Stephen Kane, on the contrary, grew more nervous as time passed. Better than the others he knew the dangers that threatened the girls if, as he suspected, the steering gear had broken and the elevator and engine control been rendered useless. He racked his brain to think what could have caused the trouble, but never a hint of the truth dawned upon him.
The third member of the Kane-Cumberford party, Mr. H. Chesterton Radley-Todd, had maintained a discreet silence ever since Miss Dentry had invited him to join the rescue party. This she had been led to do by the look of abject misery on the boy's face, and he had merely pressed her hand to indicate his thanks. Chesty Todd was never much of a conversationalist and his appreciation of his own awkwardness rendered him diffident unless occasion demanded prompt and aggressive action, when he usually came to the front in an efficient if unexpected manner.
Madeline Dentry, seeing Chesty Todd merely as he appeared, wondered in a casual way why such a blundering, incompetent booby had been employed by the Kane-Cumberford firm, but as the big boy was a part of the "camp" and was so evidently disturbed by the accident, she was glad to relieve him to the extent of adding him to the party.
Very soon after the Salvador started, however, nearly every one on board began to feel the presence of the youthful press agent. It was Chesty Todd who discovered the searchlight aboard and long before the conference on the deck he had primed the captain to use it during the coming night. It was Chesty Todd who sat on a coal-bunker in the hold, swinging his long legs and inspiring the engineer, by dark insinuations concerning the Salvador's ability to speed, to give her engines every pound of steam she could carry. It was Chesty who pumped the steward to learn how well the boat was provisioned and supplied the deck hands with choice cigars until they were ready to swear he was a trump and imagined him quite the most important personage aboard, after Miss Dentry.
The chef served an excellent dinner in the cabin, to which no one did full justice except Mr. Tupper. All were loth to leave the deck long enough to eat, although they knew a watch was stationed in the "crow's nest" with powerful glasses. When night fell the searchlight came into play and the entire party sat huddled forward, eagerly following the sweep of light across the waters. It was ten o'clock when Mr. and Mrs. Tupper retired, and midnight when Madeline went to her room, leaving orders to call her if the Aircraft was sighted.
Stephen Kane, Mr. Cumberford and Chesty Todd sat by the rail all night, wide-eyed and alert. Once the searchlight caught the sails of a ship and they all leaped up, thinking it was the Aircraft. Again, something dark—a tangled mass of wreckage—swept by them and set their hearts throbbing until they held the light steadily upon it and discovered it to be a jumble of kelp and driftwood. Daylight came and found them wan but still wakeful, for now they were getting close to the limit of flight possible to the Aircraft.
Captain Krell was a skillful navigator and, having taken his course in a direct line from Sealskin Island, following the flight of Orissa's Hydro-Aircraft, had not swerved a hair's breadth from it the entire voyage.
"You see," said Steve, peering ahead in the strengthening daylight, "the Salvador hasn't dodged a bit, and the Aircraft couldn't. So we're bound to strike our quarry soon."
"Wind," suggested Chesty.
"Yes; the wind might carry them a little out of their course, to be sure," admitted Steve; "but I think—I hope—not far enough to escape our range of vision."