The wrecked aircraft was hauled to one of the barrack sheds, which
Mr. Vardon announced would be his temporary workshop for possible
repairs.

The rest of that day, and all of the next, was spent by Mr. Vardon
in taking his wrecked machine apart, saving that which could be used
again, and looking particularly for defects in the gyroscope
stabilizer, or equilibrizer. Larry and Jack Butt helped at this
work, and Dick, and the other cadets, spent as much time as they
could from their lessons and drills watching the operations.

For the students were much interested in aviation, and, now that it
was known that the army aviators were to come to Kentfield, and that
Dick Hamilton, one of the best liked of the cadets, was to have a
big airship of his own, many who had said they would never make a
flight, were changing their minds.

It was one afternoon, about a week following the wrecking of Mr.
Vardon's machine, that, as the cadets in their natty uniforms were
going through the last drill of the day, a peculiar sound was heard
in the air over the parade ground.

There was a humming and popping, a throbbing moan, as it were, and
despite the fact that the orders were "eyes front!" most of the
cadets looked up.

And they saw, soaring downward toward the campus which made an ideal
landing spot, two big aircraft.