Reaching the pilot room door Ned paused again. His eyes were now fixed on the world of clouds above him. His abstracted look had disappeared. His eyes swept the sky from west to east. Just above him, fleecy banks of motionless clouds seemed suspended, great umbrellas to protect the earth from the glistening sun. Their tumbling turrets turned to translucent pearl by the sun, below they joined to make one canopy of fleeting gray. Here and there, through rifts in this, Ned had seen that which made him halt again. Then he hurried to Alan’s side.
The town of Derby had been passed and Roy had just cautioned the pilot that Middleton lay twenty-five miles ahead with Hartford ten miles abeam to the north.
“Ain’t had a hitch. But I’m up a little—seems to handle easier.”
“I hope so,” answered Captain Ned soberly, and he hobbled over to Roy’s desk. One look at the speed register and the look of concern on his face deepened. The needle was yet vibrating just beyond the two and one-half mile figure. Then he went back to the wheel and for some moments studied the gauges showing the propeller revolutions and the engine development. The propeller speed had lessened but the engines were doing the same work that had already driven the car one hundred and eighty miles an hour. Alan knew what was going on in Ned’s mind and he chuckled.
“Don’t get scared before you’re hurt,” he said, laughing. “I guess you’re a little upset yet. Go back there and lie down a while. We’re doin’ all right.”
“We’re a half mile slow,” answered Ned. “We’ll have to go up right away. There’s a fast drift above this bank of clouds and it’s all in our favor—”
“Up nothin’,” laughed Alan again as he turned his wing wheel slightly and brought the _Flyer_ on an even keel again. “Go look at the register! Do you know what we did between Norwalk and Derby?”
“Better than we are doin’ now?” asked Ned.
“It’s twenty miles. We reeled it off in six and a half minutes. What’s that figure out?”
“One hundred and eighty-four miles an hour,” volunteered Roy with alacrity.
“But,” began the astounded Ned pointing to the speed indicator.
“I told you I was liftin’ her a little,” explained Alan. “Look at her now.”
Another glance showed Ned that the aeroplane had found herself. The indicator showed a speed of practically three miles a minute. The nervous young commander threw himself into Buck’s camp chair.