“Well, I think we’re keeping up to our schedule,” Tom said that noon as they were cruising along and he and Peltok and Ned were eating an appetizing meal. “So far we have had very good luck, even getting out of the hurricane and over the hot bearing without falling back much. If this keeps up I’ll be well within my margin of twenty days.”
“The race isn’t over yet,” said Peltok, who was an experienced aeroplane man. “Wait until we run into some real trouble.”
“We’ll strike it, of course,” admitted Tom. “Couldn’t expect not to on a trip like this. But the longer it holds off the better we’ll be.”
“Hope there aren’t any other wild tribes that are going to take pot shots at us,” remarked Ned.
“There aren’t likely to be,” said Peltok who knew this part of the country quite well. “This was some wild tribe, I suppose, that lived in a mountain fastness, or some wild wooded place, and they had never heard of an airship before.”
The Air Monarch was now running along very easily. The motors were beginning to “find” themselves, the rough spots were wearing down smooth and, as Tom said, the craft was operating like a sewing machine, which seems to be the standard in cases of this sort.
For the first time since leaving the Long Island field, Tom and Ned felt the relief from nervous strain and began to take matters a little easier.
“Guess I’ll write some messages home,” decided Tom in the afternoon, when he and Ned sat together in the main cabin.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” agreed the other. “I suppose you’ll put the letters out in front for the mail plane to pick up,” he added, and there was that in his voice which caused Tom to explain:
“Don’t you think I mean it?”