“Fully that,” Tom admitted, rather ruefully. “I did hope we might make it in sixteen hours and a few minutes, as I said we could do. But that storm actually cut two hours, if not more, off our schedule. However, it can’t be helped.” So rapidly was the _Osprey_ making time now that it seemed as if the Golden Gate were rushing forward and opening wide to receive the wonderful craft and her occupants. It is the sun, setting in a glory of gold outside the harbor of San Francisco that gives the poetical name to the city, as much so, perhaps, as the yellow nuggets it produced in the days that never will return. There came a signal from the car. It was Ted Dolan calling up to Tom: “Do you want to be relieved?” “Thank you, no,” the young inventor answered. “I’ll stick now and make the landing.” “I thought you might want to do so,” Ted said. “But if the storm played you out, Art and I will take her for a little while and you and Mr. Newton can come up again just before making the landing.” “No, I’ll stick,” announced Tom. “How about you?” he asked his chum. “I’m game, of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. They ought to reward you publicly in some way, Tom!” “Reward! What for?” “For establishing this airline express—crossing the United States in the daylight hours of a single day.” “Reward nothing! If I can do it, the only reward I want is for Jason Jacks and others who can afford it to invest money in the project and get it firmly established.” “Oh, they’ll do that all right, Tom. Is that the landing field below us?” Ned pointed to a green level stretch outside the city of San Francisco. They had approached it rapidly, for the _Osprey_, as if determining to live up to her name, was fairly zooming toward the Pacific. “That’s it,” was the answer. “There’s quite a crowd there, too! Hope I don’t muss anybody’s hair as I go down. Confound the people! Why don’t they know enough to keep out of the way when they see an aeroplane coming down right among ’em?” Well might Tom ask this, for the crowd, which had assembled in anticipation of seeing the landing, was swarming all over the field in spite of the efforts of the police to keep a free place for the machine to come down. “I’ll give ’em a bit of a scare,” decided Tom. Quickly shifting the rudder of his plane, it appeared for a moment as if he was going to crash down where the crowd was thickest. With yells of alarm the people scattered, and this left a clear space, which was what Tom wanted. “Now for a landing, Ned!” he called to his chum. “Mark the time!” “Mark it is!” answered Ned, who sat with his watch in one hand and a pencil in the other, ready to make the record on the official slip of paper he held on his knee. “It’s over eighteen hours, though, Tom,” he said regretfully. “I’m afraid it is, Ned. But it can’t be helped. Better luck next time!” “Hope so,” was the response.