"Climb out!" Jack ordered peremptorily. "You too," indicating Fred.
He climbed into his own seat, and motioned Andy into the other.
Without another word they began a long climb, the pounding of the engines indicating the extra pressure they were called upon to meet, the tilt of the plane indicating a sustained angle that was taking them onward but up, up, up.
Don stood directly behind Big Jack, his eye fastened upon the altimeter on the instrument board. Slowly, surely, unwaveringly, it was being pushed around the dial. It registered eight thousand feet, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
He turned a questioning glance at Fred, who was likewise engaged, but not a word was spoken.
Their glance turned to the petrol gauge, which Big Jack and Andy were watching as closely as they were the indications of their steadily increasing altitude. It showed an equally steady depletion as the engines literally ate up the now almost priceless fuel.
Don, his attention now turned to this instrument, saw it going down, down, down, even as the plane continued on its upward climb. Even yet the real significance of Jack's intention had not fully dawned upon him.
The fuel was by now dangerously low. Once Don thought he heard one of the engines "skip," and his heart skipped a beat in consequence. He looked again at the altimeter. Fifteen thousand feet! And still the plane was climbing, its angle unaltered.
He grabbed the binoculars and gazed out toward the coast, now scarcely any nearer the plane by actual distance, but much nearer from a plumb line which might have been dropped from the plane. He estimated that they were as yet about fifteen miles out to sea.
And still the machine climbed. He turned again to the altimeter, fascinated by this great contest between the wits of man and the natural elements.