Like a meteor, the boy shot down the length of the plane wing, dropped back into the pit. In a frenzy, he shouted through the tube, “Risk it with me—one chance—give me the control!”
It was a risk, in more ways than one. With an instructor from his flying school beside him, Hal Dane began to disobey orders, began a stunt that must mean the end of his flying certificate.
Already the trimotor was circling for the glide to landing—and to death!
There was no time left to ride abreast, to wave, to make any signal for the eye. But there was the ear, the hearing, still a last chance left to try. Even though Raynor’s ship rode behind, it could send sound traveling forward through the air. Would Fuz McGinnis catch that sound?
In an agony, Hal Dane cut the motor, speeded it. Cut, speed! Cut, speed! “T-t-t-tat t-tat t-tat!” The old code, the call!
Through the air, Hal sent wave after wave of sputtering sound, a staccato call, “S. O. S.—danger—keep flying!”
But McGinnis in the plane ahead seemed deaf to any sound save the roar of his own motor.
He was swooping low—and lower!
CHAPTER XIII
VISION
Hal Dane was above the trimotor now, and was still sending out his desperate aerial telegraph call, “T-t-t-tat tat-t-tat t-tat—danger—keep flying—danger!”