but their hearts spoke of affection. Usually it is a man and a woman that make home, but three men, a stranger one of them, talking of motors on a porch, and then a enveloping dusk made for one another a home to remember always. They stayed over Monday night for a hop, and Karl found that the officers and their wives were as approachable as Hank O'Dell. They did not seem to be waiting for young Erickson to make social errors. When he confessed that he had forgotten what little dancing he knew, the sister of the post-doctor took him in hand, and taught him the waltz, and asked with patient admiration, How does it feel to fly? Don't you get frightened? I'm terribly in awe of you, Mr. Haveland. I know I should be frightened to death because it always makes me dizzy just to look down from a high building. Karl slipped away, to be happy by himself, and hid in the shadow of palms on the porch, lapped in the flutter of pepper trees. The orchestra began a waltz that set his heart singing. Here to girl cry. Oh, goody! The Blue Danube. We must go and dance to that. The Blue Danube. The name brought back the novels of General Charles King, as he had read them in high school days. Flashed the picture of a lonely post, yellow-lighted like a topaz, on the night's swanth desert, a root-ball room a young officer dancing to the Blue Danube's intoxication. A hot-riding, dusty courier. Hurling in with the news of an Apache outbreak, a few minutes later a troop of cavalry slanting out through the gate on horseback with a farewell burning the young officer's lips. He was in just such an army story now. The scent of royal climbing roses enveloped Karl, as that picture changed into others. San Spirito Presidio became a vast military encampment over which Hawke Erickson was flying. From his monoplane he saw a fairy town with red roofs rising to a tower of fantastic turrets. That was doubtless the memory of a magazine cover painted by Maxfield Parish. He was wandering through a poppy field, with a girl dusky of eyes, soft black of hair, ready for any jaunt, pictures bright and various as tropic shells, born of music and peace, and his affection for the Havilands, pictures which promised him the world. For the first time Hawke Erickson realized that he might be a personage instead of a backyard boy. The girl with twilight eyes was smiling. The bagby camp broke up on the first of May with all of them except one of the nondescript collegians and the air-current student, more or less trained aviators. Karl was going out to tourist small cities, for the George Flying Corporation, Lieutenant Haviland, was detailed to the Army Flying Camp. Parting with Haviland and kindly Hank O'Dell, with Cameroon and anxiously polite Tony Bean, was as wistful as the last night of senior year. Till the old moon rose sad behind tulip trees, they sat on packing boxes by the larger hangar, singing in close harmony, sweet Adeline, teasing, I've been working on the railroad, hay-ride classics with barbershop chords. The songs are called, but tears were in Karl's eyes as the miners sobbed from the group of comrades who made fun of one another and were pro-assic and pounded their heels on the packing boxes, and knew that they were parting to face death. Karl felt Forrest Haviland's hand on one shoulder. Then an awkward pat from tough Jack Ryan's paw, as Tony Bean's violin turned the plaintive half-light into music and broke its heart in the moonlight's sonata. Trail of the Hawk, by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 20 The Episton Ring burned off and put the exhaust valve on the blink. That means one cylinder out of business, Ground Hawk Erickson. I could fly maybe, but I don't like to risk it in this wind. It was bad enough this morning when I tried it. Ah, this hick Tom's going to be the death of us, all right. With Riverport tomorrow in a contract, nicest pie. If we can only get there, Grondy's manager, Dick George, a fat man, with much muscle and more diamonds. Listen to that crowd yelling for blood. Sounded like a bunch of lumberjacks with a circus slow and starting. The headline features of Bonamawasca County, fairer was Hawk Erickson, showing the most marvelous aerial feats of all the ages with the scientific marvels of aviation in his famous French-Bloit flying machine, the first flying machine ever seen in this state, no balloon or fake. Come to Bonamawasca by the St. Elinan. The spring fair was usually a small gathering from farmers to witness races and new agricultural implements, but this time every road for thirty miles was dust fogged with buggies and Democrat wagons, and small motor cars. Ten thousand people were packed about the racetrack. It was Carl's third aviation event. A neat, though not imposing figure in a snug blue flannel suit. With his cap turned round on his head, he went to the flap of the drickety tent which served as his hangar. A fierce cry of, Fly, fly! Why don't he fly? Was coming from the long black lines edging the track, and from the mound of people on the small grandstand. The pink blower of their faces turned toward him, Carl Erickson. All of them demanding him. The five meek police of Bonamawasca were trotting back and forth, keeping them behind the barriers. Carl was apprehensive, list his ten thousand-fold demand, drag him out, make him fly, despite a wind that was blowing the flags out straight, and whisking up the litter of newspapers and crackerjack boxes and pink programs. While he stared out and official crossing the track, fairly leaned up against the wind which seized his hat and sailed it to the end of the track. Some wind, Carl gritted, stulledly, and went to the back of the silent tent. To re-read the local paper's accounts of his arrival at Bonamawasca, it was a picturesque narrative of the cheering mob following him down the street. Gee, that was me, they followed, crowding into the office of the Aster House and making him autograph hundreds of cards of girls throwing roses from geraniums is more like it, from the windows. A young man, wrote an enthusiastic female reporter, handsome as a Greek god but, honestly, I believe he is still in his twenties, and he is as slim and straight as a soldier, flaxen-haired and rosy-cheeked, the birdman, the god of the air. Handsome as a Greek, Carl commented. I'd look like a Minnesota Norwegian, and that ain't so bad, but handsome? Sure they love me, all right, hear me out. Oh, they love me like a dog does a bone. St. Jeremiah talk about football rooting. Come on, Greek god, bug up. He glanced warily about the tent, its flooring of long dry grass, stained with ugly dark blue lubricating oil under the tan light coming through the canvas. His manager was sitting on a suitcase pretending to read a newspaper but pinching his lower lip and consulting his watch, jogging his foot ceaselessly. Their temporary mechanic, who had given up trying to repair the lame valve, squatted with a bent head, biting his lip, harkening to the blood-hungry mob. Carl's own nerves grew taunter and taunter as he saw the manager's restless foot and the mechanic's tension. He strolled to the monoplane, his back to the tent opening. He started as the manager exclaimed, Here they come after us! Outside the tent a sound of running. The secretary of the fair, a German hardware dealer with an automobile cap, like a yachting cap, panned it in. Gasp me. Come quick. They won't wait any longer. I've been trying to calm them down, but they say you got to fly. They're breaking over the barriers onto the track. The police can't keep them back. Behind the secretary came the chairman of the entertainment committee, a popular dairyman, who was pale as he demanded. You got to play ball, Mr. Erickson. I won't guarantee what'll happen if you don't play ball. Mr. Erickson, you got to make him fly, Mr. George, the crowd's breaking. Behind him charged the black press of people they packed before the tent trying to peer in through the half-closed tent opening, like a crowd about a house where a policeman is making an arrest, furiously. Where is the car? Fake. Bring him out. Why don't he fly? He's a fake. His flying machine's never been off the ground. He's a foreflusher. Run him out of town. Fake! Fake! Fake! The secretary and chairman stuck out to predatory heads and coaxed the mob. Carl's manager was an old circus man. He had removed his collar, tie, and flashy diamond pin. And was diligently wrapping the thong of a blackjack about his wrist. The mechanic was crawling under the side of the tent. Carl caught him by the seat of his overalls and jerked him back. As Carl turned to face the tent door again, the manager ranged up beside him, trying to conceal the blackjack in his hand and casually murmuring. Scared, awk? Nope. Too mad to be scared. The tent flap was pulled back. Tossing hands came through. The secretary and chairman were brushed aside. The mob-leader, a red-faced, loud-voiced town sport, very drunk shot it. Come out and fly, or we'll tar-feather you. Here come out, you fake-you foreflusher, echoed the voices. The secretary and chairman were edging back into the tent beside Carl's cowering mechanic. Something broke in Carl's hold on himself. With his arm drawn back, his fist aimed at the point of the mob-leader's jaw, he snarled. You can't make me fly. You stick that ugly mug in your spinning farther in and I'll bust it. I'll fly when the wind goes down. You would, would you? As the mob-leader started to advance, Carl jabbed at him. It was not a very good jab, but the leader stopped. The manager, blackjack in hand, caught Carl's arm and ordered, Don't start anything. They can lick us. Just look. Ready. Don't say anything. We'll hold them till the cops come. But nicks on the punch. Right, kept, said Carl. It was a strange, a stand-motionless, facing the crowd, not answering their taunts, but he'd held himself in, and in two minutes a yell came, Jesus, the cops! The mob unwillingly swayed back as Omar Mawaska's heroic little band of five policemen wiggled through it, requesting their neighbors to desist. They entered the tent and after accepting cigars from Carl's manager, coldly told him that Carl was a fake and lucky to escape, that Carl would better jump right out and fly if he knew what was good for him. Also, they nearly arrested the manager for possessing a blackjack and warned him that he'd better not assault any of the peaceful citizens of beautiful Omanawaska. When they had coaxed the mob behind the barriers by announcing that Erickson would now go up, Carl swore, I won't move, they can't make me. Secretary of the Fair, who had regained most of his courage, spoke up, pertly. Then you better return the 500 advance pretty quick, Sutton, or I'll get an attachment on your fake flying machine. You go, nicks, nicks, hawks, don't hit him. He ain't worth it. You go ahead, hell, brother, said the manager, mechanically. But he took Carl aside and groaned. All right, we gotta do something. It's worth two thousand dollars to us, you know. Besides, we haven't got enough cash in our genes to get out of town. And we'll miss the