Chick’s voice, shrill with terror, died away, and Don, startled for an instant, almost let the glide become a dive; but he caught his stick and gunned ahead, giving up the glide they had been in.
The radial engine, though of as silent a type as any, drowned any reply from Garry or Don until the youthful pilot, climbing, had gained a good thousand feet more of altitude. Then he cut the gun and let the glide begin, so that the Dart was quietly nose-low in a gentle glide.
“Don’t go off at half-cock that way,” he remonstrated.
“No!” Garry was a trifle annoyed by Chick’s impetuous screeches. “If you insist on yelling ‘wolf!’ every time the sheet lightning flickers on the clouds, you’d better be put down—and stop trying to be an airlane guard.”
“Was it sheet lightning?” Chick asked lamely.
“Yes. There’s a storm brewing.”
“Then we’d better go home!”
“Don’t be so anxious.” Garry spoke sharply. “The storm isn’t here and won’t be for an hour. We’re going to stay aloft at least till the mail ’plane comes in. They ’re inaugurating the new ship-to-shore service and you wouldn’t want to be making a pass at the field just when that crate comes over, and make him lose ten minutes waiting for us to shoot the field and land and get the ship off the runway.”
“No.”
Don climbed again.