“Well, I’ll tell you now—you’d better know it if you’re going up with me. I’ve been running this tetrahedral for a week. Priest and I kept it quiet because the Lieutenant thinks I’m too young to run one, and Father’d be scared blue if he knew I was doing it. I don’t want to frighten him, and so I want to be a good, safe, crackerjack aviator before he knows. So keep still about this flight. But don’t worry. Why, one night—dark night, too—I flew this thing clear up to San Francisco—about a hundred and fifty miles the course we took—and circled over the city. And Priest never touched the levers except for a couple of minutes, while we were landing. All aboard.” “Right!” said Poodle. Very gingerly, as though he were afraid of breaking something, Poodle crawled into the passenger-seat beside the aviator’s and stammered, “Gee, I don’t like the promenade deck on this liner. Too narrow for playing tag.” Hike swung easily into his seat, snapped on the self-starter, and grasped the levers, shouting, “We’ll be down there by one o’clock.” The machine bobbed roughly over the start, like a frightened hen with wings outspread, and launched beautifully. Hike, happy at being up in the brisk breeze and bright sunshine, hummed a little song to himself, and swung the _Hustle_ southward. Poodle held his breath and waited. For five minutes, they followed the coast-line, at sixty miles an hour—an easy speed for the _Hustle_, with her powerful engine; then Hike struck the clutch in the second notch. At the second speed, they whirled at a hundred miles an hour. They rocked and bumped on the air-currents coming up between cliffs. Poodle held his cap before his face, trying to catch his breath, and clung to a strut with his other hand. He was too frightened to look down at the cliffs, that rushed like a black streak beneath them, but he kept arguing with himself, “Now, Poodle, me boy, now Poodle, cheer up. You’re a nice kid, Poodle, and you’ll sure get a golden harp, even if you _do_ get killt!” In fifteen minutes, they were over the barren coast near Sur, and Hike made out the wrecked yacht—a long, low line of white-painted hull, with masts and stack tilting far over on the ledge where she stuck, smashed by heavy surf that was breaking over her. A man was tied to the mast-head, waving a signal flag wildly at the _Hustle_. A little group of people clung to the upper rail of the yacht, watching, waiting, chilled and wet. Hike slowed down and let the _Hustle_ hover over the wreck, looking curiously down at the white faces that peered up at him, from amid spray. A huge comber swept over them—and one man was carried away. Shrieks and wails came up to him through the thunder of the surf, as he shut off the motor for a second.