big Riverport purse. Still, suit yourself, Oman. Maybe I can get some money by wiring to Chicago. Oh, let's get it over, Carl, side. I'd love to disappoint on Ramonawaska. We'll make 15,000 dollars this month and next anyway, and we can afford to spit him in the eye. But I don't want to leave you in the hole. Here, you, mechanic, open up that tent flap, all the way across. No, no, not like that, you boob. So come on, now help me push out the machine. Here you, Mr. Secretary. Hustle me a couple of men to hold her tail. The crowd rose, the fickle crowd, sending the promised blood and applauded as the monoplane was wheeled upon the track, and turned to face the wind. The mechanic and two assistants had to hold it as a dust-filled gust caught it beneath the wings. As Carl climbed into the seat and the mechanic went forward to start the engine, another squall hit the machine and she almost turned over, side-wise. As the machine rided, the manager ran up and begged, You never in the world can make it in this wind, hawk. Bear not try it. I'll wire for some money to get it out of town with then. Own them. And own them on a waskick and go soak its head. Nope, I'm getting sore now, Dick. Hey, you, mechanic. Heard that wing when she tipped? All right, start it quick. Well, it's calm. The engine worked. The assistants let go of the tail. The machine labored forward, but once it left the ground, it shot up quickly. The headwind came in a terrific gust. The machine hung poised in air for a moment, driven back by the gale nearly as fast as it was urged forward by its frantically revolving propeller. Carl was as yet too doubtful of his skill to try to climb above the worst of the wind. If he could only keep a level course. He fought his way up one side of the racetrack. He crouched in his seat, meeting the sandy blast with bent head. The parted lips which permitted him to catch his breath were stubborn and hard about his teeth. His hands played swiftly. Incessantly over the controls, he brought her back to an even keel. He warped the wing so quickly that he bounced like an acrobat, sitting rockingly on a tight wire. He was too busy to be afraid or to remember that there was a throng of people below him. But he was conscious that the grandstand at the side of the track halfway down was creeping toward him. More every instant did he hate the clamor of the gale. In the stream of minute drops of oil blown back from the engine that spattered on his face, his ears strained from misfire of the engine. If it stopped, he would be hurled to earth. And one cylinder was not working. He forgot that. Kept the cloche moving, fought the wind with his will as with his body. Now he was aware of the grandstand below him. Now at the tevel, at the end of the track, he flew beyond the track and turned. The whole force of the gale was thrown behind him and he shot back along the other side of the racetrack at eighty or ninety miles an hour. Instantly he was at the end. Then a quarter of a mile beyond the track, overplowed fields where upward currents of warm air increased the pitching of the machine as he struggled to turn her again and face the wind. The following breeze was suddenly retarded and he dropped forty feet tail down. He was only forty feet from the ground falling straight when he got back to even keel and shot ahead. How safe the nest of the nacelle where he sat seemed thin. Almost gaily he swung her in a great wavering circle and the wind was again in his face, hating him, pounding him, trying to get under the wings and turn the machine turtle. Twice more he worked his way about the track. The conscience of the beginner made him perform a diffident Dutch roll before the grandstand. But he was growling. And that's all they're going to get, see? As he soared to earth he looked at the crowd for the first time. His vision was so blurred with oil and windsornness that he saw the people only as a mass and he fancied that the stretch of slaw's hatch and derbies was a field of mushrooms swaying and tilted back. He was curiously unconscious of the presence of women. He felt all the spectators as men who had bawled for his death and whom he wanted to hammer as he had hammered the wind. He was almost down. He cut off his motor, glided horizontally three feet above the ground and landed, while the chairs cloaked even the honking of the parked automobiles. Carl's manager, fatally galloping up, shrilled, How was it, old man? It was pretty windy, said Carl, crawling down, rubbing in the kinks out of his arms. But I think the wind's going down. Tell the announcer to tell our dear neighbors that I'll fly again at five. But weren't you scared when she dropped? You went down so far that the fence plum hid you. Couldn't see at all. Sure thought the wind had you. Weren't you scared then? You don't look it. Then oh yes, sure, I guess I was scared all right. Say, we got that seat padded so she's darn comfortable now. The crowd was collecting. Carl's manager chuckled to the president of the Fair Association. Well, that was some flight, eh? Oh, he went down the opposite side of the track pretty fast, but why the dickens was he slow going up my side? My is ain't so good now that it's done me any good. If a fellow speeds up when he's a thousand miles away, and there's all these tricks in the air. That, murmured Carl to his manager, is the identical man that stole the blind cripple's crutch to make himself a toothpick. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of the Trail of the Hawk This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com Trail of the Hawk By Sinclair Lewis Chapter 21 The Great Belmont Park Arrowmeat, which woke New York to aviation in October 1910 was coming to an end. That clever new American flyer, Hawke Erickson, had won only sixth place in speed, but he had won first prize in duration by a flight of nearly six hours, driving round and round and round the pylons, hour on hour, safe and steady as a train, never taking the risk of sensational banking nor spiraling like Johnstone, but amusing himself and breaking the tedium, by keeping an eye out on each circuit, for a fat woman in a bright lavender topcoat, who stood out in the dark line of people that flowed beneath. When he had descended to claim the winner, thousands of heads turned his way as though on one lever. The pink faces flashing in such October sunshine as had filled the backyard of Oscar Erickson. In Girolaman, when a lonely carl had performed duration feats for a sparrow, that same shy carl wanted to escape from the newspaper men who came running toward him. He hated their incessant questions always the same. Were you cold? Could you have stayed up longer? Yet he had seen all New York go mad over aviation, rather over news about aviation. The newspapers had spread over front pages his name and the names of the other flyers. Carl chuckled to himself with bashful awe. Gee, can you beat it? That's me. When he beheld himself referred to an editorial and interview and picture caption as a Superman, a God. He heard crowds rustle. Look, there's Hawke Erickson. As he walked along the barriers, he heard cautious predictions from fellow flyers and loud declarations from outsiders that he was the coming cross-country champion. He was introduced to the mayor of New York to cabinet members and assortment of senators, authors, bank presidents, generals, and society railbirds. He regularly escaped from them and their questions to help the brick-necked Hank O'Dell. From the Bagby School, who had entered for the meet, but smashed up on the first day and never since, had been whistling and working over his machine, and encouraging Carl, good work, bud. You've got them all going! With vast secrecy and a perception that this was twice as stirring as steadily buzzing about as Beloit, he went down to the Bowery and in front of a saloon, where he had worked as a porter four years before. He bought a copy of the Evening World, because he knew that on the third page of it was a large picture of him, and assigned interview by a special writer. He peered into the saloon windows to see if P. D. McGuff was there, but did not find him. He went to the street on which he had bordered in the hope that he might do something for the girl who had been going wrong. The tenement had been torn down, with blocks of others, to make way for a bridge terminal, and he saw the vision of the city's pitiless progress. This quest of old acquaintances made him think of Gerolaman. He informed Gertie Cowles that he was now in the aviation game and everything was going very well. He sent his mother a check for five hundred dollars with awkward words of affection. A greater spiritual adventure was talking for hours over a small table in the basement of the Bevrut to Lieutenant Forrest Hablin, who was attending the Belmont Park meet as a spectator. Thurs was the talk of tired friends, droning on for a time in a mused comment, raising to sudden table-pounding enthusiasm over aviators or explorers with exclamations of, Is that the way it's drugged you to? I'm often glad to hear you say that, because that's just the way I felt about it. They leaned back in their chairs and played the spoons and reflectively broke up matches and volubly sketched plans of controls drawing on the tablecloth. Carl took this flisticated atmosphere of the Bevrut quite for granted. Why shouldn't he be there? And after the interest in him at the meet, it did not hugely avash him to hear a group at the table behind him ejaculate. I think that's all Kyrricks and the aviator. Yes, sir. That's who it is. Finally, the gods gave to Carl a new mechanic, a prince of mechanics, Martin Duckerel. Martin was a tall, thin, hatchet-faced, tossle-headed, slow-spoken, irreverent Irish Yankee from Fall River, the perfect type of American aviators. For while England sends out its daily soldiers of the air and France has short, excitable geniuses, practically all American aviators, and aviation mechanics are either long-faced and lanky like Martin Duckerel and Hank O'Dell, or slim, good-looking youngsters of the college-track team type, like Carl and Forrest Haviland. Martin Duckerel, eight-punking pie with his fingers played marching through Georgia on the mouth organ, admired burlisk-show women in sausage-shaped pink tights, and wore ball-bragging salocks that always reposed in wrinkles over the top of his black shoes with frayed laces. But he probably could build a very decent motor in the dark out of four tin cans in a crowbar. In A.D. 1910 he still believed in hell and plush albums, but he dreamed of wireless power transmission. He was a free and independent American citizen who called the Count de Lesbets, Elisap. But he would have gone with Carl, aeroplaning to the South Pole upon five minutes' notice, four minutes to devote to the motor, and one minute to write with purple indelible pencil, postcard to his aunt in Fall River. He was precise about only two things—motor timing and calling himself a mechanic, not a mechanic. He became very friendly with Hank O'Dell, helped him repair