The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of LifeLewis, Sinclair
General
The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
Lewis, Sinclair
City and town life -- Fiction; Minnesota -- Fiction
He made out a mass of rock covered with autumn-hued trees to the left,
then a like rock to the right. "West and East Rock--New Haven!" he
cried.
The city mapped itself before him like square building-blocks on a
dark carpet, with railroad and trolley tracks like flashing
spider-webs under the October noon.
So he had arrived, then--and he had not caught Tad Warren. He was
furious.
He circled the city, looking for the Green, where (in this day before
the Aero Club of America battled against over-city flying) he was to
land. He saw the Yale campus, lazy beneath its elms, its towers and
turrets dreaming of Oxford. His anger left him.
He plunged down toward the Green--and his heart nearly stopped. The
spectators were scattered everywhere. How could he land without
crushing some one? With trees to each side and a church in front, he
was too far down to rise again. His back pressed against the back of
the little seat, and seemed automatically to be trying to restrain him
from this tragic landing.
The people were fleeing. In front there was a tiny space. But there
was no room to sail horizontally and come down lightly. He shut off
his motor and turned the monoplane's nose directly at the earth. She
struck hard, bounced a second. Her tail rose, and she started, with
dreadful deliberateness, to turn turtle. With a vault Carl was out of
the cockpit and clear of the machine as she turned over.
Oblivious of the clamorous crowd which was pressing in about him,
cutting off the light, replacing the clean smell of gasoline and the
upper air by the hot odor of many bodies, he examined the monoplane
and found that she had merely fractured the propeller and smashed the
rudder.
Some one was fighting through the crowd to his side--Tony Bean--Tony
the round, polite Mexican from the Bagby School. He was crying:
"_Hombre_, what a landing! You have saved lives.... Get out of the
way, all you people!"
Carl grinned and said: "Good to see you, Tony. What time did Tad
Warren get here? Where's----"
"He ees not here yet."
"What? Huh? How's that? Do I win? That----Say, gosh! I hope he hasn't
been hurt."
"Yes, you win."
A newspaper-man standing beside Tony said: "Warren had to come down at
Great Neck. He sprained his shoulder, but that's all."
"That's good."
"But you," insisted Tony, "aren't you badly jarred, Hawk?"
"Not a bit."
The gaping crowd, hanging its large collective ear toward the two
aviators, was shouting: "Hoorray! He's all right!"--As their voices
rose Carl became aware that all over the city hundreds of
factory-whistles and bells were howling their welcome to him--the
victor.
The police were clearing a way for him. As a police captain touched a
gold-flashing cap to him, Carl remembered how afraid of the police
that hobo Slim Ericson had been.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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