“M-m-must we lose?” he faltered.
“No race is lost until it is finished,” Captain Tom replied, tersely.
“But you can’t overtake that boat?”
“It’s a speedier craft than ours, but I’ll follow ’em, even if they get hull down on the horizon,” Halstead retorted. “I’ll keep to the course if they beat us out of sight. I won’t give up while we’ve any gasoline left.”
The stranger was now a mile ahead. Tom figured that, in an hour, the other boat’s lead would be very likely increased by four or five miles more. Surely enough, two or three miles more were gained in the next thirty minutes. Then—
“Hurrah!” shouted Tom Halstead. “Oh, if it’s only as good as it looks!”
“What is it?” queried Eben Moddridge, brokenly, not even rising from his chair.
“See how the other craft is slowing her speed. It looks as though her engine had given out at just the right time for us.”
Indeed, the stranger seemed rapidly coming down to bare headway. Then she barely drifted. The “Rocket,” eating up the miles, swiftly gained on the other motor boat.