All at once, though, a mighty roar proclaimed that something was happening, and gazing down toward the further end of the track it could be seen that Number Six, the Golden Butterfly, had made a daring attempt to gain on the other machine, and had succeeded.
So close did the two aeroplanes edge to the end pylon in the effort to secure the inside plane that for an instant it looked as if a crash must result.
A thunder of cheers greeted the Golden Butterfly as she swept by the grandstand on the next lap.
“That girl can drive all right,” grudgingly admitted Fanning Harding.
“Yes, and she’s pretty as a picture, too,” put in Gid Gibbons; “guess you were stuck on her once, weren’t you, Fan?”
“Oh, shut up,” growled Fanning angrily. “It makes no difference to you, does it?”
The aeroplanes had been racing for an hour now, and neither showed any signs of slacking speed. On the contrary, as they “warmed up,” they seemed to go the quicker. All at once an incident occurred which brought the crowd to its feet yelling and cheering as if wild.
The driver of Number Five, as the two machines passed the grandstand, had made a deliberate attempt to prevent the Golden Butterfly overhauling him by jamming his aeroplane over toward a pylon and directly in front of the Butterfly. For an instant it looked as if a crash must be inevitable, but just as the spectators were beginning to turn pale and the more timid to hide their eyes, the Butterfly was seen to make a graceful dip and dive clean under the other aeroplane. It was a magnificent bit of aerial driving, and the crowd appreciated it to the full. A roar and a shout went up, to which the driver of Number Six responded with a wave of a gloved hand.
Ten minutes later Number Five, two laps behind, and with a leaking radiator, dropped out of the race, leaving the Golden Butterfly the winner. Fanning Harding was white as a sheet as he saw an official with a black and white checkered flag step out into the field. This was the signal to the Golden Butterfly, which was still in the air, that the race was over.
As the Prescott aeroplane dropped to earth in front of the grandstand amid rapturous plaudits, the son of the Sandy Bay banker deliberately arose and made his way toward the judges’ stand, to which Hal Homer and the Bancrofts, the core of a shouting, yelling mob of enthusiasts, were already conducting the daring driver of Number Six.