The farmer got a ten-gallon milk can and filled it with water, and Nick and Wilson carried it to the ship. The problem of getting the Vought safely across that forbidding ninety-five miles was causing the Patrol pilot a great deal of concern; he disregarded the difficulty of the take-off for the moment. Suddenly he exclaimed: “It’ll work! We’ll make it!” “What?” “Never mind--I can show you quicker than I can tell you.” * * * * * The Vought that Nick was flying--like all the other planes in the Patrol service--was equipped with a “center-section” auxiliary gasoline tank, placed in the center of the upper wing. The capacity of this tank was twenty-five gallons. With a small wrench and a pair of pliers from his tool kit, Nick quickly detached the gravity feed-line from the “three-way” valve that led to the carburetor, taking care to turn the cut-off valve at the base of the center-section tank to the “off” position. This feed-line was about three feet in length, and when Nick bent it forward toward the top of the radiator he saw that it lacked about ten inches of being long enough to reach. “Run back to the house and tell that farmer he can have twenty-five gallons of good gasoline if he’ll get cans down here to hold it,” Nick called to Wilson. “Tell him to get those kids of his down here--I’ll put ’em to work building that ramp. See if you can’t pick up a piece of rubber hose about a foot long while you’re there--and step on it; it’s six o’clock now!” Wilson returned within five minutes. Nick saw the farmer, a few yards behind him, carrying a tub. “No hose around here!” the Doctor complained. “Have you got to have it? Can’t we fix it up some way--it’s getting late!” “We’ll fix it some way.” Nick climbed down from his perch above the motor. He cut off about two feet of the radiator overflow tube, and fitted one end of it into the lower end of the gasoline feed-pipe. Then, with his handkerchief he bound the joint tightly, and, bending the line to one side of the fuselage, drained the gasoline out of the upper tank into the tub. While the fuel was draining out, Nick put Wilson and the farmer and the two boys to work building a ramp at the south end of the field. He would have to take off the short way of the field, by having it there, but he would be going into the wind--a primary essential in getting an airplane into the air. At six-thirty Nick had carried enough water to fill the radiator and the gravity tank in the center-section. He had stuck the end of the feed-line into the filler neck of the radiator, and plugged the neck with a wadded-up piece of his shirt. The feed-line was in place--wired there--so that when Nick turned the valve at the base of the gravity tank water would run down into the radiator; he had defeated those ninety-five miles of bad land.