“Tell her I’ll talk to her after we hop off on the other leg,” directed Tom, and then his attention had to be given to making a safe landing—no easy feat when it is remembered that he had no ordinary aeroplane to bring down, but a heavy car attached to it and passengers to look after. But he was successful, letting the _Falcon_ gently down to the ground with scarcely a perceptible jolt, and then rolling gently along the even field toward the place where the other plane was in readiness, with motors slowly turning over. “Lively now!” cried Tom to the men who gathered about him—trained workers from his own shops who had been sent on ahead to make the changes. “Every second counts, boys!” A curious crowd surged forward to see the daring men who had set out to do their best to annihilate time and space. The throng would have overwhelmed the plane and its occupants, thus preventing the quick shift of the car, but for the fact that mounted police, whose aid Tom had enlisted, kept the curious ones back a certain distance. As it was, however, there was another small army of movie cameramen, newspaper photographers, and reporters on the scene, anxious to get the news. “Will you please stick your head out of the window, Mr. Swift! Thanks. There! I got you!” Thus spoke one of the newspaper cameramen. Meanwhile others were clicking their shutters while the movie men were industriously grinding the cranks of their machines. “What were your sensations? Did anything happen on the trip? Do you think you’ll make the next leg on schedule?” These were only samples of the scores of questions that were fired at Tom by the newspaper reporters as he sat in the car while it was being unclamped from the first plane ready to run, under its own power, to the other plane a short distance away. Tom answered as best he could, while Meldrum piloted the car carefully through the mass of men eager for information. They were the only ones allowed to approach closely, for Tom well knew the value of newspaper and movie news-reel publicity. He wanted his venture to be well known, since he needed much capital to put it on a paying basis, and the more people who knew about it the better chance he would stand of getting capital into the venture. So Tom, and Ned occasionally, answered all the questions, gave a brief summary of the first thousand miles of travel and told something of their expectations. “All ready?” called Tom anxiously, as he looked at his watch. The change was taking a little more time than he had counted on. “All ready, sir!” came the answer. “Let go!” Tom called to his new mechanician Sam Stone, who, with his helper, Jim Waldo, was to do most of the driving on the second lap of the journey. Of course Tom would take the wheel now and then to relieve the pilot, who was, necessarily, under a great strain.