“She must have met Jeff and gone with him. We’re going to see.”
“I have orders, at that,” Mr. Whiteside told the pilot. “You go back and get into the air and then cruise around—just in case Jeff does get started.”
“I will that.”
“It would take him some time,” argued Dick.
“He could start his motor and taxi while it warmed up, and be half across the Sound before he took off if he wanted to, in that ‘phib,’” the pilot said. Turning, he called that he would get going, and returned beyond their view beyond the trees.
Dick, Larry and Mr. Whiteside, listening for a call from Sandy, went hurrying along. But no call from Sandy. He had decided that it would be a wiser thing to hide than to risk doing battle with the pilot if he was actually as bad as they suspected; with that in mind he had crawled in through the opening from the back, into the fuselage of the amphibian. There, fairly comfortable, he lay, full length, listening. The open top allowed air to come because a strong, puffy breeze had gotten up, driving great, black thunderclouds before it.
Sandy regretted his ruse presently, because he heard a boat and realized that he could not see who occupied it: furthermore, while his position would enable him to be hidden and to go along if Jeff took off, he would be helpless in case of an accident to the craft.
When he decided to get out, it was almost too late—but not quite.
Jeff got his engine going by setting it on a compression point when he had primed the cylinders and using his booster magneto to furnish the hot sparks that gave it its first impulse.
Then, as soon as he heard Jeff drop the mooring rope and get in, Sandy backed to a point where he could crawl to hands and knees, poked his head up carefully, saw Jeff, adjusting his helmet as the engine roared, and was able to climb over the seat back into the place behind the tank before Jeff decided they were warmed up enough, got the craft on the step and lifted it into the darkness, lit by intermittent flashes of approaching lightning.