had ever seen, immediately darted upward, after the manner of
pigeons that strive always to rise above a hawk.

In great curves the monoplane followed upward, higher and
higher into the blue. It was difficult, from underneath to see

the pigeon. and young Winn dared not lose it from his sight. He
even shook out his reefs in order to rise more quickly. Up, up

they went, until the pigeon, true to its instinct, dropped and
struck at what it to be the back of its pursuing enemy. Once

was enough, for, evidentlyfinding no life in the smooth cloth
surface of the machine, it ceased soaring and straightened out

on its eastward course.
A carrierpigeon on a passage can achieve a high rate of speed,

and Winn reefed again. And again, to his satisfaction, be found
that he was beating the pigeon. But this time he quickly shook

out a portion of his reefed sustaining surface and slowed down
in time. From then on he knew he had the chase safely in hand,

and from then on a chant rose to his lips which he continued to
sing at intervals, and unconsciously, for the rest of the

passage. It was: "Going some; going some; what did I tell
you!--going some."

Even so, it was not all plain sailing. The air is an unstable
medium at best, and quite without warning, at an acute angle,

he entered an aerial tide which he recognized as the gulf
stream of wind that poured through the drafty-mouthed Golden

Gate. His right wing caught it first--a sudden, sharp puff that
lifted and tilted the monoplane and threatened to capsize it.

But he rode with a sensitive "loose curb," and quickly, but not
too quickly, he shifted the angles of his wing-tips, depressed

the front horizontalrudder, and swung over the rear vertical
rudder to meet the tilting thrust of the wind. As the machine

came back to an even keel, and he knew that he was now wholly
in the invisiblestream, he readjusted the wing-tips, rapidly

away from him during the several moments of his discomfiture.
The pigeon drove straight on for the Alameda County shore, and

it was near this shore that Winn had another experience. He
fell into an air-hole. He had fallen into air-holes before, in

previous flights, but this was a far larger one than he had
ever encountered. With his eyes strained on the ribbon attached

to the pigeon, by that fluttering bit of color he marked his
fall. Down he went, at the pit of his stomach that old sink

sensation which he had known as a boy he first negotiated
quick-starting elevators. But Winn, among other secrets of

aviation, had learned that to go up it was sometimes necessary
first to go down. The air had refused to hold him. Instead of

struggling futilely and perilously against this lack of
sustension, he yielded to it. With steady head and hand, he

depressed the forward horizontalrudder--just recklessly enough
and not a fraction more--and the monoplane dived head foremost

and sharply down the void. It was falling with the keenness of
a knife-blade. Every instant the speed accelerated frightfully.

Thus he accumulated the momentum that would save him. But few
instants were required, when, abruptly" target="_blank" title="ad.突然地；粗鲁地">abruptly shifting the double

horizontalrudders forward and astern, he shot upward on the
tense and straining plane and out of the pit.

At an altitude of five hundred feet, the pigeon drove on over
the town of Berkeley and lifted its flight to the Contra Costa

hills. Young Winn noted the campus and buildings of the
University of California--his university--as he rose after the

pigeon.
Once more, on these Contra Costa hills, he early came to grief.

The pigeon was now flying low, and where a grove of eucalyptus
presented a solid front to the wind, the bird was suddenly sent

fluttering wildly upward for a distance of a hundred feet. Winn
knew what it meant. It had been caught in an air-surf that beat

upward hundreds of feet where the fresh west wind smote the
upstanding wall of the grove. He reefed hastily to the

uttermost, and at the same time depressed the angle of his
flight to meet that upward surge. Nevertheless, the monoplane

was tossed fully three hundred feet before the danger was left
astern.

Two or more ranges of hills the pigeon crossed, and then Winn
saw it dropping down to a landing where a small cabin stood in

a hillsideclearing. He blessed that clearing. Not only was it
good for alighting, but, on account of the steepness of the

slope, it was just the thing for rising again into the air.
A man, reading a newspaper, had just started up at the sight of

the returning pigeon, when be heard the burr of Winn's engine
and saw the huge monoplane, with all surfaces set, drop down

upon him, stop suddenly on an air-cushion manufactured on the
spur of the moment by a shift of the horizontalrudders, glide

a few yards, strike ground, and come to rest not a score of
feet away from him. But when he saw a young man, calmly sitting

in the machine and leveling a pistol at him, the man turned to
run. Before he could make the comer of the cabin, a bullet

through the leg brought him down in a sprawling fall.
"What do you want!" he demanded sullenly, as the other stood

over him.
"I want to take you for a ride in my new machine," Winn

answered. "Believe me, she is a loo-loo."
The man did not argue long, for this strange visitor had most

convincing ways. Under Winn's instructions, covered all the
time by the pistol, the man improvised a tourniquet and applied

it to his wounded leg. Winn helped him to a seat in the
machine, then went to the pigeon-loft and took possession of

the bird with the ribbon still fast to its leg.
A very tractable prisoner, the man proved. Once up in the air,

he sat close, in an ecstasy of fear. An adept at winged
blackmail, he had no aptitude for wings himself, and when he

gazed down at the flying land and water far beneath him, he did
not feel moved to attack his captor, now defenseless, both

hands occupied with flight.
Instead, the only way the man felt moved was to sit closer.

. . . . . .
Peter Winn, Senior, scanning the heavens with powerful glasses,

saw the monoplane leap into view and grow large over the rugged
backbone of Angel Island. Several minutes later he cried out to

the waiting detectives that the machine carried a passenger.
Dropping swiftly and piling up an abrupt air-cushion, the

monoplane landed.
"That reefing device is a winner!" young Winn cried, as he

climbed out. "Did you see me at the start? I almost ran over
the pigeon. Going some, dad! Going some! What did I tell you?

Going some!"
"But who is that with you?" his father demanded.

The young man looked back at his prisoner and remembered.
"Why, that's the pigeon-fancier," he said. "I guess the

officers can take care of him."
Peter Winn gripped his son's hand in grim silence, and fondled

the pigeon which his son had passed to him. Again he fondled
the pretty creature. Then he spoke.

"Exhibit A, for the People," he said.
BUNCHES OF KNUCKLES

ARRANGEMENTS quite extensive had been made for the celebration
of Christmas on the yacht Samoset. Not having been in any

civilized port for months, the stock of provisions boasted few
delicacies; yet Minnie Duncan had managed to devise real feasts

for cabin and forecastle.
"Listen, Boyd, she told her husband. "Here are the menus. For