Snarling like an unwilling beast, the ship surged ahead and, at the pressure of King’s hand on the control stick, leaped into the air. The motor was hot and the field--part of the broad Hempstead plain that makes Long Island popular among airmen--was flat and free from obstacles. King did not bother to go after altitude; with thirty-six inches of air between his landing wheels and the ground, he started work. He had a reputation to sustain and a pay check to earn. Giving her all the gas she would take, he set her on end. One wing cut toward earth. The ship spun around in a tight circle with the wing tip always threatening to graze the turf and yet never touching. The slightest contact would have set the ship cartwheeling, a splintering, disintegrating wreck, across the field, but King held every inch of his scant altitude. Then, fishtailing wildly, he headed for the fence. He zoomed over it, cut back and dived at it, cleared it, seemingly by a miracle, and let his wheels swish through the grasstops. Then he zoomed again and this time went after altitude. His face, as he handled his ship, held quick, ever changing expressions. He frowned, grinned, looked sad, alert, scared and triumphant. King Horn was living fast as he sent his ship flickering about in the danger zone just above the earth and in a single minute his countenance reflected in its mobility more emotion than he expended during an hour at any other time. As he climbed away from the ground that had so closely menaced his wings and wheels, his face smoothed out, becoming less the face of a hard-pressed, nervy fencer and more the face of a pilot. He relaxed, sat back in his seat and loosened slightly his grip upon the stick. His eyes swept the horizon automatically, then dropped to the fields round about the one he had risen from. He did not bother to look at the crowd he was thrilling. Thousands of men and women, millions of kids--the crowd was always the same. Tennant’s circus was by no means the only outfit operating on that warm June Saturday afternoon. There were ships in front of a score of hangars near and far, and more ships in the air. His eyes roved among them. Abruptly, with a jerk of his head, he dismissed other ships and devoted himself to his own. It was time to thrill the spectators again. He flung the plane into a quick medley of contortion--loops, rolls, Immelmans, a whipstall, spirals and dives. And steadily throughout the maze of air splashes he let the ship drift earthward, so that what had been mere routine stunting at a reasonable altitude began again a grim, breath-taking challenge to gravity and death. Again a wingtip flicked over the grass; again the wheels seemed about to plow into the hard surface of the field.