"No lettum stranger lound," protested the fellow. "Him both flylers alla samee you. Like-um see, you see; like-um see, he see."
"Oh, ginger!" exclaimed John, turning to his comrades, in clear disgust, "the stupid dunce thinks those fellows belong to us and we to them, just because we all wear the same sort of flying clothes! Did you ever see the like?"
Paul now took up the questioning. "What were those fellows doing up there?" he asked of the Chinaman.
"No tellee me; no tellee Lee," was the response, as the fellow jerked his head in the direction of his comrade. "Just lookee over alla samee you do li'l bit ago."
"Were they in the cabin?" demanded Paul.
"No go in klabin."
They walked around the machine giving it a cursory looking over, but could find nothing out of the way, and every one of them felt considerable relief.
"I guess they were only taking a look to see if our construction was the same as theirs," suggested Bob. This seemed a plausible explanation, and they accepted it, although with some misgivings.
About ten minutes later they saw the crowd over in the other side of the field scattering, and then the Clarion shot up into the air. In a few minutes it was pointed down the coast and making good headway.
Our friends were not quite ready, but when the other machine was a mere speck against the southwestern sky, they hopped off themselves, with Paul at the throttle. Not one of the party had any doubt but that they could catch their rivals before the latter should arrive at Para, where they were due at six o'clock that evening. It needed only that first stage of the journey from Panama to Georgetown to show them that they had either the speediest craft or the most skillful crew.