his broken machine, went with him to vaudeville, or stood with him before the hangar, watching the automobile parties of pretty girls with lordly chaperones that came to call on, Graham White and Drexel. Some heart winners, them guys, but I back my boss against them and everybody else, Hank, Martin would say. The meet was over, the aviators were leaving. Carl said farewell to his new and well-loved friends, the pioneers of aviation. Laidham, Moussaint, Leblanc, McCurdy, Ealy, De Lesemps, Mars, Willard, Drexel, Graham White, Huxley, and the rest. He was in the afterglow of the meet for with Titherington, the Englishman, and Tad Warren, the right flyer. He was going to race from Belmont Park to New Haven for a ten-thousand-dollar prize jointly offered by a New Haven millionaire and a New York newspaper. At New Haven the three competitors were to join with Tony Bean of the Bagby School and Walter McMonnie's Flying a Curtis in an exhibition meet. Enveloped in baggy overalls over the blue flannel suit, which he still wore when flying, Carl was directing Martin Dockeryl and changing his spark plugs, which were fouled. About him the aviators were having their machines packed, laughing, playing tricks on one another, boys, who were veral men, mechanics in denim, who stammered to the reporters, oh well, I don't know, yet who were for the time more celebrated in Roosevelt or Harry Thaw or Bernard Shaw or champion Jack Johnson? Before 9.45 a.m., when the race to New Haven was scheduled to start, the newspaper men gathered. But there were not many outsiders, Carl felt the lack of the stimulus of thronging devotees. He worked silently and sullenly. It was the morning after he missed or tabled. He began to be anxious. Did he get off in time? Exactly at 9.45. Titherington made a magnificent start in his Henry Fairman pipeline. Carl stared till the machine was a dot in the clouds, then worked feverishly. Tad Warren, the second contestant, was testing out his motor, ready to go. At that moment Martin Dockeryl suggested that the carburetor was dirty. Oh, fly with her the way she is, Carl snapped. Shivering with the race fever. A cub reporter from the City News Association piped like a fox terrier. What time they get off, honk? Ten sharp. No, I mean what time will you really get off? Carl did not answer. He understood that the reporters were doubtful about him. The youngster from the west who had been flying for only six months. At last came the inevitable past. The familiar suggestive outsider, a well-dressed, well-meaning old bore he was, a complete stranger. He put his poggy hand on Carl's arm and puffed, Well, honk, my boy. Give us a good flight today. Not but what you're going to have trouble. There's something I want to suggest to you. If you'd use a gyroscope. I'll beat it. Starl, Carl. He was ashamed of himself, but more angry than ashamed. He demanded a martin aside. Alrighty. Can I fly with the carburetor as she is, eh? All right, boss. Calm down, boss. Calm down. What do you mean? Look here, honk. I don't want to butt in. You can have ol' martin for a choppin' block any time you want to cut wood. But if you don't calm down, you'll get so screwed up with nerves that you won't have any control. Come on, boss. Speak pretty. Just keep your shirt on and I'll hustle like a steam engine. Well, maybe you're right, but these assistant aviators in the crowd get me wild. All right. Hooray. Here it goes. Say, don't stop for anything after I get off. Leave the boys to pack up and you hustle over to see Cliff for the speedboat. You ought to be in New Haven almost as soon as I am. Calmer now, he peeled off his overalls, drew a wool-lined leather jacket over his coat, climbed into the cockpit and inspected the indicators. As he was testing the spark, Tad Warren got away. Third and last was Carl. The race fever shook him. He would try to save time like the others he had planned to fly from Belmont Park across Long Island to Great Neck and cross Long Island Sound where it was very narrow. He studies his maps. By flying across to the vicinity of Hempstead Harbor and making a long diagonal flight over water straight over to Stamford, he would increase the factor of danger but save many miles, and the specifications of the race permitted him to choose any course to New Haven. Thinking only of the new route, taking time only to not goodbye to Martin De Carrell and Hank O'Dell, he was off, into the air. As the ground dropped beneath him and the green, clean spaces in numerous towns of Long Island spread themselves out, he listened to the motor. Its music was clear and strong. Here, at least, the wind was light. He would risk the long over-water flight very long, they thought, in 1910. In a few minutes he sighted the hills about Boilsland, and began to climb up to three thousand feet. It was very cold, his hands were almost numb on the control. He descended to a thousand feet, but the machine jerked like a canoe shooting rapids, and the gusts swept up from among the hills. The landscape rolls swiftly at him over the ends of the wings, now on one side, now on the other, as the machine rolled. His arms were tired with the quick, incessant wing-warping. He rose again. Then he looked at the sound, and came down to three hundred feet, least to lose his way, for the sound was white with fog. No wind out there. The water and cloud blurred together, and the skyline was lost in a mass of somber mist, which ranged from filmy white to the cold, dead gray of old cigar ashes. He wanted to hold back, not dash out into that danger-filled twilight. But already he was roaring over gray-green marshes. Then was above fishing boats that were slowly rocking in water dully opaque as a dim old mirror. He noted two men on a sloop, staring up at him, with foolish, gaping, mist-wet faces. Instantly they were left behind him. He rose to get above the fog. Even the milky, sulky water was lost to sight. He was horribly lonely, abominably lonely. At five hundred feet altitude he was not yet entirely above the fog. Land was blotted out. Above him gray sky and thin, worthy filaments of vapor. Beneath him, only the fog bank, erupting here and there like the unfolding of great white flowers as warm currents of air burst up through the mist blanket. Completely solitary, all his friends were somewhere far distant in a place of solid earth and sun-warmed hangers. The whole noble earth had ceased to exist. There was only slaty void, through which he was going on forever. Or perhaps he was not moving, always the same coil of mist about him. He was horribly lonely. He feared that the fog was growing thicker. He studied his compass with straining eyes. He was startled by a gulls plunging up through the mist ahead of him, disappearing. He was the more lonely when it was gone. His eyebrows and cheeks were wet with the steam. Drops of moisture shone desolately on the planes. It was an unhealthy shine. He was horribly lonely. He pictured what would happen if the motor should stop and he should plunge down through that filmy vapor. His pontoonless, frail monoplane would sink almost at once. It would be cold swimming. How long could he keep up? What chance of being found? He didn't want to fall. Cockpit seemed so safe with its familiar watch and map stand and supporting wires. It was home. The wing stretching out on either side of him seemed comfortably solid. Adequate to hold him up. But the body of the machine behind him was only a framework, not even enclosed. And cut in the bottom of the cockpit was a small hole for observing the earth. He could see fog through it, in unpleasant contrast to the dull yellow of the cloth sides and bottom. Not before had it dotted him to look down through that hole. Now, however, he kept his eyes away from it. And while he watched the compass and oil gauge and kept straight course, he was thinking of how nasty it would be to drop. Drop down there and have to swim. It would be horribly lonely swimming about a wrecked monoplane, hearing steamers, foghorns, hopeless and afar. As he thought that he actually did hear a steamer, horsely whistling, and swept above it, irresistibly. He started. His shoulders drooped. More than once he wished that he could have seen Forrest Havland again before he started. He wished with all the poignancy of a man's affection for a real man, that he had told Forrest when they were dining at the Riverwood how happy he was to be with him. He was horribly lonely. He cursed himself for letting his thoughts become thin and damp as a vapor about him. He shrugged his shoulders. He listened thankfully to the steady purr of the engine and the whir of the propeller. He would get across. He ascended, hoping for a glimpse of the shore, the fog-smothered horizon stretched further and further away. He was unspeakably lonely. Through a tear in the mist he saw sunshine reflected from houses on a hill, directly before him, perhaps one mile distant. He shouted, He was nearly across safe, and the sun was coming out. Two minutes later he was turning north. Between the water and a town which his map indicated was Stamford. The houses beneath him seemed companionable, friendly, and the hand-waving crowds and factory whistles gave him raucous greeting. Instantly now that he knew where he was, the race fever caught him again. Despite the strain of crossing the sound, he would not for anything have come down to rest. He began to wonder now how far ahead of him were Tetherton and Tad Warren. He spied a train running north out of Stamford, swung over above it and raced with it. The passengers leaned out of the windows. Trainmen hung perestly from the open doors of vestibuled platforms. The engineer tutored his frantic greetings to a fellow mechanic who, above him, in the glorious bird, sent telepathic greetings which the engineer probably never got. The engineer speeded up. The engine puffed down vast feathery plumes of dull black smoke, but he drew away from the train as he neared south Norwalk. He was ascending again when he noticed something that seemed to be a biplane standing in a field a mile away. He came down and circled the field. It was Tetherington's foreman biplane. He hoped that the kindly engelsmen had not been injured. He met out Tetherington talking to a group about the machine. Relieved, he rose again, amused by the ant hill appearances hundreds of people, like, like bugs, ran toward the stalled biplane from neighboring farms and from a trolley car standing in the road. He should not have been amused just then. He was too low. Directly before him was a hillside crowned with trees. He shot above the trees cold in the stomach muttering. Gee, that was careless. He sped forward. The race fever again. Could he pass Ted Warren as he had passed Tetherington? He whirled over the town, shivering but happy in the mellow cool October air, far enough from the water to be out of what fog the brightening sun had left behind. The fields rolled beneath him, so far down that they were turned into a continuous and wonderful masses of brown and gold. He sang to himself. He liked