"How d'I know dem bolts won't fly disher way?" he demanded of the boys when they tried to reassure him.
"Why, the earth attracts the electric bolt, and that attraction is much stronger than any the Snowbird may have for the electricity in the clouds," Mark told him. "I don't know erbout dat," grumbled Wash. "An' if jest one o' dem crazy lightning bolts should take it into its haid ter segastuate eround disher flying merchine—biff! bang! dat would be erbout all. Dere would be a big bunch o' crape hung on Wash White's do', suah as you is bawn, boy!"
But although the roar of the thunder and whining of the wind nearly drowned other sounds in and about the flying machine, save for a freshening of the gale the Snowbird was at first but little disturbed by the tempest which raged with such fury a thousand feet below.
Suddenly Mark caught sight of something moving across the red streak in the eastern sky—the light that warned them of the approach of the sun.
"What is that—a huge bird?" he demanded of Andy Sudds, pointing this moving figure out to the hunter.
Andy's eyes were very keen, for he was used to sighting along a rifle and gazing over long distances in search of game. But he, too, thought the object must be a bird.
"I declare, I didn't know birds flew so high," said Mark. "It must be an eagle. No other fowl could fly so high."
"'Nless it were Buttsy," remarked Washington, sotto voce. The professor was still asleep and the boys paid little attention to the flying object for some time. It was coming up behind the Snowbird, and they had no occasion to look behind.
The sun arose, angry and red, while the thunder continued to roll below them, and the crackling of the electric flashes was like minute guns. The Snowbird was winging its way along at about seventy-five miles per hour. Wash had gone into the covered galley to prepare breakfast. Jack was still in the operator's seat.
Suddenly Andy Sudds uttered a loud shout. A huge shadow was thrown athwart the flying Snowbird. Some object was hovering over them and they cast their eyes upward, at Andy's cry, to see another aeroplane swooping down directly upon them.