“Two thousand feet,” was the report almost instantly. Then, the two boys yet braced toward the rear, came additional reports every few moments until nine hundred feet was reached. “Ease her up, Phil,” suggested the lad at the barometer, “we’re doin’ sixty-two miles by the anemometer—”
Before he could say more the creaking sound as of wires straining came again. There was another check and once more the motion seemed horizontal.
“That’s better,” added Phil. “Now I’ll open the bottom port and keep a lookout for land.”
He threw himself on the floor, drew up a square door in front of the second seat and, tossing his cap aside, stuck his head through the opening.
“By gravy,” he sputtered as he pulled his head back, “that rain ain’t a lettin’ up any to speak about.”
“Rapidly gettin’ dryer no faster,” laughed the boy in the forward chair.
“Right,” commented Phil as his head again disappeared through the opening. For some moments neither boy spoke. In this silence, the rain pelting the glass sides seemed to grow louder, but this sound was dimmed by a constant whirr behind the glass compartment—a monotonous, unvarying sound as of large wheels in motion. Mingled with this was another tone—the unmistakable, delicate tremble of an engine or motor.
“Shut her down to half and hold your course,” suddenly came a muffled call from the reinserted head of the lookout.
There was a quick snap; an instant diminution in the tremble and whirr in the rear and Phil’s head was again far out of the trapdoor in defiance of wind and rain. The forward motion was lessening somewhat. When three or four minutes had passed, the boy on lookout drew his head in again, dashed the rain out of his eyes and crawled to the barometer.