Flying fast, in a steep descent, they went across the nose of the amphibian, and in the turmoil of their propeller wash she went almost out of control, and before her pilot caught up his stability the hydroplane raced across her path in a slanting line and made for the small round object bobbing in the trough between two swells.
But that gave the seaplane an advantage.
Quick to take it, dipping a wing and kicking rudder, the seaplane’s pilot swerved a little, leveled off, and set down in a smother of foam, and on his wing also a man climbed close to the tip!
“Where’s the one who was on the amphibian wing?” Larry wondered.
“In the water, spilled by our wash,” he decided.
He had no time to pay attention to that situation. The imminent culmination of the race chained his gaze.
“The tender is almost there—oh!” gasped Sandy, “the seaplane must be rammed by the tender!”
But the yacht’s boat, with its motor hastily started, and cold—lost way as the engine sputtered and died!
Slackening speed, the seaplane raced along until, with a hand clinging to a brace and his body leaning far over the dancing waves, its passenger on the wing scooped up the life preserver.
Almost immediately the seaplane began to get off the water.