DINS. _Château du Bois, La Ferté-Imbault, France, October 15 to 27, 1917._ DEAR MOTHER: The god of good fortune is still guarding your son, and touching his life with experience and romance. I am a guest at an old French château—but I must start at the beginning. For the past few days I have been too busy to write. After the altitude test, which I completed the following day, I took two _petits voyages_, which were pleasant and uneventful, save for the second when I arrived at the school after dark and made my landing by the light of a bonfire. It was a good landing, and gave me more confidence. The next man after me crashed to the ground so loudly that it was heard a quarter of a mile. The next morning I started upon my first triangle, which is a trip of over two hundred kilometers from Tours to Châteaudun, thence to Pontlevoy, and back again to Tours. My motor gave trouble before starting, but ran well for a time. When I had gone over three-fourths of the way the motor began to miss, and I landed in a field. Four out of the ten spark plugs had gone bad. They had given me only two spark plugs and no wrench. I borrowed a wrench from a passing motor car, and managed to clean the plugs and start up again, but as no one was there to hold the motor I could not let it warm up and it did not catch well, so I only rose twenty feet. A short turn and side landing was the only thing that kept me from landing in a stone quarry. I taxied back to the field and tried again. By that time the motor was warm and picked up pretty well. I ascended to seven hundred meters, and proceeded confidently on my way, and there is where I “done” made my mistake. For a little time I was lost. Then I found my landmarks and continued. The wind had become quite high, and it took some time for me to come back against it to my course. In fact, it took an hour. Then I continued forty-five degrees into the wind for half an hour. I should have arrived long ago and I was a little worried. The engine began to miss again. The country was spotted with woods and lakes and there were few good landing places. By now I knew I was totally lost and would have to descend, anyway, to find my way. I had no more come to this decision than the engine became hopeless, and I aimed for a field right near a little town under me; but the wind was so strong that I misjudged and overshot my landing and had to turn on my motor again. It caught but poorly, and barely raised me above a hedge of trees and telegraph wires. I had hardly speed to stay up and found myself over a wood, skimming the tree tops by no more than a meter. The slow speed made the controls very difficult, and the currents from the woods tossed me about like a cork on a choppy sea. The wind was blowing thirty miles per hour. For half a mile I staggered over and between the tree tops