Chapter 6

THE RUNAWAY KITE

The sunset pictures made a better showing as lithographs than even their young creator could have hoped, and the _Issaquena County Weather Review_ became a source of personal pride to every one in the neighborhood. The farmers and planters vied with each other in giving information of weather happenings and the little publication was never short of "copy."

"Dan'l," said Fred to his chief assistant, one day, "I'm going to print an article on 'Weather Superstitions.'"

"Yas, suh," said the darky, wondering what was coming.

"And you're going to write it."

"Ah write it? Sho', now, you'se jokin', Mistah Fred. Ah can't even write my own name."

"I know that. You don't need to write, Dan'l. You're going to collect every rhyme and proverb and saying about the weather you can hunt up in the neighborhood. Get Mammy Crockett to tell you all she knows. Then you must repeat it to me. I'll write it down word for word, and it'll be your article."

"If yo' wrote it down, it wouldn't be mine," objected Dan'l.

"Oh, yes, it would," the editor-in-chief assured him, "some of the greatest authors in the world dictate their books."

So Dan'l went all around the neighborhood, announcing that he was a "sho' enough autho' now," and so full of delight that there was no holding him in at all. He proved a good collector of superstitions, moreover, and when at last the article came out in the _Review_, it was so complete and so original that it was reprinted in one of the big Folk-Lore Magazines.

The visit of the journeyman printer had been of great value. Fred had been shown just how the work should be done and his pride was involved in keeping the paper up to the standard. Moreover, the Irishman had secured a large box of discarded type from a printing firm in Vicksburg, and had forwarded this to the boys. Fred returned the courtesy by mailing Mike a copy of the _Review_ regularly, and Mike occasionally sent a package of the printing trade magazines that he found lying around the shop. Fred picked up many hints from these and thus secured quite a good start in his knowledge of the printing trade.

The "official photographer" had been equally successful. One day, while up on the levee trying to take a satisfactory picture of an elusive "mackerel sky," which was changing from moment to moment, he met a stranger. This stranger was sitting on a log that projected into the river, holding a rod and line, and landing fish with an accustomed skill.

"What in blazes are you trying to photograph?" he said after a while, as he watched the lad focussing his camera earthwards on what looked like a piece of black glass, which projected from the stand.

"Clouds, sir," answered Ralph.

"When I try to photograph clouds I look at the sky, not on the ground," the stranger remarked. "What's that contrivance you've got on your camera stand, anyway?"

"It's just a broken piece of looking glass," said the boy, "but I painted it on the back with black enamel."

"What for?"

"So that I could get at the clouds easier, sir," the boy replied. "I read how to do that in a book I've got."

"I don't see why black glass should make any difference," said the fisherman, getting up from the log and coming over to where the boy was standing.

"It does, sir. If you look on the glass," said Ralph, "you'll see. The clouds are ever so much sharper."

The stranger looked in. Even the fleecy white clouds, scarcely visible in the blue sky overhead, stood out a clear white against the blackness of the mirror. The blue sky was not reflected in the glass.

"That's queer," said the stranger, "the blue hardly shows at all. I wonder why?"

"It said in the book," Ralph explained, "that the blue didn't show up so much because it was partly polarized. I couldn't quite understand what that meant. As far as I could make out, the blue color of the sky is due to waves that are scattered sideways instead of coming straight down like the white light does."

"I suppose it is polarized," said the fisherman, "but it hadn't ever occurred to me that the sky wouldn't be reflected in a black mirror. You're right, though. The clouds do stand out well! You ought to be able to get some good pictures from your mirror."

"I have got a lot, sir," said Ralph. "I've made three cloud photographs every day, rain or shine, for over two months now."

"Every day?"

"Yes, sir, before breakfast, after dinner, and just before I begin my evening chores."

"What's the idea of that?"

Finding a ready listener, Ralph plunged into the story of the Mississippi Weather League and of his crippled friend, Anton.

"It's a mighty useful piece of work," the fisherman commented, when the lad had finished, "and I'm especially interested in these cloud photographs of yours. I need some. Have you any prints of them?"

"Yes, sir," was the reply, "heaps."

"If they're really any good, I might be able to use a few," the fisherman continued. "I'm writing a series of articles for an outdoor magazine and I want some Mississippi River pictures pretty badly. Mine haven't come out particularly well."