Tetherington. He was glad that the Englishman had not been injured, but it was good to be second in the race to have a chance to win a contest, which the whole country was watching, to be dashing into a rosy dawn of frame. But while he sang he was keeping a tense look out for Ted Warren. He had to pass him. With the caution of the Scotch-like Norwegian, he had to cloaks constantly on the jiggle with ceaseless adjustments to the wind, which varied constantly as he passed over different sorts of terrain. Once the breeze dropped him sidewise, he shot down to gain momentum, brought her to an even keel, and as he set her nose up again, laughed boisterously. Never again would he be so splendidly young, never again so splendidly sure of himself, and of his medium of expression. He was to gain wisdom but never to have more joy of the race. He was sure now that he was destined to pass Ted Warren. The sun was even brighter the horizon ever wider, rimming the saucer-shaped earth. When he flew near the sound he saw that the fog had almost passed. The water was gentle and colored like pearl, lapping the sand smoking towards the radiant sky. He passed over summer cottages vacant and asleep, with fantastic holiday roofs of red and green, gulls sword-like flying sickles of silver over the Opal Sea. Even for the racer there was peace. He made out a mass of rock covered with autumn-hued trees to the left, then a like rock to the right, West and East Rock, New Haven, he cried. The city mapped itself before him like square building blocks on a dark carpet, with railroad and trolley-tracks like flashing spider webs under the October Noon. So he had arrived, then, and he had not caught Ted Warren, he was furious. He circled the city looking for the green, where, in this day before the arrow-club of America battled against over-city flying, he was to land. He saw the Yale campus, lazy beneath its elms, its towers and turrets, dreaming of Oxford, his anger left him. He plunged down toward the green, and his heart nearly stopped. The spectators were scattered everywhere. How could he land without crushing someone? With trees to each side and a church in front, he was too far down to rise again, his back pressed against the back of the little seat, and it seemed automatically to be trying to restrain him from this tragic landing. The people were fleeing, and front there was a tiny space, but there was no room to sail horizontally and come down lightly. He shut off his motor and turned the monoplane's nose directly at the earth. She struck hard, bounced a second. Her tail rose, and she started with dreadful deliberateness to turn turtle. With a vault, Carl was out of the cockpit and clear of the machine as she turned over. Oblivious of the clamorous crowd which was pressing in about him, cutting off the light, replacing the clean smell of gasoline and the upper air by the hot odor of many bodies, he examined the model plane and found that she had merely fractured the propeller and smashed the rudder. Someone was fighting through the crowd to his side. Tony Bean, Tony, the round, polite Mexican from the Bagby School. He was crying, Omre, what a landing! You have saved lives. Get out of the way, all you people! Carl Grinden said, Good to see you, Tony. What time did Tad Warren get here? Where's— He's not here. What? Huh? How's that? Do I win? That's—I have—he—I hope he hasn't been hurt. Yes, you win. A newspaper man standing beside Tony said, Warren had to come down at Great Neck. He sprang to his shoulder, but that's all. That's good. But you, insisted, Tony, aren't you badly jarred, honk? Not a bit. The gaping crowd hanging its large collective ear toward the two aviators was shouting, Hooray! He's all right. As their voices rose, Carl became aware that all over the city hundreds of factory whistles and bells were howling their welcome to him. The victor. The police were clearing away for him. As the police captain touched a gold flashing cap to him, Carl remembered how afraid of the police that hobo Slim Erickson had been. Tony and he completed examination of the machine with Tony's mechanic and sent it off to his shop to await Martin Dockerill's arrival by speedboat and racing automobile. Carl went to retrieve congratulations and a check from the prize-giver and a reception by Yale officials on the campus. Before him, along his lane of passage, was a kaleidoscope of hands sticking out from the wall of people, hands that reached out and shook his own, till they were sore hands that held out pencil and paper to beg for an autograph, hands of girls with golden flowers of autumn, hands of dirty, eager, small boys weaving intermodal hands, dizzy with a world people only by writhing hands. Yet moved by their greeting, he made his way across the green through Phelps Gateway and upon the campus, twisting his cap and wishing that he had taken off his leather-flying coat, he stood upon a platform and heard officials congratulating him. The reception was over, but the people did not move and he was very tired. He whispered to a professor, Is that a dormantory there behind us? Can I get into it to get away? The professor beckoned to one of the collegians and replied, I think Mr. Erickson, if you will step down, they will pass you into Vanderbilt Courtyard by the gate back of us and you will be able to escape. Carl trusted himself to the bunch of boys forming behind him and found himself rushed into the comparative quiet of a Tudor courtyard. A charming youngster, hatless and sleek of hair cried, Right this way, Mr. Erickson, up this staircase over the tower and we'll give him a slip. From the roar of voices to the dusky quietitude of the hallway was a joyous escape. Suddenly Carl was a youngster permitted to see Yale, a university so great that from Plato College it had seemed an imperial myth. He stared at the list of room occupants framed and hung on the first floor. He peeped reverently through an open door at a suite of rooms. He was taken to a room with a large collection of pillows, firearms, morse chairs, sets of books in Christ Levant, tobacco jars and pipes, a restless and boyish room, but a real haven. He stared out upon the campus and saw the crowd stutterly waiting for him. He glanced around at his host and waved his hand depreciatively, then tried to seem really grown up, really like the famous Hawke Erickson. But he wished that Forrest Hablin were there so that he might marvel. Look at him, will you? Waiting for me. Can you beat it? Some start from my Yale course. In a big chair, with a pipe supplied by the youngster, he shyly tried to talk to a senior in the great world of Yale. He himself had not been able to climb to seniorhood even at Plato, while the odd youngster shyly tried to talk to the great aviator. He picked up a Yale catalog and he vaguely ruffled its pages, thinking of the difference between its range of courses in the petty and flexible curriculum of Plato. Out of the pages leaped the name Fraser. He hastily turned back. There it was, Henry Fraser. A. M. B. H. D. Assistant Professor in English Literature. Carly Joyce Boyishly that after his defeat at Plato, Professor Fraser had won to victory. He forgot his own triumph for a second he longed to call on Fraser and pay his respects. Nah, he growled to himself. I've been so busy hiking that I've forgotten what little book learn I ever had. I'd like to see him, but by gum I'm going to begin studying again. Hidden away in the youngster's bedroom for a nap, he dreamed uncomfortably of Fraser and books. That did not keep him from making a good altitude flight at the New Haven Meat that afternoon, with his hastily repaired machine and a new propeller. But he thought of new roads for wandering in the land of books, as he sat tired and sleepy, but trying to appear bright and appreciative at the big dinner in his honor, the first sacrificial banquet to which he had been subjected, with earnest gentlemen in evening clothes glad for an excuse to drink just a little too much champagne with mayors and councilmen and bankers, with the inevitable stories about the man who was as accused of stealing umbrellas and about the two skunks on a fence, endlessly watching a motor-car. Equally inevitable were the speeches praising Carl's flight, as a remarkable achievement destined to live forever in the annals of sport and heroism, and to bring one more glory to the name of our fair city. Carl tried to appear honored, but he was thinking, rats, I'll live in the annals of nothing. Curtis and Brookins and Oxley have all made longer flights in mine in this country alone, and they're aviators I'm not worthy to fill the gas tanks of. Gee, I'm sleepy. Got to look polite, but I wish I could beat it. Let's see. Now, look here, young Carl, starting in tomorrow. You'll begin to read oodles of books. Let's see. I'll start out with Forrest's Favorites. The David Cockfield, in that book by Wells. Tonal Bangue. That's got aerial experiments in it, in Jude the Obscure. I guess it is, and the damnation of Thernware. Wonder what he would damned. And Mckteig and Walden and Warren Peace and Madame Bovray, and some Turgov and some Balzac, and something more serious, guess I'll try William James' book on psychology. He bought them all next morning. His other belongings had been suited to rapid transportation and Martin McDucklirl. Brumbled. That's a swell line of baggage, all right. One toothbrush, a change of socks, and ninety-seven thousand books. Two nights later, in a hotel at Portland, Maine, Carl was plowing through the psychology. He hated study. He flipped the pages angrily and ran his fingers through his corn-colored hair. But he sped on. Concentrated, stopping only to picture a day when the people who honored him publicly would also know him in private, somewhere among them. He believed it was the girl with whom he could play. He would meet her at some aerial race, and she would welcome him as eagerly as he welcomed her. Had he perhaps already met her? He walked over to the writing-table and scrawled a note to Gertie Cowles, regarding the beauty of the Yale campus. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of the Trail of the Hawk. