Right now David was gazing lovingly through the open doors of the hangar at the vast silver shape rapidly approaching perfection and completion under the hands of its pygmy workmen. The vastness of the place, and the ship’s tremendous bulk seemed to deaden the noise of hammers and bolts. She seemed to float there in the hangar. To David she seemed already restless to be away. He imagined a ripple of light down her silver side; a stir, as though she could no longer wait, but would break away and slip through the great door to be off alone into the infinite troubled tides of the sky. Red followed David’s entranced look. “Ain’t she the cat’s whiskers, just?” he enquired lovingly. “Say, if she makes good on her trial flight, I’m just goin’ to lay right down there, front of everybody, and cry, or pray, or swear, I dunno which.” “A little of each, perhaps,” said David, snapping out of his dream. “I’ll be right with you, bully boy.” “You know, David, they have told you off to do a lot of important work on that ship. I don’t believe you appreciate the fact. All the fellows are talking about it.” “Applesauce!” David retorted, laughing. “Everyone in the senior class has had his share.” Red hitched closer to David’s side. “The other day,” he half whispered, “I was flat on me back under a tarpaulin in the far corner of the baggage room up in the hull, installing some wiring that’s to lead down from the observer’s seat on the top of the ship. The other fella had to go clear over to the storehouse for some wire. So I laid there tryin’ to think out a simpler and safer installation. I don’t like it the way it is, Dave. Too much danger during storms. Well, whilst I’m there, along comes Colonel Porter and himself.” “Who is himself?” asked David. “That big bug; the papa of us all.” “You don’t mean Mr. Hammond?” said David. “You got it. That’s the bird!” “But what the devil is he doing here now? I thought he was in New York.” “I’m the boy to tell you,” said Red, joyfully. “My brother, the chaplain, used to tell me, ‘Red, never eavesdrop; ’tis a mean and unmanly trick, unworthy of a good Christian b’y; but so be you do chance to hear anything, give it strict attention, and be sure to get the straight of it.’ So I did. They come teeterin’ along the catwalk, and stop opposite me. You know the Big Fella’s quick and light steppin’ as a cat, for all his size. Ladders and catwalks are pie for him. “‘What’s bein’ done here?’ says the Big Fella. “‘Some wirin’,’ I heard Colonel Porter answer. Then there was some little talk or other that I don’t just remember.” Red wouldn’t tell what they had said at that point, but it glowed warmly in his honest heart; payment in full for many hours of grilling toil. Colonel Porter had explained the wiring, and had added,— “We have the cleverest young mechanic in the school that I have ever come across. I believe he could make every part and assemble any known engine, after an hour’s study. Name’s Ryan.”