Picking up speed once more at every turn of her propeller, the Sky-Bird shot down the last stretch of ground reaching to the fence.  How fast this obstruction loomed up!  Just in the nick of time the airplane left the ground.  They sailed over the tops of trees and houses so close that the wheels of their landing-gear almost scraped.  It was one of the finest maneuvers of the whole voyage, and the boys praised John so for his good piloting that he had to ask them to desist.