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti. MikeVendetti.com Trail of the Hawk by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 22 Editors' Note The following pages are extracts from a diary kept by Mr. C. O. Erickson in a desolatory fashion from January 1911 to the end of April 1912. They are reprinted quite literally. Apparently Mr. Erickson had no very precise purpose in keeping his journal. At times it seems he intended as materia for future literary use, at others as comments for his own future amusement. At still others, as a sort of a long letter to be later sent to his friend, Lieutenant Forrest Haveland, U.S. Army. I have already referred to them in my psychoanalysis of the subconscious with reference to active temperaments. But here reprint them less for their appeal, to us as scientific study of reactions than as possessing doubtless. For those interest in pure narrative, a certain curt expression of somewhat unusual exploits, however inferior is their style to a more critical thesis on the adventurous. May 9, 1911. Arrived at Minneola Flying Field, New York, to try out new Bagby Monoplane, I have bought. Not much accommodation here yet, many of us housed in tents. Not enough hangers, we sit around and tell lies in the long grass at night, like a bunch of kids out camping. Went over and had a beer at Peter McLaughlin's to-day. That's where Glenn Curtis started out to make his first flight for Scientific America Cup. Like the new Bagby machine better than the Bloit, in many respects has non-lifting tail as should all modern machines, rudder and elevator a good deal like the Newport, one passenger, roomy cockpit, and the enclosed fuselage, but like control, nearer streamline than any American plane yet. Spam 33.6 feet, length 24, cord of wing at fuselage, 6 feet, 5 inches. Chalver, propeller, 6 foot, 6 inches, pitch, 4 foot, 5. Dandy new Nome engine, 70 horsepower, should develop 60 horsepower at 80 mile per hour. Martin Deckerrell, my mechanic, and his pretty cute. He said to me to-day when we were getting work bench up. I bet a hat the spectators all flock here now. Not that you're any better flyer than some of the other boys, but you got the newest plane for them to write their names on. Certainly a scat of people budding in. Came in autos and motorcycles and on foot, and stand around watching everything you do. Till you want to throw monkey-wrench at them. Hank O'Dell has joined the associated order of the pyramid, and just now he is sitting out in front of his tent, talking to some of the grand worthy, high mighties of it. I guess fat old boy with a yachting cap and a big brass watch chain, and an order of pyramid charm big as your thumb, and a tough young fellow with a black satin shirt and his hat on sideways with a cigarette hanging out one of the corner of his mouth. Since I wrote the above a party of sports, the women in fadeaway gowns made to show their streamlined forms came budding in, poking their fingers at everything, while the slob that owned their car explained everything wrong. This is a biplane, he says. You can see there's a plane sticking out on each side of the place where the aviator sits. It's a new aeroplane, that's the way he pronounced it. And that dingus in front is a whirling motor. I was sitting here at the workbench, riding hot as hell and sweating, and in khaki pants and soft shirt and black sneakers, and the big boss comes over to me and says, Where's Hawke Erickson, my man? How do I know, I says? When will he be back, says he, as though he was thinking of getting me fired, PDQ, for being fresh? Next week. He ain't come yet. He gets sore and says, Here, my man, I read in the papers today that he has just joined the flying colony. Permit me to inform you that he is a very good friend of mine. If you will ask him, I am quite sure that he will remember Mr. Porter Carruthers, who was introduced to him at the Belmont Park meet. Now, if you will be so good as to show the ladies myself about. Well, I ask Hawke and Hawke seem to be unable to remember his friend, Mr. Carruthers, who was one of the thousand or so people recently introduced to him. But he told me to show them about, which I did, and told them the gnome was built radial to save room, and the wires overhead were a frame for a little roof for bad weather, and they gasp and nodded to every full thing I said. Swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker, till one of the females showed her interest by saying, How fascinating! Let's go over to the Garden City Hotel, Porter. I'm dying for a drink. I hope she died for it. May 10th. Up at three trying-out machines, smashed landing chasses and coming down shook me up a little. Interesting how when I rose it was dark on the ground. But, once up, was a little red in the east like smoke from a regular fairy city. Another author out to-day bothering me for what he called copy. Must say I've met some darn decent people in this game, though. Today there was a girl came out with Billy Morrison of the New York Courier. She's an artist but crazy about outdoor life, et cetera. Named Esther Nash. Red-haired girl, slim as a match, but the strangest face. Pale, but it lights up when she's talking to you. Took her up when she was not scared. Most are. May 11th. Miss Esther Nash came out by herself. She's thinking quite seriously about learning to fly. She sat around, watched me work, and, when nobody was looking, smoked a cigarette. Has recently been in Europe, Paris, London, et cetera. Somehow, when I'm talking to a woman like her, I realize how little I see of women with whom I can be really chummy, though I meet so many people at receptions, et cetera. Sometimes, just after I've been flying before thousands of people, I beat it to my hotel and would be glad for a good chat with the night clerk. Of course, I can bank on Martin Dickerel to the limit, but when I talk to a person like Miss Nash, I realize I need someone who knows good heart from bad, though Miss Nash doesn't insist on talking like a highbrow. Indeed, is picking up aviation technologies very quickly. She talks German like a native. Think Miss Nash is perhaps older than I am, perhaps a couple of years, but doesn't seem to make any difference. Reading a little German to-night almost forgot what I learned of it in Plateau. May 14, Sunday. Went into town this afternoon and went with Istra to dinner at the Lafayette. She told me all about her experiences in Paris and studying art. She is quite discontented here in New York, I don't blame her much. It must have been fully over in Paris. We sat talking till ten. Like to see Verdun's fly, and the lure, and the gay grissettis, too by heck. Istra ought not to drink so many cordials, nicks on the booze you learn when you try to keep in shape for flying. Though, Tad Warren doesn't seem to learn it. After ten, we went to studio where Istra is staying in Washington Square, several for friends there, and usual excitement and full questions about being an aviator. It always makes me feel like a boob. But they saw Istra, and I wanted to be alone and they beat it. This is really dawn, but I'll date it May 14, which is yesterday. No sleep for me tonight, I'm afraid. Going to fly around New York and aerial derby this afternoon. Must get plenty sleep now. May 15, one derby. Not much of an event, though. Struck rotten currents over Harlem River. Machine rode like a whaleback. Istra out here to-morrow, glad. But after last night afraid I'll get so I depend on her and the aviator that keeps his nerve has to be sort of a friendless cuss, some ways. May 16. Istra came out here. Seems very discontented. I'm afraid she's the kind to want novelty and attention incessantly. She seems to forget that I'm pretty busy. May 17. Saw Istra in town. She forgot all her discontent. And her everlasting dignity and dance for me then came over and kissed me. She is truly a wonder. Can hum a French song? So you think you're among the peasants, but she expects absolute devotion and constant amusing. And I must stick to my last if a mechanic like me is still about to do anything. May 18. Istra came out here. She sat around and looked bored. Wanted to make me soar, I think. When I told her I had to leave to-morrow morning for Rochester and couldn't come to town for dinner, etc., she flounced home. I'm sorry, I'm muddy sorry, poor kid. She's always going to be discontented wherever she is. And always getting someone in herself all wrought up. She always wants new sensations yet doesn't want to work. And the combination isn't very good. It'll be great if she really worked at her painting, but she usually stops her art just this side of the handle of the paintbrush. Curious thing is that when she'd gone and I sat thinking about her, didn't miss her so much as Gertie Cowles. I hope I see Gertie again some day. She's a good pal. Istra wanted me to name my new monoplane Bebet, because she says it looks cunning. With the Lord knows it doesn't. It may look efficient, but not cunning. But I don't think I'll name her anything, though she says it shows lack of imagination. People, especially reporters, are always asking me this question. Do aviators have imagination? I'm not sure I know what imagination is. It's like this stuff about sense of humor. Both phrases are pretty bankrupt now. A few years ago when I was running a car, I would make believe I was different people, like a king driving through his kingdom. But when I'm warping and banking, I don't have time to think about making believe. Of course, I do notice sunsets and so on a good deal. But that is not imagination. And I do like to go to different places. Possibly. I take the imagination out of that way. I guess imagination is partly wanting to be places where you aren't. Well, I go when I want to and I like that better. Anyway, darned if I'll give my monoplane a name. Tad Warren has been married to a musical comedy sobret with ringlets of red-brown hair. Esther's hair is quite bright red, but this woman has dark red hair, like the color of California redwood chips. No, maybe darker. And she wears a slimsy bright blue dress with the waistline nearly down to her knees. And skirt pretty short, showing a lot of ankle. And a kind of hat I never noticed before. Must be getting stylish now, I guess. Flops down so it almost hides her face like a basket. She's a typical wife of a ten-horsepower aviator with exhibition fever. She and Tad go joy-riding almost every night with a bunch of gasoline and alcohol sports, and all have about five cocktails and dance a new California dance called the Turkeys Trot. This bunch of named Tad's new right Sammy. And they think it's quite funny to yell, Hello Sammy, how are you? Come have a drink. I guess I'll call mine a monoplane and let it go at that. July 14th, Quebec. Lost race to Orantos of Quebec. Had fair chance to win, but motor kept misfiring. Couldn't seem to get plugs that would work. Smashed hell out of elevator coming down on tail when landing here. Glad Hank O'Dell won since I lost. Hank has designed a rocker arm for severed motor valves. All of us invited to usual big dinner, never did see so many uniforms, also members of Canadian Parliament. I don't like to lose a race, but thunder doesn't bother me long. Goodfully a soul at dinner. Sat near a young lieutenant, left-tenant I suppose it is, who made me think of Forrest Havelin. I miss Forrest a lot. He's doing some good flying for the army, flying Curtis Hydro now, and trying out muffler for military scouting. What I like as much as anything about him is his ease. I hope I'm learning a little bit anyway. This stuff is all confused, but must hustle off to reception at summer school of Royal College for females. Must send all this to old Forrest to read some day. If you ever see this Forrest, hello, dear old man. I thought about you when I flew over military post. Later. Big reception felt like an awful nut, so shy I didn't hardly dare look up off the