“That will develop later,” answered the young air pilot. “To my way of thinking, and also that of Mr. Brackett, our enemy has offered his services to some contestant we do not yet know. Now we’ve picked up the railway. That will be our guide to our terminus.”
The biplane had been given a careful investigation and adjustment. Dave had driven onward and upward until they had attained an altitude of five hundred feet. Hiram had been watching a receding speck, the Curtiss machine, that seemed bent on their own course, when, turning, he touched Dave sharply on the shoulder, and called loudly above the throb of the motor:
“There’s a heavy cloud-bank ahead.”
“I see that,” spoke the pilot of the Ariel.
“It ends in a mean fog, earthward.”
“Yes, I notice that, too. I tell you, Hiram, we are safer up here, under the circumstances, than trying to get down. We’ll nose up to a still higher altitude and get above the clouds.”
“We’re nearly touching the seven thousand mark,” reported Hiram, a few minutes later. “It’s clear sailing ahead, though.”
Because of the maneuver just attempted, the two young airmen became mixed as to their course. For some time neither saw the earth again. Dave tried to allow for the same drift as before, but could only hope that he was steering in the right direction.
“There’s a change in the atmospheric conditions,” announced Dave’s assistant, after a while.
“Yes,” responded Dave, “there’s a storm raging below.”