"I'll show you all I've got," eagerly replied Ralph, and, a little later, he took the stranger home with him.

There he displayed, not only his cloud photographs, but also all the snap-shots he had made with his camera during the three years he had owned it. The magazine writer was highly delighted, for many of the pictures were exactly what he needed, and when he went away he took with him thirty photographs, for which he paid Ralph, as he said, the "regular price" of three dollars apiece.

"That's what they'd have to pay if they bought them from any of the news photo houses," he remarked, "and you might as well get the same."

To Ralph this ninety dollars was a fortune. He offered to turn the entire sum over to the League, or at least that part of it which had been paid for the cloud photographs. Ross vetoed this offer, on the ground that the League itself had not earned the money. Instead, Ralph put away some of the cash and with the rest he bought a new lens for his camera. With this lens he was able to take cloud pictures even better than his former ones.

A few weeks later, at the next Monthly Feast of the League, Ralph came proudly forward with a collection of over one hundred cloud photographs.

"I don't see, fellows," he said, "why we all couldn't have a shot at observing the clouds. I was talking to Anton the other day, and he didn't seem to know anything about the names of the clouds at all. I dug 'em up from a book I've got at home. I was thinking that it would be rather jolly if each member of the League had a set of cloud photographs for himself, with the right names of the clouds and all that sort of thing on the back. It isn't much trouble to make prints."

"I'd like to have a set, Ralph," said Ross promptly. "I hate to feel like a dub and not know about the clouds. It's like not knowing any of the stars."

"There certainly ought to be a set in the office of the _Review_," declared its editor-in-chief.

"I've been wondering," began Anton, "whether Mr. Levin wouldn't pick out the best ones and tell us exactly what they are. I had an awful job trying to get Ralph to bring his pictures to-day; he said he wanted to wait until he had perfect ones."

"You'll wait a long time, my boy," the Forecaster put in, "if you wait until you have a perfect set. I don't know of such a set anywhere in the world. Clayden, in England, has got some fine examples--"

"It's his book I've got," interrupted Ralph.

"There are a few good pictures in that," the weather expert said. "Loisel, in France, has some good examples and our own Weather Bureau has done quite a little cloud work. But those I've seen of yours, Ralph, are quite good. If you like, I'll go over them for you and pick out the ones that are the most characteristic. Your plan to give a set to each of the boys is quite worth while. Let's see the pictures, Ralph."

The "official photographer" pulled out, from a bulging inside pocket, a large bundle of photographic prints and spread them on the table. The collection included both the pictures Ralph had taken with his new lens and some of the old ones intensified in the way that his visitor had showed him. They made a striking contrast, in their vivid black and white, to the cloud pictures, printed in a pale blue, issued by the Weather Bureau.

"I think Ralph's pictures are away ahead of the Weather Bureau ones," declared Fred.

The Forecaster shook his head.

"Some of them are prettier pictures," he said, "but the Weather Bureau sheet is chosen to help observers classify the clouds. If you notice that blue sheet of cloud forms that Washington has issued, you'll notice that they are very carefully selected and that you really can tell the various types of cloud from them. At the same time, clouds are hard to classify, because, at any given time, you're looking at a stretch of sky--counting the separate layers of cloud--several hundred square miles in extent, and, generally, there are many different types of cloud in the sky at the same time."

"How many kinds of clouds does the Weather Bureau name?" asked Anton.

"Ten," was the reply. "There are lots of variations in those main groups, but that's enough to begin on. The general idea of the classification is by the heights of clouds, the Cirrus group being the highest, from about six to ten miles, the Alto group, ranging from two to six miles, and the Cumulus and Stratus groups below that. Here," he continued, picking out a photograph that showed only a few faint specks of white, "is a true Cirrus. It is the highest of the clouds, and, as you can see from the photograph, it is delicate and fibrous. This one, that looks like the ghosts of feathers, is another form.

"Cirrus clouds always appear to move slowly, because they're so high up. As a matter of fact, they fly along at the rate of from one hundred to two hundred miles an hour, and generally in an easterly direction. This photo that looks as if the clouds were a whole pile of spiders' webs, all mixed up, is the second class of clouds, known as Cirro-Stratus. Did you happen to notice, Ralph, whether there was a halo round the sun when you took this?"

