When night came on, they camped—but not on the ground; no, indeed, not when they had a comfortable Hustle to sleep in! Coffee and flapjacks were made on the electrical stove, after running the engine for a few minutes to set the electric motor going, and then Hike crawled under a blanket, while the Lieutenant took the first turn watching.
So they hung at anchor till toward noon of the next day—two hundred feet up in the air. Then they left for the Lieutenant’s rancho, got their things, and within an hour were whirling northward, bound for Santa Benicia.
They were nearing Los Angeles, running easily and steadily at a hundred miles an hour, at dusk. The Lieutenant was driving.
Hike felt uneasy. The engine did not sound quite right. He could not make out quite what the trouble was, however.
Suddenly came a quick crash, from the engine. Hike knew that something had broken. Then the sound of back-fire, from a cylinder.
He dived from his seat, and slammed off the emergency-cock. Instantly, the flow of gasoline stopped, and the motor was dead.
He expected to have Jack Adeler ask “What did you shut off the cock for?” He didn’t know just what he would answer.
But the Lieutenant merely planed down, circling till he could land in a patch of sand surrounding an orange-ranch.
As they stopped, the Lieutenant wiped his forehead, feverishly. Hike was astonished to see his face pale as a ghost’s, in the twilight.