“I guess so.  I don’t much care who it is so long as he weighs up to average, and that fellow looks pretty husky.”

“Here, young fellow!  You are needed here for a minute,” called out Fanshaw.

Bob trotted over to the plane at once.

“What were you at?” asked the instructor.

“Varnishing,” replied Bob.  “Just finished.”

“This is Lieutenant Fauver.  He is trying this new chaser.  She is the finest thing we have seen here, and he wants to give her a spin with a passenger up.  Hop in if you like.”

The pilot smiled and shook Bob’s hand, then added another invitation.  It was hardly necessary.  Bob was overjoyed.  Often the boys had discussed going up, but a fair frequency of minor accidents made the officers at the camp chary about any unnecessary risks.  Consequently, the Brighton boys had decided that their best plan was to say nothing about flying as passengers until someone suggested it to them.  That one of them might be of any possible use as a passenger had never entered their heads.

A few moments after, the new chaser was soaring upward with a roar of engine exhaust that told of pride of power.  Bob was in the snug front seat undergoing an experience whose like he had never dreamed of.  His youthful imagination had often tried to picture what it would be like to be up in a swift flying-machine, but the sense of power and the exhilaration of swinging triumphantly through space gave him a new sensation.

“This,” he thought, “is the greatest game of all.  This is what one day I will be doing to some purpose.”

His mind went out to that day when he would be guiding his own machine on a hostile errand, over the enemy’s country, perhaps.  The fine, high enthusiasm of youth rushed through him and his pulses beat faster as he pictured himself, a knight of the air, starting forth on a quest that might mean great danger, but would, with sufficient foresight, care and determination, result in disaster for the antagonist rather than for himself.

Higher and higher climbed the swift plane, no faltering in its stride.  The beat of the engines was as rhythmical to experienced ears as the regular swing and lilt of some perfectly rendered piece of music to the ears of a master musician.

Bob noticed the country below, but was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give much attention to details of the wonderful panorama that stretched away for miles and miles, until they had soared to a height that made blurred lines of roads and hedges far under them, and caused even houses and outbuildings to grow increasingly indistinguishable.  Only the silver band of the little river, winding in graceful curves and catching the afternoon sun, remained an unfailing landmark.

Then suddenly came an abrupt silence.  Bob’s heart leaped to his throat.  What had happened?  No sooner had his inner consciousness asked the question than his common sense had answered it.  The pilot had shut off the engine, of course.  Already the powerful plane was heading downward over the trackless path up which it had risen, and was gliding with a soft rush of air which produced a floating sensation.