ground. After the formal reception I was taking around the campus by the Lady President, nice old lady with white hair and diamond combs in it. What seemed more than a million pretty girls kept dodging out of doorways and making snapshots of me. Good thing I've been reading quite a little lately. As the Lady Principal—that was it, not Lady President— talked very high-brow, she asked me what I thought of this terrible lower-class unrest. Told her I was a socialist, and she never batted an eye. Of course, an aviator is permitted to be a nut. Wonder if I'm a good socialist, as a matter of fact. I do know that most governments—maybe all—permit most children to never have a chance, start them out by choking them with dirt and TB germs. And how can we make international solidarity seem practical? To the dub average voters. How? Letter from Gertie tonight, forwarded here. She seems sort of bored in Jerusalem, but is working hard with Village Improvement Committee of Women's Club for restroom for farmers' wives, also getting up PE Sunday school picnic. Be good for Istra if she did come a nice things like that, since she won't really get busy with her painting, but how she'd hate me for suggesting that she would be what she calls her choice. Guess Gertie is finding herself. Well, purest truly, but sleepy is finding himself, too. How I love my little bed. CHAPTER XXXIII The Diary of Mr. Erickson Continued Editor August 20, 1911, as before. Big Chicago meet over. They sure did show us a good time, never saw a better meet. One finals in duration today, also in second in altitude, but Nick's on the altitude again. I'm pretty poor at it. I'm no Lincoln beachy. Don't see how he breathes. His 11,578 feet was some climb. Tomorrow starts my biggest attempt afar, biggest distance flight ever tried in America, and rather niftier than even the European circuit and British circuit that Belmont has won, to fly as follows. Chicago to St. Louis to Indianapolis to Columbus to Washington to Baltimore to Philadelphia to Atlantic City to New York. The New York Chronicle, in company with papers a long line, gives prize of $40,000, ought to help bank account of win, in spite of big expenses to undergo. Now have $30,000 stowed away and have sent mother $3,000. To fly against my old teacher, Monsour Camineau. And Tony being Walter McMoneys, Monsour Bufort, the Frenchman, Tad Warren, Billy Whitzer, Chick Bernard, Aaron Solomons, and other good men. Special New York Chronicle reporter, fellow named Forbes, assigned to me. And he hangs around all the time, sort of embarrassing. Hurry, spelled it right, I guess, but I'm getting used to the reporters. Martin Dockeryl has an ambition. He said to me to-day, Hey, Hank, if you win the big race, you got to give me five plunks for my share. And then I'm by gum, I'm going to buy two razor-straps. What for? I said. Ah, I bet there ain't anybody else in the world that owns two razor-straps. Not much to say about banquet, lots of speeches, good grub. What tickles me more than anything is my new flying garments. Not clothes, but garments, by heck. I'm going to be a regular little old aviator in the melodrama. I've been wearing plain suits and a cap. Same good old cap. Always squeegee on my head. But for the big race, I've got riding breaches and patees and a silk shirt and a tweed Norfolk jacket and new leather coat and French helmet with both felt and springs inside the leather. This last really valuable. The real-stage aviator, that's me, watch the photographers fall for it. I bet Tad Warren's Norfolk jacket is worth ten thousand a year to him. I pretend to Martin that I was quite serious about the clothes, the garments, I mean. I dolled myself all up last night and went swelling into my hanger and anxious to ask Martin if he didn't like the get-up. And he nearly threw a fit. Good lordy groans! You look like an aviator on a lady's home journal cover. Guaranteed not to curse, swear or chaw tobacco. What's become of that girl you was kissing last time I seen you on the cover? August twenty-fifth. Not much time to write diary on race like this. It's just saw wood all the time or lose. Bad wind today. Sometimes the wind don't bother me when I'm flying and sometimes like today. It seems that though the one thing in the whole confounded world is a confounded wind, that roars in your ears and makes your eyes water and sneaks down your collar to cheer your spine and goes scooting up your sleeves unless you have gauntlets and makes your ears sting. Roar, roar, roar, the wind's worse than the noisiest old cast-iron tin can or awesomely motor. You want to duck your head and get down out of it. And lord it tires your soul. Aviation isn't all brilliant risks and daring dives and that kind of blankety-blank circus business, not by a long shot. It ain't lots of it's just sticking there and bucking the wind. Like taxi driver. Speeding for a train and a storm. Tired tonight and mad. September fifth, New York. A win. Plenty smashes but only got to the yard. I beat out Buford by eight hours and Aaron Solomon's by nearly a day. Carmio's machine hopelessly smashed in Columbus but he has not hurt but poor Tad Warren killed crossing Illinois. September eighth. Had no time to write about my reception here in New York till now. I've been worrying about poor Tad Warren's wife. Bunch of us got together and made up a purse for her. Nothing more pathetic than those poor little women that poked down the cocktails to keep excited then go to pieces. I don't believe I was very decent to Tad. Sitting here alone in a hotel room seems twice as lonely after the fuss and feathers these last few days. Fellow thanks of all the rotten things he ever did, poor old Tad. Too late now to cheer him up. Too late. Wonder if they shouldn't have called off race when he was killed. Wish Jistro wouldn't keep calling me up. Have I got to be rude to her? I'd like to be decent to her but I can't stand the cocktail life. Lord, that time she danced though. Poor Tad was... Oh, hell. To get back to the reception. It was pretty big. Parade of the Arrow Club and Squadron A. Me and an open-face hack. Feeling like a boob while sixty, eleven billion people cheered. Then reception by a mayor, me delivering letter from mayor to Chicago, which I had cutely sneaked out in Chicago and mailed to myself here. New York general delivery, so I couldn't lose it on the way. Then biggest dinner I've ever seen must have been a thousand there at the Aster, me very natty in a new dress suit. Abo, I fool them. It was ready-made and cost me just thirty-seven fifty and fitted like my skin. Mayor, presidents of burrows of New York District Attorney Vice President of U.S. Lieutenant Governor of New York, five or six senators, Chief of Ordinance, U.S.A., Arctic explorers and hundreds like that, but most of all Forest Havilland whom I got them to stick right up there near me. Speech is mostly about me. I nearly rubbed the silver off my flossing new cigarette case, keeping from looking foolish while they were telling about me and the future of aviation and all them interesting subjects. Forest and I sneaked off from the reporters next afternoon, had a quiet dinner down in Chinatown. We have a bully plan, if we can make it, and if he can get leave, we will explore the headwaters of the Amazon with a two-passenger Curtis flying boat. Maybe next year. Now the reception fans have done their darnedest and all the excitement is over, including the shouting, and I'm starting for Newport to hold a little private meat of my own. Back by Thomas J. Watercell, the steel magnet, and by tomorrow night New York will forget me. I realized that after the big dinner. I got on the subway at Times Square, jumped quick into the car just as the doors were closing, and the guard yapped at me, What are you trying to do, Billy? Kill yourself! He wasn't spending much time thinking about famous Hawk Erickson, and I got to thinking how comfortable New York will manage to go on being when they no longer read in the morning paper, whether I dined with the governor or with Martin Dockrill at Beizu Junction Depot lunch counter. They forget us quick, and already there's a new generation of aviators. Some of the old giants are gone, poor Mosiant and Hoxie, and John Stone, and the rest killed, and there's coming along a bunch of youngsters that can fly enough to grab the glory, and they spread out the glory pretty thin. They go as old fellows except PEG a few better on aerial acrobatics, and that's what the dear old people like. For a socialist, I certainly do despise a people's taste. I won't do any flip-flops in the air no matter what the country fair managers write me. Somehow I'd just as soon be alive and exploring the Amazon with old forest is dead, after brilliant feats of fearless daring. Go to it, kids, good luck. Only test your supporting wires, and don't try to rival Lincoln Beachy. He's a genius. Glad got a secretary for a couple days to handle all the mail. Hundreds of baking letters and mashed notes from girls since I won the big prize. Makes me feel funny. One nice thing out of the mail, letter from the Turk, Jack Terry, that I haven't seen since Plato. He didn't graduate as old man died, and he is assistant manager of quite a good-sized fisheries out in Oregon. Glad to hear from him again. Funny. I haven't thought of him for a year. I feel lonely and melancholy tonight in spite of all I do to cheer up. Let up after reception, etc. I suppose I feel like calling up Bistra after all, but mustn't. I ought to hit the hay, but couldn't sleep. Poor tad-worn. The following words appear at the bottom of a page in a faint, fine handwriting, unlike Mr. Erickson's usual scrawl, the editor. For spirits there be of the present world or the future, take this prayer from a plain man who knows little of monism or trinity or luggus, and give to tad another chance as a child who never grew up. September 11, off to Kokomo to fly for Farmer's Alliance. Easy meet here. Newport, Rhode Island, yesterday just straight flying and passenger carrying, dandy party given for me after it, by Thomas J. Watercell, the steel man. Have read of such parties. Bird party in a garden. Watercell has many acres in his place and a big house with a wonderful brick terrace and more darn convenient things than I ever saw before. Breakfast room out on the terrace, a swimming pool, and little gardens on one outside of each guest room. Rooms all have private doors, houses, mission style, built around patio. All the Newport's swells came to party dressed as birds, and I had to dress as a hawk. They had to costume already, wonder how they got my measurements. Girls in the dance of the birds, much silk stocking, very pretty. At the end of dance they were all surrounding me in semicircle. I stood out on lawn beside Mrs. Watercell, and they bowed blow to me, bluttering their silk wings and flashing out many colored electric globes concealed in wings, and looked like hundreds of rainbow-colored fireflies in the darkness. Just then the big lights were turned on again, and they let loose hundreds