Once he glanced at his barograph.  It showed he had ascended 5,000 feet.  It was higher than the boy had ever been before, but he kept perseveringly on.

It was cold up there in the regions of the upper air, and Jimsy found himself wishing he had put on a sweater.

“It’s too long a drop to go down and get one,” he remarked to himself, with grim humor.

Beneath him he could see the other aeroplanes; but the black one was the only one that appeared to be a serious rival.  The rest did not seem to be trying very hard to reach a superlative height.  The black machine, however, was steadily rising.  After a while Jimsy could see the face of its occupant.  It was the Cuban, Le Roy.

“Now, what’s he trying to do, I wonder?” thought Jimsy, as the black biplane rose to the same level as himself and appeared to be going through some odd maneuvering.

“That’s mighty funny,” mused the boy, watching his rival; “I can’t make out what he’s up to.”

Indeed the black biplane was behaving queerly.  Now it would swoop toward Jimsy and then would dart, only to return.  Suddenly it came driving straight at him.

It was then that Jimsy suddenly realized what his rival was trying to do.  To use a slangy but expressive phrase, Le Roy, the veteran aviator, was trying to rattle the boy.

“So that’s his game, is it,” thought Jimsy; “well, I’ll give him a surprise.”

Manipulating his spark and gas levers the boy gave his graceful red craft full power.  The Dragon shot sharply upward, crossing Le Roy’s machine about twenty feet above its upper plane.  Jimsy laughed aloud at the astonished expression on the man’s face as he skimmed above him.

“I reckon he’ll think that I do know something about driving an aeroplane, after all,” he chuckled as he rose till his barograph recorded 6,000 feet.

Beneath him he could see Le Roy starting to descend.  Something appeared to be wrong with the black biplane’s motor.  It acted sluggishly.

“Well, as he’s going down I guess I will, too,” said Jimsy to himself; “6,000 feet is by no means a record, but it’s high enough for me.”

Suddenly he was plunged into what appeared to be a wet and chilly fog.  In reality it was a cloud that had drifted in on him.  It grew suddenly cold with an almost frosty chill.  The moisture of the cloud drenched him to the skin.  The lad shivered and his teeth chattered, but he kept pluckily to his task.

Before long he emerged into the sunlight once more.  The crowd which had thrilled when the young aviator vanished into the vapor set up a yell when he reappeared.  But at the height he was Jimsy, of course, did not hear it.

But as he dropped lower the shouts and cheers became plainly audible.  The lad waved his hand in acknowledgment.  Then, as he neared the ground, he put his machine through a series of graceful evolutions that set the crowd wild.