"
"I'm just fixing up my third machine," said Norton. "If anything
happens to it, I shall lose the prize, at least as far as this
meet is concerned, for I don't believe I shall get my fourth and
newest model from the makers in time. Anyhow, if I did I couldn't
pay for it--I am ruined, if I don't win that
twenty-five-thousand-dollar Brooks Prize. And, besides, a couple
of army men are coming to inspect my aeroplane and report to the
War Department on it. I'd have stood a good chance of selling it,
I think, if my flights here had been like the trials you saw.
But, Kennedy," he added, and his face was drawn and tragic, "I'd
drop the whole thing if I didn't know I was right. Two men
dead--think of it. Why, even the newspapers are beginning to call
me a cold, heartless, scientific crank, to keep on. But I'll show
them--this afternoon I'm going to fly myself. I'm not afraid to
go anywhere I send my men. I'll die before I'll admit I'm
beaten."
It was easy to see why Kennedy was fascinated by a man of
Norton's type. Anyone would have been. It was not foolhardiness.
It was dogged determination, faith in himself and in his own
ability to triumph over every obstacle.
We now slowly entered the shed where two men were working over
Norton's biplane. One of the men was a Frenchman, Jaurette, who
had worked with Farman, a silent, dark-browed, weatherbeaten
fellow with a sort of sullen politeness.
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