BILL BOLTON—FLYING MIDSHIPMAN

[CHAPTER I—THE HURRICANE]

“I can’t keep her in the air any longer, Dad!”

Bill Bolton shot the words into the mouthpiece of his headphone and pushed the stick gently forward. The amphibian which he was driving nosed into a long gliding arc toward the angry whitecaps of the Bay of Florida, a thousand feet below.

“Too much wind?” called back Mr. Bolton from his seat in the rear cockpit.

With a sharp bank Bill saved the plane a side-slip as an unusually heavy gust caught her.

“Too much wind is right. Those black clouds to the southeast mean a hurricane or I’m a landlubber. We’re soon going to be in for it good and plenty. It’s already kicked up a heavy sea below. I should have landed sooner.”

“If we crash, we’ll have a long swim,” was his father’s sole comment.

Bill cut his gun and having brought the plane into the teeth of the wind which was increasing in violence momentarily, he shot a quick glance overside. Row after row of spume-capped combers met his eye and his face became grim with determination.