Chicago was reached safely, almost half an hour ahead of the schedule, which fact, when Tom ascertained it, made him exclaim:
“Fine! If we can keep that up we’ll do better than sixteen hours to the coast. We’re going to push the motors for all they’re capable of from now on.”
“Better not strain ’em too much, sir,” suggested Sam Stone, who was to pilot the Eagle part of the way on the second lap. “We don’t want to break anything.”
“No,” said Tom, “we don’t want to break anything but records. How has everything been here? Any signs of those rascals?”
“Well, there have been one or two suspicious fellows loitering around the hangar,” reported the mechanician. “But we warned them away. They didn’t blow us up, at any rate.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Tom. “They tried it on Long Island,” and he related the Schlump incident. “He’ll probably wire his confederates out here or in Denver or San Francisco to muss us up if they can—anything to prevent this last trip from succeeding. So we must redouble our precautions.”
“We’ll do that,” agreed Stone.
The Eagle at first did even better than the Falcon, and it seemed as if the hop between Chicago and Denver would be a record-breaker. But slight trouble developed about halfway across the plains, and though it was remedied, still they were forty minutes late, which not only ate up the half hour they had gained on the first lap, but cut ten minutes from the remaining time.
“But we’ll make it up on the last lap!” declared Tom, with confidence. “Push her for all she’s got in her, boys!” he said to Dolan and Wright, who climbed into the cockpit at Denver.
They got off to a roaring start, rose high in the air, and then headed straight for the Golden Gate.