"Dat's right, Massa Tom. Ha! Ha! I suah am stuck up in de air! Ha!
Ha!"

By this time Tom had guided the machine away from the village, and
they were flying over the fields, some distance from his house. The
colored man was beginning to enjoy his experience very much.

Suddenly, just as Tom was trying to get a bit more speed out of the
motor, the machine stopped. The cessation of the racket was almost
as startling as a loud explosion would have been.

"Just my luck!" cried Tom.

"What's de matter?" asked Eradicate, anxiously.

"Motor's stalled," replied the young inventor.

"An', by golly, we's falling!" yelled the colored man.

Naturally, with the stopping of the propeller, there was no further
straight, forward motion to the monoplane, and, following the law of
nature, it began to drop toward the earth on a slant.

"We's fallin'! We'll be killed!" yelled the negro.

"It's all right, I'll just vol-plane back to earth," spoke Tom,
calmly. "I've often done it before, higher up than this. Sit still,
Rad, I'm volplaning back to the ground."