His last words were fairly drowned in a peal of thunder, that seemed to announce the near approach of the gale. Even then there was possibly time for them to have made Bloomsbury, had they been content with just one spin around the bald knob of the great rocky height. But the conditions of the race said three; and Percy meant to hold them to the letter of the contract.
Frank well knew that far away in the home town anxious hearts were beating, as loving eyes kept glued to the fieldglasses—he could easily understand that not a few among the applauding spectators would ten thousand times rather the race were lost than that these terrible chances were taken. Yet he had started, and there could be no help for it now, however much he would have liked to give the thing up.
Doubtless others were admiring the pluck shown; but then these had no personal interest in the lives of the young adventurers.
They had now finished the first circuit and were starting on the second. Under normal conditions it would have been next to nothing to Frank to guide his biplane around the head of Old Thunder Top twice more. But with such dreadful surroundings it required all the nerve of which he could boast not to turn and shoot downward after making that initial circuit.
The clouds were beginning to scurry around them now, showing that the wind was arriving. Frank knew this when he once more started around the peak, for he met it head on.
This meant another peril. He had to keep his wits fully about him, lest a sudden flaw tilt the biplane over. And it was at that moment of uncertainty that the young aviator had reason to rejoice because of that new device under the aeroplane whereby an automatic balance was maintained between the planes.
Birdmen who have attempted to show their ability to manage an aeroplane close to a big city like New York claim that their greatest danger arises from the numerous gusts of wind that come out of the deep canyons formed by the skyscraper buildings.
"There they go!" screeched Andy, suddenly.
Frank received something of a start, for the other aeroplane shot past not more than thirty feet away from the tip of his port plane. It had been a narrow escape from a calamity that might have cost all their lives; for Percy, for some unaccountable reason, had chosen to pass around the summit of Old Thunder Top in just the opposite way from that they had taken.
How foolhardy to keep this up! It was next door to madness, Frank concluded. He was determined to have nothing more to do with it, but give over the idea of fulfilling the conditions of the race.