Two or three of the newspapermen did return the next day. The engine still sulked, but the wind was a bit more favorable and the Wrights decided to show the reporters what they could. This time the machine rose five or six feet from the ground and went through the air for nearly sixty feet before it came down. An electric contact point in one of the engine cylinders had worked loose, and only three cylinders were hitting. The few reporters present, though now convinced that the age of flying had not yet come, wrote friendly articles and made the most of what they had seen. The versions differed widely. One report had the machine rising to a height of seventy-five feet. In the Cincinnati _Enquirer_ account was a comment that the machine “is more substantially constructed _than other machines of its kind_.” None of those newspapermen ever returned. During all their experiments that year and the next, the Wrights had about all the privacy they needed. They used to smile over a comment by Octave Chanute: “It is a marvel to me that the newspapers haven’t spotted you.” Having disposed of the reporters, the inventors resumed their work. Almost as soon as the new trials began, the brothers encountered a new difficulty. A track 60 feet long had been adequate for launching the machine in the wind at Kitty Hawk; but a track of 160 feet, or even one of 240 feet, was not long enough for use at Huffman field where the winds were usually light. The Huffman field was covered with hummocks from six inches to a foot high. Only a few spots free from hummocks were suitable for a 240-foot track. And landing wheels, such as were used later, would have been impractical on that uneven ground. Laying 240 feet of track, after finding enough ground space free from hummocks, was a considerable job. But frequently, after the track was laid, the wind would change its direction, and then all the work had to be done over. After a few times, the brothers gave up trying to use so long a track, and ordinarily used one of only 160 feet.