"Yes, sir, there was," the boy answered, "but it hasn't showed up on the plate. I've got some halo pictures at home, but I didn't think of bringing them along. I just brought my cloud stuff this time."

"Well," said the Forecaster, "suppose you put one of those in here as an example of cirro-stratus. There couldn't be a halo without it. All the upper clouds are made of ice crystals and it is the refraction of the sunlight through these ice crystals that forms most halos. By the way, boys, don't confuse a halo with a corona. They're quite easy to tell apart, because a halo, unless it is one of the unusual white ones, always has red as the inside color and a corona always has the red on the outside."

"How can I tell them apart on a photograph plate, sir?" asked Ralph. "That doesn't show any colors."

"By their distance from the sun," the meteorologist replied. "Halos are seldom seen except at distances of about twenty-two degrees and forty-six degrees from the sun. There are lots of others, but they are rare. You'll soon learn to catch those distances by eye. Coronas are usually much smaller.

"I think one of the most striking forms of cirro-stratus is the polar 'band,' which stretches from one side of the sky to the other, like a wide white road."

"Ah knows that one, Mistah Levin," put in Dan'l. "Noah, he done stretch that road for the animals to get out of the Ark."

The Forecaster glanced at the aged darky.

"You certainly did manage to pick up a lot of queer superstitions in that article of yours, Dan'l. I've heard that cloud called a Noah's Ark cloud, but I never knew why."

"Yas, suh; oh, yas, suh," Dan'l repeated earnestly, "Noah, he done make that cloud, jest like the rainbow was made to convince Noah that there weren't goin' to be no more floods."

"A high cirro-stratus which looks as if some cream had been poured on the blue sky and hadn't mixed properly yet," the Forecaster continued, "is cirro-nebula. It's very hard to photograph, and even when you do get it on a plate, it doesn't look like much.

"Now the third one in the classification is very familiar. That's the well-known mackerel sky. What's the rhyme about that, Dan'l?"

Proud at being thus appealed to, the darky quoted triumphantly:

"Mackerel scales and mares' tails, Make lofty ships carry low sails."

"That's correct," said the weather expert, "because those clouds foretell wind. Sometimes the cloud flakes are less solid and look like the foam in the wake of a steamer.

"Beneath them come the alto clouds, which are made up of drops of moisture instead of crystals of ice. The fourth class, called alto-stratus, is a thick sheet of gray or bluish color, sometimes thin enough to let the sun shine through. When lower and in heavy roundish masses it's called alto-cumulus, which is the fifth on the list, and when it is lower still and looks like a lot of great blue-gray footballs wedged closely together it is known as strato-cumulus."

He shuffled the prints rapidly, selecting types of clouds as he did so, and pencilling on the back the character of the cloud.

"Then comes the cumulus, the big round cloud, that looks like masses of fluffy cotton wool piled on top of each other. These are the 'woolpack clouds,' which, in summer time, throw deep shadows on the grass. It is this cloud which, when it comes between you and the sun, gives rise to the old saying that 'every cloud has its silver lining.'"

"Those aren't the thunder clouds, sir, are they?" the photographer asked.

"No," the Forecaster answered. "The thunderstorm clouds are called cumulo-nimbus. They're heavy masses of cloud rising in the forms of mountains or towers. Isn't there a rhyme about clouds and towers, Dan'l?"

"Yas, suh, there's a rhyme," the old darky replied, and he quoted:

"When clouds resemble domes an' towers The earth is wet with frequent showers."

"That, boys," the weather expert said, "is another true proverb, because the description applies to thunderstorm clouds, when the rain is likely to fall in frequent showers."

"It doesn't look like a regular rainy sky, though, Mr. Levin," said Anton. "I thought rainy skies were usually heavy and gray."

"They are," the Forecaster answered, "and the Weather Bureau gives all the rain clouds the general name of Nimbus, which simply means a thick layer of dark clouds, without shape and with ragged edges, through which rain or snow falls steadily. Sometimes, when there is a powerful wind in the cloud layer, the lower edges of the clouds are broken apart, or loose clouds are seen traveling fast under the overlying gray. Sailors call this scud."

