Overhauling the seaplane was not the question.
Their problem was to get above it, to ride it down, force it to take the sea or to come down in a crackup on shore if that must be—before it could lose itself in that dull, gloomy, lowering bank of fog ahead.
For that fog the seaplane was making at full speed.
“Climb, Jeff!” Sandy begged, hoping their pilot could ride down the craft ahead.
But Jeff held a level course. He had to, in order to maintain the advantage of speed. He thought he could get alongside their quarry before the mist swallowed it, hid it, ended the pursuit.
In that he was beaten by only a hundred feet.
Into the murky folds of the thick mist dived the seaplane.
Hardly more than two hundred feet behind, they felt the cold, clammy fingers of the cloud touch their shrinking faces.
Jeff cut the gun.
They strained their ears.