llows doing up
there?" he asked of the Chinaman.

"No tellee me; no tellee Lee," was the response, as the fellow jerked
his head in the direction of his comrade. "Just lookee over alla samee
you do li'l bit ago."

"Were they in the cabin?" demanded Paul.

"No go in klabin."

They walked around the machine giving it a cursory looking over, but
could find nothing out of the way, and every one of them felt
considerable relief.

"I guess they were only taking a look to see if our construction was
the same as theirs," suggested Bob. This seemed a plausible
explanation, and they accepted it, although with some misgivings.

About ten minutes later they saw the crowd over in the other side of
the field scattering, and then the _Clarion_ shot up into the air. In
a few minutes it was pointed down the coast and making good headway.

Our friends were not quite ready, but when the other machine was a mere
speck against the southwestern sky, they hopped off themselves, with
Paul at the throttle. Not one of the party had any doubt but that they
could catch their rivals before the latter should arrive at Para, where
they were due at six o'clock that evening. It needed only that first
stage of the journey from Panama to Georgetown to show them that they
had either the speediest craft or the most skillful crew.

Paul mounted to a height of about two thousand feet, then let the
Sky-Bird straighten out in the direction of their next stop. He opened
up the throttle little by little, and the machine rapidly gained
momentum. But somehow the young pilot was dissatisfied. Finally he
hitched the stick over to the notch which should have brought the craft
into a speed of 150 miles, and watched the speedometer closely.

"Humph!" he ejaculated, after fifteen or twenty minutes.

"Say, Paul," cried Bob just then, "we're losing on the _Clarion_.
She's clear out of sight now."

"Why don't you tell me something I don't know?" growled Paul in a tone
very queer for him.

"What's the matter with you, Buddy?" demanded John, stepping up. "You
seem to have an awful grouch on, some way!"

"Got a good reason for it," snapped Paul. "This is enough to make a
preacher almost swear."

"Don't talk, but speed her up a bit if you don't want them to get
away," advised John.

"She doesn't act right, somehow," said Paul. "The Sky-Bird ought to be
hitting it up to a hundred and fifty right now, but she's only making a
hundred and fifteen. S