"Mr. Levin, suh," broke in Dan'l, "Ah knows a rhyme for scud, too," and he quoted:

"Scud above and scud below Shows there's goin' to be a blow."

"Well," said the Forecaster, hesitating, "that's not quite as good as some of the others, because you don't see scud until the wind has already come. As a whole, though, it's right, because it implies that the atmospheric currents are powerful, and if the rain disappears, a wind is likely to follow. I noticed you missed the rhyme about the rain before the wind, in your article, Dan'l," he continued.

"Yas, suh!" the darky answered, "Ah don't know that one."

"It runs like this," the Forecaster answered:

"When the rain comes before the wind, Be sure to take your topsails in, When the wind comes before the rain, You can put them on again."

"That's a good one, too, because high winds and steady rain seldom go together.

"The last type of clouds, which is Number Ten in the Weather Bureau Classification, is called Stratus. It really looks like a lifted fog, which sometimes it is. Indeed, there is no essential difference between clouds and fogs, anyway, except that fogs are formed at the surface and clouds above it."

"All clouds are fogs, sir?" said Anton, in a surprised voice.

"Yes, my boy. Clouds are visible water vapor. Their visibility depends largely on condensation, just as rain depends largely on the dew-point."

"What's the dew-point, sir?"

"The dew-point," the Forecaster explained, "is the temperature at which the air becomes so full of vapor that it can't hold any more without letting it down as rain or snow. It's never the same any two days in succession, because the air can hold more water vapor when it is warm than when it is cold."

"Is that why muggy days are so uncomfortable?" asked Ross.

"Yes. When the air is full of water vapor, it hasn't the same readiness to absorb it. When you perspire on a dry, hot, windy day, the air absorbs it right away, but on a day that's humid or muggy, the air can't hold any more, so it doesn't evaporate and the perspiration trickles down your back and into your eyes. A moist climate feels hotter in the summer and colder in the winter than a dry one, although, in reality, it isn't as hot or as cold. Every moist climate is a cloudy climate, and Ireland--which is called the Green or Emerald Isle because there's so much rain that none of the vegetation ever dries up--has some of the most beautiful clouds in the world."

"Is there any place in the United States without clouds?" asked Ralph.

"There's no place in the world that's absolutely cloudless," was the answer, "but clouds in some deserts are few and far between. There's one well known hotel, in the Southwest, that advertises 'free board every day that the sun doesn't shine.' It's a safe offer, too, for last year they only lost two days on it. There are some clouds there, but not such as to obscure the sun.

"In a cloudless country, boys, there are great extremes of temperature, as much as forty to fifty degrees between noon and midnight. You'll get sunstroke in the early part of the afternoon and shiver under blankets in the evening. That's because there are no protecting layers of clouds to equalize the radiation. The air, especially high up, is very cold. Don't forget that the upper clouds are all made of ice crystals."

"I've been wondering," said Anton, "how you can find out that it's so cold high up in the air if no one can live up there?"

"Balloonists have often passed through clouds of ice crystals and snow," the Forecaster answered, "though, of course, they've not been as high as the upper clouds. Many observations have been made by releasing small sounding balloons with an instrument attached, letting them go as high as they could, until they burst and fell to the ground. But much of our upper-air exploring has also been done with kites."

"Kites? Like Franklin's?"

"Not quite," said the Forecaster; "our weather kites aren't built like that. They look more like a box. I'm expecting one here, every day."

"Here?"

"Yes, boys," the Forecaster answered, "right here. There's a young chap I know who used to work with William A. Eddy, of New Jersey, the father of scientific kite-flying in this country. I wrote to young Osborne, and sent him a copy of the _Issaquena County Weather Review_, the one with the sunset articles and pictures in it."

"Osborne, sir!" ejaculated the editor-in-chief, "I got his subscription just a week ago."

"Did you?" said the Forecaster, interested. "That's nice of him! He wrote to me that he was constantly improving his kite models and that he had a couple of old ones which he now seldom flew. He sent me their records, too, so I know they must be good kites. He wanted to know if the Mississippi League of the Weather wouldn't do some kite-flying and send him records of the observations."

"Would we?" cried the enthusiastic Monroe. "I should say we would!"

"It means quite a bit of trouble," the weather expert warned them; "scientific kite-flying needs machinery."

