CHAPTER XXVI
THE RACE
Judged by the theory they had worked out, the action of the men in the amphibian indicated that they were flying away with something they had found.
“If they had given up, so soon,” Dick mused, holding his head low to avoid the icy blast of their high position, “if they’d given up Jeff would go straight to the hangar again. But they’re going across Long Island Sound toward Connecticut, just as the unknown person in the hydroplane boat did with the other life preserver.”
Larry, holding speed at a safe flying margin so that the sustentation, or lifting power of the air, was greater than the drag of the airplane as it resisted the airflow, let the nose drop a trifle, let the engine rev down as he glided to a lower level where the air would not bite so much. They would be able to follow quite as well, dropping behind just enough to keep the line of distance between them as great as if they were higher and closer over the amphibian.
With his glasses, Dick could observe and indicate any change of direction or any other maneuver.
They had devised a hastily planned code of signals, very much like those used by a flying school instructor giving orders to a pupil where the Gossport helmet was not worn.
Dick, watchful and alert, lowered his chilled glasses and Sandy, keeping watch, saw his right arm extend straight out from his shoulder, laterally to the airplane’s course.
Sandy repeated the gesture after attracting Larry’s attention by a slight shaking of the dual-control rudder which was still attached, but which, on any other occasion, he had been careful not to touch.
“Left arm extended! Turn that way!” Larry murmured.
Gently he moved the stick to lower the left aileron, bringing up the right one, of course, by their mutual operation; rudder went left a trifle and in a safe, forty-five degree bank, he began to turn.