of all kinds of birds, and they flew up all around me, surprised me to death. Then for grub best sandwiches I ever ate. Felt much flattered by it all, somehow did not feel so fully, says that banquets and speeches. After the party was all over, quite late, I went with Watercell for a swim in his private pool, most remarkable thing ever saw. He said everybody has Roman baths and Pompey baths, and he was going to go them one better, so he has an Egyptian bath, the pool itself like the inside of an ancient temple, long vista of great big green columns and a big idol at the end, and the pool all in green marble with lights underneath, the watering along the columns and the water itself, just heat of air. So you can't tell where the water leaves off in the air above it begins hardly. It feels as though you were swimming in air through a green twilight. Darned his sensation ever felt, and the idol and column sort of awe you. I enjoyed the swim and the room they gave me, but I had lost my toothbrush and that kind of spoiled the end of the party. I noticed Watercell only half introduced his pretty daughter to me. They liked me as a lion, but and yet they seemed to like me personally well enough too. If I didn't have old Martin trailing along and smoking his corn cob pipe and saying what he thinks, I'd die of loneliness, sometimes on the hike from meat to meat. Other times have jolly parties, but I'd like to sit down with the Cowlises and play poker, not have to explain who I am. Funny. Never used to feel lonely when I was bumming around on frates and so on, not playing any special attention to anybody. October 23rd. I wonder how far I'll ever get as an aviator. The newspapers all praise me as a hero. Hero, hell. I'm a pretty steady flyer, but so would plenty of chauffeurs be. This hero business is mostly bunk. It was mostly chances my starting to fly at all. Don't suppose that it's all accident to become a great as flyer as Garros or Ferdinand or Beachley. But I'm never going to be a Garros, I guess. Like the man that can jump twelve feet, but never can get himself to go any further. December 1st. Carmel killed yesterday, flying at San Anton. Motorback fire, machine-caught fire burned him to death in the air. He was the best teacher I could have had, patient and wise. I can't write about him. And I can't get this insane question out of my mind. Was his beard burned? I remember just how it looked. Didn't think of that when, all the time, I ought to remember how clever and darn decent he was. Carmel will never show me new stunts again. And he lay killed in October. Cromwell Dixon gone. The plucky youngster. Professor Montgomery. Newport. Todd. Shriver. Whom. Martin Dickerel and Hank O'Dell like so much. And many others all dead, like Moissant. I don't think I take any undue risks, but it makes me stop and think in Hank O'Dell with a busted shoulder. Captain Paul Beck once told me he believed it was mostly carelessness, these accidents. And he certainly is a good observer, but when I think of a careful constructor like Newport—punk money I'm making. Thank heaven there will be one more good year of the game. 1912. But I don't know about 1913. Looks like the exhibition game would blow up then nearly everybody that wants to has seen an airplane fly once, now, and that's about all they want. So good by aviation except for military use and flying boats for sportsmen. At least good by during a slump of several years. Hope to thunder forest and I will be able to make our South American hike, even if it costs every cent I have. That will be something like it, seeing new country, instead of scrapping with fair managers about money. December 22, Hooray! Christmas time at sea. Quite excited to smell the oceans again and go rolling down the narrow gangways between the white state room doors. Off for a month's flying in Brazil and Argentina, with Tony Bean. We'll look up data for coming exploration of Amazon headwaters. Martin Dockerel, like a regular bull bromel, in new white flannels parading the deck, making eyes at pretty greaser girls. It's good to be going. February 22, 1912. George Washington's birthday. He'd have busted that no-line proviso if he'd ever advertised an arrow-meat. Started to fly to New Orleans to St. Louis. Looks like really big times, old-fashioned jubilees all along the road and lots of prizes. Though take a chance, only measly little $2,500 prize guaranteed, but vague promises of winnings at towns all along where stop for short exhibitions. Beach of contestants has to fly at scheduled towns for a percentage of gate receipts. February 23. What a rotten flight to-day. Small crowd out to see me off. No sooner up than trouble with plugs. Wanted to land but nothing but bayous rice fields, cane breaks and marshes. Farmer shot at my machine. Soon motor stopped on me and had to come down a whopping on a small, plowed field. Smash landing gear, got an awful char. Nothing serious, though. It was two hours before a local blacksmith and I repaired chassis and cleaned plugs. Start off after coaching three scared darkies to hold the tail while the blacksmith spun the propeller. He would give it a couple of bats, then dodge out of the way too soon while I sat there and tried not to look mad, which by gum I was plenty mad. Landed in this bum-town called Fourth and Erase and found sweet refuge in the Chills and Fever Hotel. Wish out with back in New Orleans. Cheer up. Having others ahead of me in the race just adds a little zip to it. Watch me to-morrow. And I'm not the only hard luck artist. Aaron Solomon's bust propeller never got killed. Later. Cable. Tony Bean is dead. Killed flying. I'm god Tony impossible to think of him as dead. Just a few days ago we were flying together and calling on senioritas and he was playing the fiddle and laughing. Are we so polite? Like he used to fiddle us into good nature when we got discouraged at Bagby School. Seems like it was just a couple of minutes ago we drove his big car through Avenita de Mio and everybody cheered him. He was hero of Buenos Aires, yet he treated me as the big chief. Cable Graham forwarded from New Orleans dated yesterday. Bean O'Kill fell 200 feet. And tomorrow I'll have to be out and jolly. The rustic meat managers again. Want to go off someplace? Be quiet and think. Wish I could get away. Be off to South America with forest. February 24th. Rotten Luck continues. Back in same town again. Got up yesterday and mortar misfired. Had to make quick landing in Abayu and haul out machine myself aided by scared kids. Got back here and found gasoline pipe fouled. Small piece of tin stuck in it. Martin feels as bad as I do at Tony's death, though he doesn't say much of anything. Gosh, that Tony's such a nice little cuss. But all he said. But it looked white around the gills. February 25th. Another man has dropped out. I am third, but still last in the race. Race fever got me today. I didn't care for anything but winning. Got off to a good start. Then took chances. Machine wobbled like a board in the surf. I'm having some funny kind of chicken creole, I guess it is for lunch. Writing this in hotel dining room. Later. Past Aaron Solomon's. Am now second in the race. Landed here just three hours behind Walter McMonney's. Three letters forwarded here from Forest. He is flying daily at Army Aviation Camp. Also from Gertie Cowles. She and her mother in Minneapolis. Attending a week of grand opera. Also to my surprise, short note from Jack Ryan, the grouch, saying he has given up flying and gone back into motor business. There won't be much more than money to pay expenses on this trip. Tomorrow I'll show them some real flying. Later. Telegram from St. Louis Newspaper, Sweet Business, says that promoters of race have not kept promises to remove time limit as they promised. Doubt if either Walter McMonney's or I can finish in time, said. February 26. Bad luck continues, but made fast flight after two forced descents. One of them had to make difficult landing, plane down on railroad track avoiding telegraph wires, and get machine off track as could hear train coming. Awful job. Nerves not very good. Once went up a two hundred feet height, from which Tony Bean fell I saw his face, bright in air, in front of me, and jumped so I jerked the stuffings out of control wires. March 15. Just got out of hospital after three weeks there. Broken legs still in splints. Glad Walter McM got through in time limit, got prized. Too weak and shaky to write much. Shoulder still hurts. March 18. How I came to fall. Fall that broke my leg three weeks ago. Was flying over rough country when bad gusts came through hill to file. Wing crumpled. Up at four hundred feet. Machine plunged forward then sideways. Gosh, I thought I'm gone. But will live as long as I can, even a few seconds more, and kept working with elevator trying to right her even a little. Ground coming up fast. Must have jumped, I think. Landed in March that saved my life but woke up at doctor's house, leg busted and shoulder bad, etc. Machine shot to pieces. But Martin Duckerel has it pretty well repaired. He and the doc and I play poker every day. Martin always wins with his dog-gone funeral face no matter though he has an ace full. March 24. Leg all right, pretty nearly. Rigged up steering bar so I can work it with one foot. Flew a mile to-day, went not badly. Hoped to fly to Springfield, Illinois next week. Will be able to make Brazil trip with Forest Habland all right. The dear old boy has been writing me every day while I've been on the bum. Newspapers have made a lot of my flying so soon again. Several engagements and now things look bright again. Reading lots and chippers can be. March 25. Forest Habland's dead. He was killed to-day. March 27. Disposed a monoplane by Telegraph. Garton Martin Job was Sunset Aviation Company. March 28. Started for Europe. May 8. Paris. Forest and I would have met today in New York. Perfect plans for a Brazil trip. May 10. I'm still trying to answer a letter from Forest Father. Can't seem to make it go right, if I could have seen Forest again. But maybe they were right. Holding funeral before I could get there. Captain Farber says Forest was terribly crushed, falling from seventeen hundred feet. And I wish I didn't keep thinking of plans of our Brazil trip, then remembering that we won't make it after all. I don't think I will fly till fall, anyway. Though I feel stronger now after rest in England. Tithern doesn't has beautiful plays in Demonshire. England seems to stick to biplane. Can't make them see monoplane. Don't think I shall fly before fall. Today I would have been with Forest Habland in New York. I think he could have got leave for Brazil trip. We would take in Martin. Tony promised to meet us in Rio. I like France but can't get used to language. Keep starting to speak Spanish. Maybe I'll fly here in France but certainly not for some time. Though massage has fixed me all okay. M. Studding French. Maybe shall bicycle through France. Memo. Write to Colonel Habland when I can. Must when I can. End of Chapter 23. End of