“THE LAST AMERICAN” 311 
too, though he was flying at the thousand foot 
level. Its wings did not dip and rise, but were 
rigid—yet it moved, it came rushing on, a mys- 
terious blurry circle at the centre where a head 
ought to be. As it tore by above him, with its 
incredible speed and more incredible, jarring 
whirr, he banked to follow it with his eyes, be- 
holding a man creature sitting therein! Then it, 
too, banked as if to turn, and Baldy worked his 
wings with all his power, fleeing down the fields 
of air to escape. 
But the plane had only sheered off to the west, 
and soon the jarring bumble grew fainter and 
died away. ‘Then Baldy saw the shining floor of 
the sea, blue and far away—a great pend lying 
to the rim of the world. It drew him down the 
air lanes with steady beat of wings, and in a patch 
of woods by the great pond margin he came to 
rest, and thought of fish. 
The fishing by the sea was good—better than 
he had even known before. He wandered down 
the coast till he reached a land of salt water ponds 
making in behind the yellow sand bars, and be- 
hind them a region of thick swamps, with fresh 