"Why, sir?" asked Ross. "Can't we do it by hand?"

"No," was the reply, "you can't. How would you reel the kite home? It's a very different thing sending up a Japanese paper kite on a string a few hundred feet in the air, and making an ascent of a couple of miles with a weather kite. For one thing, the weather kite is flown with wire and an especially strong kind of wire at that."

"Where will we get the wire?"

"I've advanced the money for it," the Forecaster answered, "and for the shipment of the kites. I thought, perhaps, after a while, we might hold a kite contest and charge an admission fee, because, as you know, I think the League should be on a self-supporting basis. I'll render you a bill, then, and you can pay me."

"Thanks ever so much, sir," said Ross. "That's fine. We'll do it. But who's to have charge of the kite-flying?"

"That's your affair," the Forecaster answered. "I've nothing to do with the inner workings of the League."

"I've been wondering," said Anton, "if Tom oughtn't to do it. He's our wind expert."

Tom flushed with pleasure at the suggestion.

"I haven't done much on the wind stuff," he admitted; "there didn't seem anything to do but to take measurements and things."

"I seem to remember reading them weekly in the _Review_," the Forecaster remarked.

"Oh, I've done it all regularly enough, but it didn't seem to be of much use," the boy said.

"You'll find that it will be of a great deal of use in the League's kite work," the weather expert rejoined.

"I think Anton's right," put in Ross. "Hands up those who think Tom ought to do it."

Every hand shot up in the air.

Tom shuffled his feet on the ground and squirmed uneasily.

"All right," he said, "I'll try. You'll tell us what to do, Mr. Levin."

The next few weeks were busy ones for the Mississippi League of the Weather. The building of the kite reel, more than anything else, gave the boys a sense of the power of the new force that they were going to handle. The _Weather Review_ announced the expected arrival of the two kites, and the interest of the neighborhood was aroused.

Not since the days of the Civil War had anything given the farmers of the district as much to talk about as did the weekly issues of the _Issaquena County Weather Review_, and the people of the county took the keenest interest in all the doings of the League. Fred had been anxious to make the paper bigger and more important, as soon as it became flourishing, but he was held back in this by the conservative and laconic Bob. The wireless expert showed him that as long as the paper was kept small and easy to get out, it could be kept good. As a result, everything had to be condensed, and every bit of the little sheet was interesting. Twice the _Review_ was quoted in important meteorological journals and various weather periodicals were sent as exchanges to the office. It meant a lot of work for the editor-in-chief, but Fred's father, realizing that the post was an excellent training for his son, released him from all his Saturday chores.

At last the word came that the kites had actually arrived. A farm wagon was sent in to fetch the wooden cases, and that wagon, when it drove into town, had every member of the League on board, all excited and chattering like so many magpies. Rex and Lassie, the pair of four-legged members of the League, also came along to give dignity to the occasion.

Permission had been secured from Tom's father to use part of the pasture as a kite-flying station, and, bright and early the next Saturday, the League gathered at the wind-measurer's home to see the cases unpacked. Mr. Levin also came, to give advice and suggestions.

"What's the direction of the wind, Tom?" he asked.

The boy glanced up at his home-made weather-vane, which had been adjusted so that it was right to the fraction of a degree.

"South-southeast, sir," he said.

"Is it steady or veering?" the weather expert continued. He was anxious that Tom should feel the importance of his wind observations. "What was it this morning?"

"I'll see, sir," said Tom, and hurried into the house for his book on wind observations, which he had kept faithfully, though, in all the five months of the League's work, there had been no opportunity to make use of them.

"It was south--a quarter--east this morning," he answered quite importantly.

"And what is the present velocity?" came the next query.

Tom ran up the short ladder to the dial of his Robinson anemometer or wind-measurer. This consisted of four cup-shaped pieces of metal fastened to four arms at right angles to each other, and set horizontally in a socket. The force of the wind on the open cup-shaped sides was so much stronger than on the convex or rounded sides that the anemometer whirled around quite rapidly.

"Say," said one of the boys as he watched Tom, "I didn't know he had all this down so pat! It's great!"

"Fourteen miles an hour, sir," said Tom, as he ran down the ladder, "by the anemometer dial."

