All day Sunday the Wrights just sat at the camp and read, hoping for suitable weather the next day. They were now particularly eager to avoid delay because of their boyish craving to be at home by Christmas. If there should be a spell of bad wintry weather they might have to stay at Kitty Hawk for another two or three weeks. Monday, December 14, dawned beautifully clear, but cold, and there was not enough wind to permit a start from level ground near the camp. The Wrights therefore decided to attempt a flight from the side of Kill Devil Hill. With a relatively light wind it should be all the easier to handle the machine. The pilot, whichever one of them it should be, ought to be able not only to fly successfully but to go on down far beyond the Kitty Hawk life-saving station, nearly five miles away, before landing. Contrary to reports of secretiveness, the Wrights, naturally desiring witnesses, had extended a general invitation to people living within five or six miles to come and see their first attempt at flight. But it was impossible for them to send word or give a signal as to the exact time the attempt would be made. They had arranged, however, to put a signal on one of the sheds that could be seen from the Kill Devil Life-Saving Station only a little more than a mile away. Members of the life-saving crew were on the lookout for the signal. Soon after the signal was hung against the wall of the shed, the Wrights were joined by John T. Daniels, Robert Westcott, Thomas Beacham, W. S. Dough, and “Uncle Benny” O’Neal. All helped to get the machine to the place selected, a quarter of a mile away, on the hillside. It would not have been easy to drag the 750-pound machine that distance and the Wrights used a characteristic bit of ingenuity. They set the machine on the monorail track they were going to use for the take-off, slid it along to the end of the sixty-foot wooden rail, then took up a rear section of the track and added it to the front end. By thus re-laying the track over and over, they were able to have the machine run on wheels all the way. The sled-like skids that were the landing gear of the machine rested on a truck--a plank about six feet long, laid across a much smaller piece of wood to which were attached two small wheels, one in front of the other. Each was kept on the track by two vertical guides. These little wheels had ball-bearings. They were modified hubs from wheels of a bicycle. The rail itself was two by four inches, set on edge, with the upper surface covered by a thin strip of metal. As soon as they reached the hill, the Wrights prepared for the test. Each was eager for the chance to make the first trial, and they tossed a coin to determine which of them it should be. Wilbur won the toss.