, 1911-02-02
p I.
The Man With wInss.

For many hours-Cayley was too
much of a god today to bother with
the exact number Of them-he had
been flying slowly northward down a
mild southerly breeze. Hundreds Of
feet below him was the dazzling. ter
r,ble expanse Of the polar ice pack
which shrouds the northern limits Of
the Arctic ocean in its impenetrable
veil of mystery.
A compass, q sextant, q bottle of
milk and a revolver comprised with
the clothes he wore. and with the
shimmering silken wings Of his areo-
plane, his whole equipment. His near.
est base Of supplies. II you could call
IT that, was a 2O-pound tin OF pemmi.
car. hidden under a stone IN the
north east extremity Of Herald island,
800 miles away. The United States
rescue station at Point Barrow, the
extreme northerly point of Alaska.
the place which he had called home
for the past three months, was pos
sibly, half as far again away, some
where off to the southeast.
But for these past weeks Of un-
broken arctic sunshine, he had fairly
lived awning. The earth had no OBJ
structions and t air no perils. To
day. with his great broad ~fan.tail
drawn up arc-wise beneath him, his
planes pitched slightly forward at the
precise and perilous angle hat only
Just did not send him %plungiDg. head
FIRST, down upon the sullen masses of
Ice below. he lay there. prone, upon
the sheep-skin sleeping bag which
padded the framework supporting his
two wings. as secure as the great full
mar petrol which drew c~uriously near,
and then. with a wheel and a plunge.
led away, sQuawking.
For all practical purposes Cayley
had learned to fly. The great fan
driven air ship, 100 feet from tip to
tip. which had long lain Idle on his
ranch at Ssndoval. would probably
never leave its house again. 1t had
done yeoman service. Without its
powerful propellers. for the last re-
source. Cayley would never have been
able to try the experiments n get
the practise which had given him the
air for his natural element. He had
outgrown It. He had no more need
Of motors or whirling fans. The force
OF gravity. the force of the breeze and
the perfectly co-ordinated muscles Of
his own body gave him all the power
he needed now.
Perhaps the succeeding generations
Of humankind may develop an eye
which can see ahead when the body
is lying prone. as a bird lies in its
flight. Cayley had remedied this de-
nciency with q little silver mirror.
slightly concave. screwed fast to the
crossbrace which supported his shout
ders. Instead of bending back his
head. or trying to see out through his
eyebrows. he simply cast a backward
glance into this mirror whenever he
wanted to look on ahead. 1t had been
q little %perplexing at first, but he
could see better in 1t now than with
his unaided eyes.
And now, q minute or two, perhaps.
after that fulmar had gone sQuawking
away, he glanced down into his mir
row. and his olympian calm was
shaken with the shock of surprise.
For what he saw clearly reflected in
his little reducing glass. was land.
There was a mountain. and a long
dark line that must be q clifflike
coast.
And It was land that never had
been marked on n chart. In abso-
Lutte degrees of latitude he was not,
from the arctic explorers view. very
far north. Over on the other side of
the world they run excursion steam
ers every summer nearer to the pole
than he was at this moment. Splits
bergen. which has had a permanent
population Of / 5000 souls. lies 300
miles farther north than, this In
before him.
But the great Toe cap which covers
the top Of the world is irregular in
shape, and Just here. northward from
Alaska, It 1uts It's impenetrable bar
rier far down into the Arctic sea.
Rogers. Collinson and the Inflated De-
LougShey all had tried to penetrate
this barrier. and had been turned
back.
Cayley wheeled sharply up into the
wind. and scared aloft to q height of.
perhaps. q quarter of a mile. Then.
with q long. flashing. shimmering
sweep. he descended. in the arc of a
great circle. and hung. poised. over
the land itself and behind the jutting
shoulder of the mountain.
The land was q narrow-necked Pc
ninsula- Mountain and cliff prevented
him from seeing the immediate coast
on the other side of II: but out a little
way to sea he vas amazed to discover
open water, and the smoke-like vapor
that he saw rising over the cliffhead
made 1t evident that the opening ex-
tended nearly. II not quite. to the
very lands edge. II was utterly I'M
expected, for the side OF the penin-
sula which he had approached was
iNAAlNrEoH for mtlaa