"Well," the Forecaster replied, "fourteen miles an hour is a good enough breeze for kite-flying. How about it, boys? Shall we try a flight to-day?"

"Oh, let's!" the boys exclaimed.

"Very well," said the Forecaster, "we'll put the kites together. Have any of you ever seen a weather kite?" he queried.

"I've seen a picture of one, sir," said Fred. "I saw it in one of the Weather Bureau booklets. It looked like a box with the ends knocked out. Are these like that?"

"Yes," the weather expert replied, "all over the world the Hargrave or box kite is used. There's a little difference in the methods of bracing the frames, but the principle of them all is the same."

"Are they the best kites for lifting, sir?" asked Anton. "I saw a picture, once, of a man being carried along the ground by a kite, but it didn't look like this. It was like a lot of little triangles all piled one on top of the other."

"That's a different kind," the Forecaster answered, "it's called a tetrahedral kite, and was invented by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. They will lift a man quite easily. Owing to the form of construction, they're much heavier and harder to handle and they won't go up as high. The box kites fly higher and more easily. They'll go up even in the lightest wind, and that's quite important, boys, because you must remember that sometimes there's quite a strong wind in the upper layers of the air when there's only a zephyr below. As you see, boys, this kite consists simply of four long sticks arranged in a square, with one third of the length at either end covered with a specially treated and tightly stretched muslin."

He was working rapidly as he talked, and, before long the kite was assembled, the wire attached and wound on the reel and all was ready for launching.

"Will that wire hold it, sir?" asked Ross, as he noted the extremely fine line that the Forecaster was using.

"Certainly, it's piano wire. It's only a thirty-second part of an inch in diameter, but it will stand a pull of nearly three hundred pounds. That's more than you could pull. More even than Monroe could pull, and he's the strongest of you."

"Couldn't I hold one of those small kites, sir?" asked Monroe.

"Yes," the Forecaster said, "you could with a well-made hand reel, and if the wind wasn't too strong. But your arms would soon give out. Of course, the pull of a kite depends on the amount of square feet of sail area. Anton," he added, turning to the crippled lad, "you're the mathematician of the League, measure that kite and tell us how many square feet of sail area it has."

Anton took a foot rule from his pocket and measured the kite rapidly.

"A trifle over thirty-six feet, sir," he said. "I can give you the fractions, if you like."

"No, that's near enough," said the Forecaster. "Thirty-six feet of sail area in a fourteen mile wind will lift nearly twenty pounds of wire and, probably, will have a pull of about sixty pounds. I don't think you'd care to stand a sixty-pound drag very long, Monroe. We'll let our new reel do the work."

"About how high could we make this kite go, sir?" asked Tom. "Does that depend on the wind?"

"No," the Forecaster answered, "it depends on the sail area of the kite and the weight of the wire. Ten square feet of sail area will lift three pounds or, a thousand feet of wire. There are over five thousand feet to a mile, and a kite usually ascends at about an angle of forty-five degrees. So, if you allow for sag and so forth, you'd have to put out eight or nine thousand feet of wire to reach a mile, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," said Tom, "I guess that's how it would go."

"It's an awful lot of line," commented Fred.

"Therefore," said the Forecaster, "if ten square feet will lift a thousand feet of wire, for eight thousand feet, you'd need eighty square feet of sail area."

"Then even the two of these together aren't big enough to go up a mile!" cried Tom.

"A mile is pretty high, my boy," said the Forecaster; "you've never seen a kite go up a quarter as far."

"What's the highest flight that ever was made?" queried Tom.

"America holds the World's Record," was the answer. "The United States Weather Bureau sent up a string of kites at Mount Weather, in Virginia, that ascended higher than four miles and a quarter, 21,385 feet above the reel, to be exact."

"How many kites did they use?" Tom asked.

"Eight," the Forecaster answered, "with a lifting surface of five hundred and forty-four square feet of sail area. There wouldn't have been much chance for you, Monroe, if you'd tried to hold that bunch in your hand. The kites would have picked you off the ground and whisked away with you like a piece of rag tied to the tail of a Japanese kite. There," he concluded as he stepped back, "I think we're ready now. Tom, how's the wind?"

The official wind-measurer ran up the ladder to his dial, calculated rapidly and answered:

"Freshening, sir. It's about seventeen miles an hour, now."

