d three times who's going to prove
it a lie, tell me?"

"Oh, some of them have fine glasses, and you may be sure they're on us
about every second. They'd get his number, all right; just let him try
some of that funny business, that's all," Frank replied.

Andy said no more. Truth to tell, the conditions surrounding them were
by now beginning to look fearfully desperate, with those billowing
clouds at times shutting out all view of the earth so far below.

Frank had only eyes for the rocky top of the mountain, though he knew
that he must presently also keep constant watch for the rival
aeroplane; for Percy might elect to pass around the other way, there
being no stipulated course about it; and in that event there was always
the chance of a collision.

When racing such a reckless fellow, one had to make his eyes do double
duty, as Frank Bird had learned long ago.

He could see the pair of white-headed eagles soaring around the top of
the mountain, as though glorying in the battle of Nature's forces that
was so soon to be opened. Frank inwardly wished they were as capable
of finding shelter as those sagacious birds.

"Watch out for the other biplane, Andy!" he called, in the ear of his
chum, as he started on his first circuit around Old Thunder Top.

His last words were fairly drowned in a peal of thunder, that seemed to
announce the near approach of the gale. Even then there was possibly
time for them to have made Bloomsbury, had they been content with just
one spin around the bald knob of the great rocky height. But the
conditions of the race said three; and Percy meant to hold them to the
letter of the contract.

Frank well knew that far away in the home town anxious hearts were
beating, as loving eyes kept glued to the fieldglasses--he could easily
understand that not a few among the applauding spectators would ten
thousand times rather the race were lost than that these terrible
chances were taken. Yet he had started, and there could be no help for
it now, however much he would have liked to give the thing up.

Doubtless others were admiring the pluck shown; but then these had no
personal interest in the lives of the young adventurers.

They had now finished the first circuit and were starting on the
second. Under normal conditions it would have been next to nothing to
Frank to guide his biplane around the head of Old Thunder Top twice
more. But with such dreadful surroundings it required all the ne