While Hunter was coordinating the speed of the Lark with that of the training plane, Tim slipped out of his seat and down onto the wing. From the lower wing it was the work of a minute to wrap his legs around the landing gear and slide down onto the axle below the plane. If Hunter could bring the Lark down close enough to Ralph’s ship, Tim planned to drop onto the upper wing of the training plane.
The Lark was hovering over Ralph’s ship when the motor of the lower plane coughed once or twice and died. Not more than fifteen feet separated Tim from Ralph but it might just as well have been a mile. The training plane, its motor dead, was rapidly falling away from the Lark in spite of Hunter’s best efforts!
CHAPTER THREE
Tim yelled until it seemed his lungs would burst but the roar of the Lark’s own powerful motor drowned out his cries. Finally Ralph, who had been working desperately in the cockpit of his own plane, looked up at his chum. Death was staring him in the face, but there was no hint of fear in the eyes that gazed at Tim.
The flying reporter signalled Ralph to reach for the lever which opened the emergency gas tank. If there was fuel in the reserve tank, the motor might catch again and they would have another chance.
The lever which controlled the valve of the emergency tank was on the other side of the cockpit and Tim, hanging on his precarious perch, watched his chum strain to reach it. Ralph lunged toward the lever and his outstretched hands knocked it open. The fuel flooded down into the carburetor and hissed into the red hot cylinders. With a quiver the engine of the training plane came to life.
Tim couldn’t restrain a shout as he saw Ralph gain control of the plane again.
Hunter lost no time in bringing the ships together and the Lark crept down and over the upper wing of Ralph’s plane.
Tim steeled himself for the attempt. He had never tried to change from one plane to another but he had watched the stunt a dozen times. The feat looked easy then, but actually to attempt it with a friend’s life in the balance was an entirely different thing.
Just ahead Tim could see the flashing arc of the propeller of Ralph’s plane. If Hunter misjudged the distance, if they struck a bump, if—if any one of half a dozen things happened he might be thrown into the deadly whirl. But Hunter was a master pilot and——