“Well, I just borrowed some money from the firm’s safe—really borrowed, or that’s what I thought. I was so crazy over my wife’s sickness that I didn’t think much about it, I guess, to tell the truth. “They found out about it, and I was arrested, and sentenced for embezzlement.... My wife died while I was in prison—back East that was.... Convict, that’s what I was. I don’t know’s you’ll want to associate— “Well, the warden was a fine old boy. He made me head of the machine shop. I got him interested in aviation—he was a handy man with the tools himself; and we used to do a lot of work on the side—him in Christian clothes, and me in stripes. “When I got out I’d inherited several thousand dollars from my wife’s uncle, funny old chap that had just been sitting back and watching my capers without letting me know anything about it. I wandered around the world, saw what the Wrights and Alexander Graham Bell and Curtiss were doing with aviation, and what Santos Dumont was doing in France. Saw one of J. A. D. McCurdy’s first flights. Then I came out here, and built this shack, and hoped to have a machine that I could surprise the world with, just the young ranchero helping me. But now my money’s practically all gone. “Thought I’d better tell you just how things really stand with me.... I don’t want any false impression—” Hike started forward and wrung Martin Priest’s hand, silently. The Lieutenant did the same. They were his friends. As for Poodle, he did the most brilliant thing of his life—nothing at all but smile his pleasantest! Then they began to plan the trip up to Monterey. CHAPTER IV THE AEROPLANE’S FIRST FLIGHT With the patched Gnome engine, with Hike and Lieutenant Adeler and Martin Priest and nearly two thousand pounds of Priest’s baggage, the tetrahedral _Hustle I_ stood ready to start. There is no use denying it—Hike felt a little nervous. He had flown with the Lieutenant several times, in well-tested Jolls ’planes, but with this new machine, that looked like a castle made of playing cards by some child, he was waiting to find out whether or not he was going to be scared! He didn’t think he would be, but Poodle was grinning at him and declaring that he sure would be. Martin Priest, the driver, snapped on the control. The tetrahedral’s engine began racing. Down the slope in front of the aerodrome she ran, bumping and hopping, then plunged out into the air, easily as a bird. Suddenly they were two hundred feet up, crossing a foothill, rising up—up—with the elevating planes sharply tilted upward. Hike yelled with joy, for never had he felt more comfortable, more like some big eagle, than then. The earth sank below them, and left them free of it. There was none of the jar of the smaller ordinary Jolls ’planes. The tetrahedral, though it was gaining in speed, rode as smoothly and easily as a huge steamer.