solidity counts in hard service."

Scarcely ten minutes later, and while Mortlake's mechanics and assistants
were still craning their necks skyward, another aeroplane, a yellow
adventurer of the skies, thundered upward. Not to be outdone by Mortlake,
Roy, who was at the wheel, swooped above the rival crowd. They did not
take it with a good grace. Remarks, of which they could not catch the
wording, but only the menacing intonation, were hurled upward at them.
They received them with a laugh and a wave of the hand, which did not put
the Mortlake crowd into any better humor. And then, with a graceful,
swinging curve, that banked the machine almost on its beam ends, they were
up, off and away in pursuit of the _Silver Cobweb_, which, by this time,
was a mere shoe-button of a dot on the horizon.

"Do you think we can overhaul her, Roy?" ventured Peggy, as they raced
through the air, the fresh breath of morning coming refreshingly in their
faces.

"Not a chance," admitted Roy cheerfully, "but they'll turn after a while,
I guess, and then we'll try the _Butterfly_ against the _Cobweb_."

But they kept on and on unrelentingly, and still there was no sign of
diminution of speed on the part of the _Silver Cobweb_. Nor did the other
aircraft give any indication that she was preparing to put about.

Below them, farms, meadows, villages and crowds of wondering country folk
swam by in an ever-changing panorama. The earth beneath them looked like a
big saucer divided up into brown, red and green squares, with tiny
fly-like dots running and walking about.

All at once Roy gave a shout and pointed. Dead ahead, and not more than a
few miles distant, lay a silvery, gleaming streak.

"The sea!"

The exclamation came simultaneously from Peggy and Roy.

They had been traveling due south across the island, and now the broad
Atlantic lay stretched beyond the land, shimmering in the sunlight. Far
off, they could make out the black smoke of a steamer, hovering above the
ocean.

"A mail boat, making for New York," announced Roy.

So fast were they traveling that by this time they could plainly make out
the ocean, which, from a silvery streak, was now changed into a dark-blue
rolling expanse of salt water.

And still the _Silver Cobweb_ kept on, and gave no sign of turning. Nor,
for that matter, had her speed diminished appreciably. The rival aeroplane
was now skimming above the water at a height of about a thousand feet. The
_Golde