Maben's proposition had been a wild one--that he and Hal join forces and stunt together over the backwoods country towns. It would be a precarious livelihood. Some days they might cop nothing. Some days they might make a pile. Maben needed a "pile" for his folks back home, his wife, a baby boy, a little daughter just old enough to start school. Maben carried their pictures in a rubbed old case stuck away in an inside pocket. Hal had his home folks on his heart too. He needed to earn money somehow. Even though the mere touch of a plane and the call of the air were a delightful lure, he knew aero-stunting was a risky business. In the end he had decided to tackle it, for a while anyway. So he had rattled the old truck home from Interborough, turned over to his mother the first twenty-five dollars he had ever earned all in a lump, and had joined Maben.