"Shucks! but it shore does make me laugh aout loud when I looks back to them early days, an' 'members the funny way we used to find aout whether the silly bus was a movin' up, er daown, to the left, or to the right. The very fust instrument, if yeou could call it that, to ease up on the instinct way o' doin' was invented by one o' them smart Wright brothers. Say, it was on'y a light piece o' string, tied jest in front o' the pilot's face. When we was a goin' near ten miles an hour, mebbe fifteen at a stretch, we kept an eye on that string right along, an' could tell what the ole ship was adoin', 'cause like it might a been if she floated in the wind straight at aour face we knowed we was keepin' on a level keel--if it went daown a bit why we was climbin' some; if the string struck us in the forehead in course the plane must be droppin'; and same way if it flowed to the right, or the left. An' say, I never did know that early Wright invention to kick over the traces, an' fool me any." Even Jack apparently had never heard about that clever device, however primitive it might seem when placed alongside the wonderful means at present used to ascertain the same things--such as slipping, skidding, turning, climbing, or diving--today the experienced pilot watches the air-speed instrument, his compass, the bank and turn indicator. Only by placing entire dependence on the instruments in the cockpit can a pilot fly with any certainty in foggy weather, when it is utterly impossible to see any fixed point, either on the earth below or in the heavens above. And this is only one great change made in both the construction of the airship in these modern days, as well as the helping hand given the pilot through the clever devices by which he is confronted when sitting at the controls. Taken in all Perk spent a very pleasant evening with the Herriotts, and on their part they had a most uproarious time, the children particularly in romping with the jolly chap from the North. It was with considerable eagerness that Perk bounded out of bed on the ensuing morning, and rushed to a window to ascertain what the chances were for a promising day in the coast skyways. "Okay, partner!" he sang out blithely, after one brief look at the heavens, a portion of which was visible from the hotel window; "agwine to be jest fine, an' never a whiff o' fog aout there on Charleston harbor an' bay." "Then we'll get busy, and make as early a start as possible," Jack announced, also quitting his cot. "An' we doant kim back thisaway tonight, either, I shore reckons, Boss," Perk went on to add, with a happy ring in his voice; for he did yearn to eat one camp meal, when the chance came along, and no harm might follow their change of a set programme.