Part 2. Chapter 24. Of the Trail of the Hawk. This labor box recording is in the public domain recording by Mike Vendetti. Trail of the Hawk. By Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 24. In October 1912, a young man came with an enthusiastic letter from the president of the Arrow Club to old Stephen Vanzile, vice president and general manager of the Vanzile Motor Corporation of New York. The young man was quiet, self-possessed, an expert in regard to motors, used to meeting prominent men. He was immediately set to work at a tentative salary of $2,500 a year. To develop the plans of what he called the Turricar, an automobile with all camping accessories which should enable motorists to travel independent of ends, add the joy of camping to the joy of touring, and a feature of nearly all inventions, add money to the purse of the inventor. The young man was Carl Erickson, whom Mr. Vanzile had seen fly at New Orleans during the preceding February. Carl got the idea of the Turricar while wandering by motorcycle through Scandinavia and Russia. He was, at this time, 27 years old, not at all remarkable in appearance, nor to be considered handsome, but so clean, so well bathed, so well set up and evenly tanned that one thought of the swimming, dancing, tennis-playing city men of good summer resorts and impression enhanced by his sleek corn silk hair and small pale mustache. His clothes came from London, his watch chain was a thin line of platinum and gold, his cigarette case of silver engraved in inconspicuous bands. A modest and sophisticated cigarette case which he had possessed long enough to forget that he had it. He was apparently too much the easy well-bred, rather inexperienced Yale or a Princeton man, not Harvard. There was a tiny twang in his voice, and he sometimes murmured, gee, to know much about life or work as yet, and his smooth rosy cheeks made it absurdly evident that he had not been away from the college installation for more than two years. But when he got to work with Drassmann and stenographers, when a curt kindliness filled his voice, he proved to be concentrated, unafraid, of responsibility able to keep many people busy, trained to something besides family tradition and the collegians, naïve belief that it matters who wins the next game. His hands would have given away the fact that he had done things. They were large, broad, the knuckles, heavy, the palms calloused by something rougher than ore and tennis racket. The microscopic traces of black grease did not for months quite come out of the cracks in his skin, and two of his well-kept but thick nails had obviously been smashed. The men of the same rank as himself in the office, captains and first lieutenants of business, said that he simply ate up work. They fancied with the eager old womaness of office gossip, that he had a secret sorrow, for though he was pleasant enough, he kept very much to himself the cause of his retirement from aviation, was the theme of many romantic legends. They did not know precisely what it was he had done in the prehistoric period of a year before, but they treated him with reverence instead of the amused aloofness, with which an office usually waits to see whether a new man will prove to be a fool or a grouch, a clown or a good fellow. The stenographers and filing girls and telephone girls followed with yearning eyes the hero straight back, the girl who discovered in an old New York Chronicle, lining a bureau drawer, an interview with Carl became very hotty over its possession and lent it only to her best lady friends. The older women, who knew that Carl had had a serious accident, whispered in cloakroom confidences, poor fellow, and so brave about it. Yet all the while Carl's china-blue eyes showed no trace of pain nor sorrow, nor that detestable appeal for sympathy called being brave about his troubles. There were many thoughtful features which fitted the Torah car. For use in camping, extra-sized baggage box whose triangular shape made the car more nearly streamlined, special folding silk tints, folding aluminum cooking utensils, electric stove run by current from the car, electric battery light attached to a curtain rod. But the distinctive feature was one which Carl could patent, was the means by which a bed was made up inside the car as pullman seats are turned into berths. The back of the front seat was hinged and dropped back to horizontal. The upholstery back of the seat could be taken out and also placed on the horizontal, with blanket spread on the level space thus provided, with the extra-heavy top and side curtains in place and the electric light switched on, tourist had a refuge cleaner than a country hotel and safer than a tent. The first Torah car was being built. Carl was circularizing, a list of possible purchasers and corresponding with makers of camping goods. Because he was not office broken he did not worry about the risks of the new enterprise, the stupid details of affairs had for him, a soul, the adventure of business. To be consulted by draftsmen and shop foremen, to feel that if he should not arrive at 8.30 a.m. to the second the most important part of all the world's business would be halted in stenographer's lowl, inexpensive idleness. To have the chief, old van Zile, politely anxious as to how things were going, to plan ways of making a million dollars and not have the plans seem fantastic. All these made it interesting to overwork and hypnotize Carl into a feeling of responsibility which was less spectacular than flying before thousands, but more in accordance with the spirit of the time and place. Inside the office, busy and reaching for success outside the office, frankly bored. Carl was a dethroned prince. He had been accustomed to a more than royal court of admirers. Now he was a nobody, the moment he went twenty feet from his desk he was forgotten. He did not seek out the many people he had met when he was an aviator and a somebody, he believed, perhaps foolishly, that they liked him only as a personage and not a person. He sat lonely at dinner in cheap restaurants with stains on the tablecloths, for he had put much of his capital into the new Turacar Company, mothered by the van Zile Corporation, and aeroplanes, accessories, traveling expenses, and the like had devoured much of his large earnings at aviation before he had left the game. In his large, shabby, fairly expensive, furnished room on Seventy-fifth Street, he spent unwilling evenings working on Turacar plans, or reading French, French technical motor literature, light novels, Balzac, anything. He tried to keep in physical form and, much though the routine and silly gestures of gymnasium exercised bored him, he took them three times a week. He could not explain the reason, but he kept his identity concealed to gymnasium, giving his name as O. Erickson. Even at the Aeroclub where scores knew him by sight, he was a nobody. Aviation, like all pioneer arts, must look to the men who are doing new things or planning new things, not to heroes past. Carl was often alone at lunch at the club. Any group would have welcomed him, but he did not seek them out. For the first time he really saw the interior decorations of the club. In the old days he had been much too busy talking with active comrades to gaze about, but now he stared for five minutes together at the stamped leather wall covering of the dining room. He noted much too carefully for a happy man the trophies of the lounging room. But at one corner he never glanced. For here was a framed picture of the forgotten O. Erickson, landing on Governor's Island, winner of the flight from Chicago to New York. Such a beautiful swoop. There is no doubt of the fact that he disliked the successful new aviators. He did so because he was jealous of them. He admitted the fact, but he could not put into his desire to be a good boy one quarter of the force that inspired his resentment at being a lonely man and a nobody. But since he knew he was envious he was careful not to show it, not to inflict it upon others. He was gracious and added a wrinkle between his brows and said, gosh, and ain't much less often. He had few friends these days, death had taken many, and he was wary of lion-hunters who in dull seasons condescended to ex-lions and dethroned princes. But he was fond of a couple of arrow-club men, an automobile ex-racer who was a selling agent for the Van Zile Corporation, and Charlie Forbes of bright-eyed, curly-headed, busy, dissipated the reporter who had followed him from Chicago to New York for the Chronicle. Occasionally one of the men with whom he had flown Hank O'Dell or Walter McMoneys or Lieutenant Rutledge of the Navy came to town, and Carl felt natural again. As for women, the only girl he had known well in years, Mr. Nash, the painter, had gone to California to keep house for her father till she should have an excuse to escape to New York or Europe again. Inside the office, a hustling, optimistic, young businessman, for the rest of the time a dethroned prince, such was Carl Erickson in November 1912, when a letter from Gertrude Cowles, which had pursued him all over American Europe, finally caught him. West 157th Street, New York Carl Erickson. Oh, such excitement! We have come to New York to live. Ray has such a good position with a big New York real estate company, and Mama and I are going to make a home for him, even if it's only just a flat. But it's quite a big one and looks out over the duckiest old house that must have been adorning Harlem for heaven knows how long, and our house has all modern conveniences, elevator and all. Thank Carl. I'm going to study dancing at Madam Veneshwaka School. She was with the Russian Ballet, and really is almost as wonderful a dancer as Isidore Duncan or Pavlova. Perhaps I'll teach all these ducky new dancers to children some day. I'm just terribly excited to be here, like the silliest, gushest little girl in the world. And I do hope so much you will be able to come to New York and honor us with your presence at dinner, famous aviator, our Carl, and we are so proud of you. If you will still remember simple people like us, do come any time. Wonder where you will be when this reaches you. I read in the papers that your accident isn't serious, but I am worried. Oh, Carl, you must take care of yourself. Yours is ever, Gertie. P.S. Mama sends her best regards, so does Ray. He has a black mustache now. We tease him about it dreadfully. Gee. One minute after reading the letter in his room, Carl was standing on the chaste black and white tiles of the highly respectable white-arched hall downstairs, asking information for the telephone number of West 157th Street. While his landlord a dry-bearded goat of a physician, who had failed in the practice of medicine and was now failing in the practice of rooming houses, listened from the front of the hall. Glad to escape from the funerally gentile house, Carl hastily changed his collar and tie and, like the little boy, Carl, whom Gertie had known, dog trotted to the subway, which was going to take him home.