“Half an hour,” grunted Ralph between bites of a sandwich. “That means he was pretty well up toward the divide. Maybe he got across on the other side.”
“It’s just too bad if he did,” remarked Bronson. “You know what the other side of the Billy Goat is like. Not a nickel’s worth of room for a forced landing. If Perk got on the other side he’s crashed sure.”
“Might not be that bad,” said Tim. “Anyway, I’m going to try the other side of Billy Goat this afternoon.”
“Look out you don’t disappear along with Perk,” warned White.
“Not much chance of that with Ralph along,” grinned Tim. “I’ll see you fellows here later.”
The foothills awoke to the roar of five high-powered airplane motors and one after another the flyers took off to resume their hunt.
Tim gunned the Lark and headed straight for the crest of the Great Smokies. The divide was a little to the right of Billy Goat. Tim boosted his plane over the snow-capped tops of the range and coasted down the other side. The slope on the west side was more broken—deep canyons with good-sized streams plunging along in their depths. But from the plane the rivers looked like ribbons of silver. It was a scene of majestic beauty but it gave Tim the shivers when he thought of being trapped on the inhospitable slope in a storm or, worse, at the mercy of the Sky Hawk.
For fifty miles Tim and Ralph followed the path of the mail and express ships, searching every valley, but their efforts were fruitless.
Tim frowned bitterly and turned the Lark eastward in a tight bank. Ralph looked back apprehensively but Tim only shook his head and pointed southeast. How blind he had been. If Perkins had made the crest of the divide and gotten over before the storm caught him, he would probably have been driven southwest along the side of the mountains. The Great Smokies ran northeast and southwest and the storm of the night before had swept down almost directly from the north.
When Tim again reached the western slope of the Billy Goat, he headed south and west. He scribbled a note to Ralph, explaining his reason for the sudden about face, and his companion nodded approval.