“Isn’t it?  But somehow, I like Golden Butterfly best.  Our machine may be a bit heavier, but 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 Golden Butterfly maintained about the same altitude, but the gap between the two aerial craft was not closing up.

“Mortlake’s taking a desperate chance to show Lieut.  Bradbury what the Cobweb can do,” exclaimed Roy.  “With a new engine, he’s risking too much.”