Taking off into the July south-wind, Don waited only long enough to observe the regulation compelling an airplane to be well beyond the airport limits before turning. Then he began a turning climb to nose into the East, crossing Long Island.
Although their course did not take them near the swamps which had been so closely connected with their mystery—or mysteries!—Don glanced in that direction.
Garry, behind him, busy adjusting the tube of the student’s communication helmet by which he could talk to Don, did not see what the pilot noted. Don shook the ship gently. Garry looked up.
Chick, behind them, getting a life belt inflated from an air bottle, because this would be a part of the mail flight requiring him to run a slight risk of immersion in the sea, looked up at the same time.
Don’s hand, waved toward the swamps at the left wingtip, as they came around, saw a curious object over the swamps.
They were too far away to note it with much certainty; but Garry was sure that the queer, ungainly thing rising steadily into the air was one of the aircraft whose horizontal blades, above the fuselage, enabled it to take off and rise without first attaining the flying speed required by an ordinary airplane. Its huge propeller blades acted both as power and support surfaces.
“An auto-gyro,” Garry said into the helmet communication tube.
Don shook his head.
“What did you tell him?” Chick bent far forward to shout to Garry.
“Said it was an auto-gyro!”