“What lies to the south of us?” asked Harry, after another long pause, during which the storm-stressed aeroplane made several sickening lurches, always recovering herself in time, however, thanks to the gyroscope.
“Why, about as desolate a country as can be imagined. Nothing but arid wastes and cactus.”
“It will be a bad lookout, then, if we have to land there.”
“It certainly will,” was the laconic response.
On and on through the darkness drove the storm-tossed aeroplane, carrying her two young navigators into the unknown.
CHAPTER XXVII.
WINNING THE PRIZE.—Conclusion.
It was at four o’clock in the morning by the auto clock affixed to the chassis that Frank noticed the wind begin to drop. At the same time the stinging of the sand decreased perceptibly. The storm was waning.
He awakened Harry, who had fallen into a troubled doze, and gave him the cheering news. But even if the storm had blown itself out with the coming of daylight there was not much else to cheer the boys’ hearts, for as it grew lighter and the air cleared and they found themselves able to make out what was beneath them, Harry uttered an exclamation of dismay:
“Look there!” he shouted, pointing downward.
The aeroplane was traveling over a gray waste which Frank at once realized was the sea. The question was: Was it the open ocean or the Gulf of California? It did not seem possible it could be the Pacific as, even at the terrific pace they had been carried along in the preceding twelve hours, it seemed hardly possible that they could have been blown across the long peninsula of Lower California.