“I don’t know what we are going to strike,” said our hero; “but we’ve got to make a landing. No machine could stand much more of this.”
“Good,” cried Hiram heartily, as the Comet made a rapid dive that was nearly a somersault. “It’s solid land all right. I was afraid it might be water, and a ducking just now—brrr—rr!”
When Dave had told his friends way back in Canada that their motto must be “business, strictly business,” he and they had set themselves zealously to work to carry out the sentiment. Dave was an expert airman. The Comet was a noble machine of its type. They had met with “good luck,” too, Hiram had insisted. The biplane crossed the vast stretch of Canadian wilderness without a mishap.
At Sitka no new trap nor harmful attempt on the part of their enemies had confronted them. A government official had been deputized by telegraph from Washington to receive and identify the contestants as they arrived. The crew of the Comet were proud and happy to learn that they were the first on the scene.
They rested a day at Sitka. Dave realized that the hardest part of the route lay before them. It was no easy task to pilot a course past Cape Prince of Wales, across Bering Strait and make sure of reaching Stamavoie, a point in Kamchatka where arrangements had been made for gasoline and other supplies.
Elmer had started keeping what he called a “log.” During the ensuing six days he had some odd and spirited incidents to record. They had left the mild fall weather behind them and encountered genuine wintry blasts. The expert young pilot took no unnecessary risks. Their stops were frequent, and for the most part fortunately they managed to land near settlements or habitations. Dave had to accommodate the machine to new wind conditions. He and his friends suffered a good deal with the cold. It was now late afternoon, and according to calculations and the charts they were traversing Siberian territory.
The storm had not abated one whit as all three of the boys left the biplane. They found themselves ankle deep in a soft clinging snow.
“We can’t stay here,” said the young aviator.
“Hardly,” replied Hiram, “unless we want to see the machine and all hands covered up in a snowdrift within an hour.”
“We have lost our exact reckoning,” added Dave, “and no landmarks to go by. We are somewhere between Zashiversh and Virkni. Probably we have landed on what is known as the Nijni steppe. It is something of a barren waste, if I remember right, but dotted here and there with stations and a few little farms.”