the finest thing we have seen here, and he wants to give her a spin
with a passenger up. Hop in if you like."

The pilot smiled and shook Bob's hand, then added another invitation.
It was hardly necessary. Bob was overjoyed. Often the boys had
discussed going up, but a fair frequency of minor accidents made the
officers at the camp chary about any unnecessary risks. Consequently,
the Brighton boys had decided that their best plan was to say nothing
about flying as passengers until someone suggested it to them. That
one of them might be of any possible use as a passenger had never
entered their heads.

A few moments after, the new chaser was soaring upward with a roar
of engine exhaust that told of pride of power. Bob was in the snug
front seat undergoing an experience whose like he had never dreamed
of. His youthful imagination had often tried to picture what it
would be like to be up in a swift flying-machine, but the sense
of power and the exhilaration of swinging triumphantly through space
gave him a new sensation.

"This," he thought, "is the greatest game of all. This is what one
day I will be doing to some purpose."

His mind went out to that day when he would be guiding his own machine
on a hostile errand, over the enemy's country, perhaps. The fine,
high enthusiasm of youth rushed through him and his pulses beat faster
as he pictured himself, a knight of the air, starting forth on a
quest that might mean great danger, but would, with sufficient
foresight, care and determination, result in disaster for the
antagonist rather than for himself.