"That's all right," the weather expert declared. "Tom, you start her off."

"What do I do, sir?" asked the boy.

"Just toss the kite in the air," the Forecaster answered.

"Don't I have to run with it?"

"Not a step, except when the wind is very light. Off with you!"

Tom carried the kite about a hundred feet, the line paying out as he went, and waited the word. The boys clustered around the reel excitedly. Monroe went along with Tom. Rex also wanted to follow, but as Ross was afraid that he might jump at the kite and tear it with his teeth, though in play, he called the terrier back.

"Ross," then said the Forecaster, "you take the time of the flight, and Anton, I think you'd better watch the reel and see that the line doesn't foul."

The excitement of the boys grew intense. The box kite looked so unlike any of the kites that they had flown that some wondered whether it would go up in the air. Fred, in his capacity as editor, having seen a picture of a box-kite up in the air, was quite arrogant in his assurances that it would really fly.

"Are you ready?" the Forecaster said, watching the whirling anemometer. "Throw!"

At the word, Tom gave the kite a light toss in the air, against the direction of the wind, as indicated.

The kite swayed from side to side, but having four surfaces to the wind, did not swoop and dive like the flat kites. Only half a dozen times did it dart from side to side, then the current of the wind caught it at the right angle and it began to climb up into the air.

Tom waved his cap at it with an excited cheer, in which all the boys joined.

The first kite-flight of the League was on!

Smaller and smaller grew the kite, climbing until it was almost out of sight. The rattle of the reel, as the wire ran out, was music in the boys' ears. When the half-mile mark on the wire was passed, the Forecaster said:

"I think that's enough for a first flight, boys. Better pull her in."

Some of the boys begged that the kite might be allowed to go up a little higher, but the home-made reel was a trifle rickety and would need strengthening. Winding the reel by hand took quite a long time, but the kite came to the ground, safely, unharmed.

From that time on, kite-flying became a passion with the boys. The official measurements of the Weather Bureau kites were secured, together with diagrams showing exactly how the kites were to be built. Before a month was over, every member had a kite, and, as kite-races were to be held, every boy had to build his kite himself, absolutely without any outside help. It was nothing less than amazing to see how these kites, all built on the same pattern by different boys, behaved differently. It seemed almost as if the characters of the boys appeared in their kites. Bob's was the slowest and most powerful, Anton's the fastest but behaved poorly in a strong wind, Monroe's was absolutely useless in a zephyr.

Tom, who up to that time, had felt that his share in the work of the League was extremely small, now found himself of great importance. He thought of kites in every spare minute of the day and dreamed of kites at night. His father had to forbid the mention of the word "kite" at meal-times. The lad made fliers of every shape and pattern, and his kites were usually so stable that it was upon his model that the meteorograph was fastened which registered the pressure, humidity and temperature of the air and the velocity of the wind, according to the request of the young fellow who had sent the League the two first kites. The _Issaquena County Weather Review_ was compelled to run a regular weekly feature of "Kite Records" and few were the weeks without a flight.

At last came the fateful Saturday, the last Saturday in October, the day set for the kite races. Many of the boys had made new kites for the occasion and all had overhauled them. Secret practice flights had been made and the rivalry was keen. What was the wind going to be like? Would the day be fine? It was hinted that Tom had some special secret, but what it was no one knew, unless, perhaps, the Forecaster. The event had been quite widely advertised--had it not appeared in the _Review_!--and the neighborhood gathered as though to a country fair. The roped inclosure was full of people and the dimes which rattled into the dried gourd more than paid up the club's indebtedness for the wire and the shipment of the kites.

There were all kinds of races, races for speed, to see whose kite would reach a certain height the soonest; races for steadiness; races for altitude. Anton created great excitement by sending up one of the puppies in a basket attached to a parachute fastened to a kite which was released when he pulled a string. It was a big parachute and a small puppy, so that no one feared for the pup's safety.

Ross then came forward with his big kite. It could not be entered in the races, because all the kites for racing had been of standard size.

"What are those little balls?" one of the boys asked, pointing to bundles covered with paper and attached to a leading string, which were fastened at fifty-foot intervals to the leading wire.

