The need for such care had already been driven home to him by the tragic fate of two of his gallant rivals in this great flight. Just the day before he arrived in San Francisco, young Randall and the veteran, Ed West, in their great trimotor had made their start at winging the Pacific for the Valiant Prize. Either overload, or some fault of mechanism had caused the great plane to fail in a rise above the cliffs. Both pilot and mechanic had crashed to death.
Jammed throttle had set another competitor adrift on the sea edge—where, luckily for him, there were boats a-plenty for the rescue.
With these hazards in mind, Hal kept testing and retesting every part of his equipment and mechanism. He bunked that night in the hangar, and with the morning was again at his work. Terrific coastal rains set in. But snug within the closed cockpit of the Wind Bird, Hal joyously challenged the downpour.
At the first flight test, the silver and crimson ship rode the rain clouds with a thrilling swiftness. For the second flight, loaded with all the weight that an ocean flyer needs must bear, the Wind Bird labored somewhat in the rise, found her speed more slowly. That initial slowness was a thing that had to be borne with. Compensation would come in the continuous quickening of speed as each hour of flight burned up its quota of fuel, and, degree by degree, lifted the weight.
For two days of rain, Hal continued his tests. In between periods of work he flung himself down to sleep like a log, letting nature repair the nerve strain of that long nightmare of flood rescue work.
Sleep was about his only weapon, too, for dodging newspaper men. Reporters were fine, friendly fellows, all right,—but, well, Hal didn’t want to talk. What he wanted was action, to be off.
All his life seemed to have been leading up to this one event—his take-off for his viking flight on the winds of the ocean. And here was the take-off held up by rainstorm, an endless one it appeared.
Along the Pacific coast, five other flyers were ready too, awaiting weather conditions for the great journey.
Storm and fog kept Hal Dane on edge for another twelve hours. Then he decided to wait no longer.
Why couldn’t one take-off in a rainstorm? No worse than running into rainstorms out over the waters! On such a journey a flyer had to face all kinds of weather anyway.