Terry fumed inwardly at the unsportsmanlike action of her enemy. To attack a plane with machine gun fire when he knew that Skybird was unarmed! That seemed to the girl to show the base character of her father’s business rival.
Terry let her plane out to the limit of its power. She tried her best to outdistance her enemy but the scheming attacker brought his plane to landward of the girl’s and was now deliberately forcing her out to sea.
“He’s trying to wear me out,” thought Terry. “I see his plan now. He’ll drive me out over the ocean and keep me there until my fuel is gone!”
But in face of this peril she did not lose her courage. Determination to win was written in every line of the girl’s face. “He’ll not get me,” she said as she pressed back on the stick and sent her plane zooming. “I’ll fight! I’ll win!”
The tension was relieved. Her nerves were tingling with excitement. Every sense was alert to catch the meaning of her enemy’s moves.
Then Bud Hyslop let the powerful motor loose. It zoomed at tremendous speed until it was carried once more above the Skybird. Joe thought now that he had Skybird at his mercy. Bud put the plane into a loop so as to come down behind Terry’s plane where he would have every advantage. Then Joe’s sub-machine gun spoke. A stream of bullets zipped through the wings of Terry’s plane. For a moment she thought they had been torn to pieces.
Straight out to sea a huge fog bank was rolling landward. Terry headed her plane toward its protecting folds. Blindly she flew sending her plane soaring, then came down in a spiral. She levelled her plane and flew in a zig-zag course to spoil her enemy’s aim. His bullets whistled harmlessly to right and left and so by good luck and good flying she escaped destruction.
No one knew better than Terry that she was playing the most dangerous game in the world. Beneath her was five thousand feet of thin air and below that the cold waters of the Atlantic.
She dived into the cloud bank and suddenly she saw the angry billows close beneath her.
“Steady, girl!” she heard Allan’s voice speaking. “You’re flying like an ace. Keep it up and we’ll win!”