"You'll see," said Ross, and up went the big kite. It flew steadily and well and when a couple of hundred yards above the ground, he made it fast to one of the stakes. Then, while every one watched, he gave the leading string a sharp tug, and then a succession of pulls, breaking loose each of the little bundles attached to the leading wire. And, as the people looked, first one and then another American flag burst out of its covering, the lowermost and largest bundle being a big Stars and Stripes that floated out gallantly above the kite-ground.

"Now," said Ross, turning to the Kite-Master, as the boys had begun to call Tom, "out with your secret! What is it?"

Tom turned to the Forecaster.

"Is it all right for to-day?" he asked.

The weather expert looked keenly at the sky, glanced at the weather-vane and the whirling anemometer, and nodded his head.

"I think so," he said. "The weather's a little gusty, but this is the time to try. Nothing venture, nothing have!"

At the word, Tom ran off into the house. The boys watched him, wondering what new contrivance the Kite-Master was going to produce.

He reappeared in a moment, carrying with him a new kite, a little larger than the others, but of the same usual pattern. This was not particularly exciting. He laid the kite down on the ground and ran into the house again. In a moment, he was out again with another.

"Going to fly them tandem?" asked Ross.

Tom did not answer. He laid that one on the ground and returned into the house again.

"Do you suppose he's got three?" Anton asked. This was amazing riches, three kites. All the boys knew what a tremendous amount of careful and exacting work went into the making of even one of them.

Out darted Tom and laid a third and then a fourth kite on the ground. The four great kites, each of them with the forward part white and the rear section painted black, made a noble showing in the afternoon sun. Ralph, with his ever-ready camera, stepped forward.

"Wait a minute," said Tom, "I've got another one," and he darted into the house to get it. He returned a moment later with a fifth kite, similar in every detail to the other four and then, readily enough, posed beside the kites for his picture. Overhead flew the Stars and Stripes.

"I want that for the _Review_," said Fred.

"What are you going to do, Tom?" asked Ross.

Tom hesitated a moment and then announced:

"I'm going to try for a world's record!"

The audacity of this startled the boys for a moment, and then a shout went up, while word was passed around the crowd that Issaquena County was going to try for the kite record of the world.

The first kite, which no one but Tom and the Forecaster had yet seen in flight, took the air and was off. Tom gave it four hundred feet of line and then fastened his second kite, which he let run up until eight hundred feet more of the line was out. The wind was now stronger, registering twenty-two miles an hour. The three lower kites were run in tandem, about two hundred feet of line apart. When the last of the five kites was still on the ground, the topmost one was out of sight, and the kites were carrying only a fraction of the weight of wire that their lifting surface could bear.

"I'm afraid of it, sir," said Tom, his finger on the wire that was running from the reel, "it doesn't feel right."

"Probably your lower kite is in gusts," the Forecaster answered. "Let her go up, there may be calmer wind higher. Fasten on your three small ones, now, Tom; you might as well have all the sail area that you can."

The eighth kite was started on its journey upwards. Only those with the strongest eyes now could see the second group of three, the first pair was far out of sight.

With Anton carefully measuring the angle of altitude and giving Tom the figures in a low voice, Tom, watching the registering apparatus on the reel, suddenly announced:

"Two miles up!"

The reel rattled merrily as the line was paid out, the brake keeping it at exactly a uniform pressure under Tom's skillful guiding.

"Two miles and a half!"

The crowd began to press around the reel. Nothing was visible in the air, now, nothing but a thin piece of wire leading up into the sky. Had no one known that the kites were there, high above the clouds, it would have seemed like black magic. Some of the superstitious negroes began to mutter among themselves.

"Three miles!"

The boys yelled in delight.

"Up with her, Tom!" cried Fred.

"It's the amateur world's record!" announced the Forecaster.

The words were scarcely out of his lips when there came a sudden sharp crack. The kite-wire snapped close by the reel and as it curled on itself the coils appeared to run up into the sky.

"Gone! My kites are gone!" cried Tom, and a perfect howl of disappointment went up from all the boys.

"Gone!" cried the Forecaster, "of course they're gone, but we're going after them!"

Throwing himself on the back of an old mule which a darky had ridden to the kite ground, he started full tilt after the disappearing wire, the whole membership of the League streaming at his heels.