THE WHITE PERIL.
"What's that? No, not that schooner below there--I mean that sort of
whitish drift--it looks like cotton--on the horizon?"
Jess leaned forward and addressed Jimsy.
"You've got me guessing," rejoined that slangy young person.
"Ask Peggy."
"No, I don't want to bother her now. She's got her hands full, I fancy."
The _Golden Butterfly_ was swinging steadily onward above a sparkling sea.
The slight haze perceptible from the land was not noticeable to the air
voyagers. Below them a four-masted schooner was tacking in the light wind.
Closer in shore lay several grim looking battleships and cruisers. In
their leaden colored "war paint" they looked menacing and bulldoggish.
Far off, a mere speck, could be seen a dim and indistinct object pointing
upward from the cape like a finger. They guessed it was the light for
which they were aiming. Peggy's last glance at the compass had confirmed
this guess.
Jimsy looked about him. About a quarter of a mile off, and slightly ahead
was the _Cobweb_. The silvery aeroplane was rushing through the atmosphere
at a great rate. But profiting by Mortlake's experience, Fanning was
evidently not speeding the 'plane to its fullest capacity.
On the other side was a large red biplane flying steadily and keeping
about level with the _Golden Butterfly_. Far behind lagged a monoplane.
The other contestants had dropped out of the race. They were so manifestly
out of it that their drivers did not care to continue.
A glance at the speedometer showed Peggy's two passengers that they were
reeling off fifty-five miles an hour. The _Cobweb_ was doing slightly
better.
"We should round the light in a few minutes now," said Jimsy scrutinizing
his watch anxiously.
"Will they report us?" asked Jess.
"Yes. There is a wireless rigged up there. The minute we round it on our
return trip word will be flashed back to the starting point."
Silently they sat counting the minutes roll by. All at once Jimsy noticed
that the air had become strangely damp and moist. He looked up. He could
not refrain a cry of astonishment as he did so. The _Golden Butterfly_ was
enveloped in a damp, steamy sort of smother. The _Cobweb_ had been blotted
out and so had the other aeroplanes.
"Fog," he exclaimed. "What a bit of bad luck."
"It's just as bad for the others," Peggy reminded him.
"Have you got your course?" asked Jess anxiously.
"Yes. Almost due east. But in this dense mist it will be hard to come
close enough to the lighthouse to be reported without the danger of
dashing into it."
"Are you going to try for it?"
"Of course," was the brief reply. Peggy slowed down the engine. The
_Golden Butterfly_ now seemed to be gliding silently through lonely
billows of white sea fog. It was an uncanny feeling. The occupants of the
machine felt a chilling sense of complete isolation.
Thanks to their barograph, however, they could judge their height above
the sea.
"Good thing we've got it," commented Jimsy; "otherwise we might have a
thrilling encounter with the topmasts of some schooner."
"I only wish we had some instrument to show us where the other aeroplanes
are," said Peggy; "it's hard to hear anything in this fog."
"Maybe it will clear off," suggested Jess hopefully.
"Not unless we get some wind," opined Jimsy; "queer how quick that wind
dropped and this smother came up."
Nobody even hinted at the deadly danger they were in. But each occupant of
the _Golden Butterfly_ knew it full well. Except for the compass, they had
no way of guiding their flight, and to turn about would have been to court
disaster. There was only one thing for it, to keep on. This Peggy did,
grimly compressing her lips.
"Hark!" exclaimed Jimsy suddenly.
Far below them they could hear a mournful sound. It was wafted up to them
in fits and starts.
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"
"A church bell," cried Jess, "we must be over land, Peggy!"
The other shook her head.
"That's a bell buoy, I guess," she said.
"I wish he'd tell us how to get out of here," joked Jimsy, rather wearily.
"Who?" asked Jess.
"That bell boy."
Never had one of Jimsy's jokes fallen so flat. He mentally resolved not to
attempt another one.
Presently he looked at his watch.
"Almost eleven," he said, "we must have passed the light by this time."
"I don't know," said Peggy helplessly; "if only the chart marked that bell
buoy--but it doesn't."
She again scrutinized the chart pinned before her on the sloping slab
designed for such purposes. But no bell buoy was marked on it as being
located anywhere near where they estimated they must be drifting.
Drifting, however, is not quite the correct word. An aeroplane cannot
drift. Its life depends upon its motion. The instant it stops or decreases
speed beyond a certain point, in that same instant it must fall to the
earth.
This fact is what made the position of the young sky cruisers particularly
dangerous. Although the gauge showed that they had plenty of gasoline, the
supply--even with the use of the auxiliary tanks--would not hold out
indefinitely. If the fog did not lift, or they did not land, sooner or
later they must face disaster. Worse still, they were--or believed they
were, navigating above the sea.
Had the _Golden Butterfly_ been fitted with pontoons like some of the Glen
Curtiss machines, this would not have been so alarming. But a descent into
the ocean would inevitably mean a speedy death by drowning.
Suddenly voices struck through the smother all about them. They seemed to
come from below.
"It's thick as pea soup, captain!"
"Aye, aye; I'll be glad when we're out of it I kin tell yer. This bay's a
bad place ter be in er fog."
"A ship," cried Jimsy. "Quick, Peggy," he almost yelled the next instant.
"Set your rising levers."
The girl swiftly manipulated the machinery that sent the _Golden
Butterfly_ on an upward course.
But it was only just in time that this maneuver was carried out. All of
them had a glimpse for an instant of the gilded ball on the main-mast
head of the vessel beneath them. For an instant Peggy's watchful eye had
been deflected from the height gauge, and she had allowed the _Golden
Butterfly_ to drop almost on the top of some coasting vessel's mast.
The danger over, they could not help laughing at the whimsical adventure.
"Just to think how utterly unconscious those fellows were of the fact that
three human beings were hovering right above them and listening to every
word of their conversation," chuckled Jimsy; "isn't it queer?"
A little while later a steamer's whistle boomed through the fog beneath
them, but as the altitude register showed five hundred feet, they did not
bother about it.
"At all events we know we're still above the water and not in danger of
colliding with any church steeples," said Jess, and she found consolation
in the thought.
"Have you any idea at all as to the direction of the light, Peggy?"
inquired Jimsy at length.
"I--I really don't know," confessed Peggy, with a gulp; "everything's
mixed up. It's so thick I can't tell anything and I'm deathly afraid of
running into the lighthouse by mistake."
"Then for goodness sake give it a wide berth," cried Jimsy; "if we keep on
cruising about for a while we'll be bound to land somewhere. Anyhow we've
got lots of gasoline, that's one comfort."
It was, indeed. In the steady hum of their powerful motor the young
aviators found consolation in that lonely ride through the billowing
fog-banks. At all events, there was no sign of a falter or skip there.
"If only we could get some wind," sighed Jess.
"Might as well wish for the moon," said Jimsy; "the air is as still as it
used to be at noon out on the desert."
"What a contrast between the Big Alkali and this!" cried Jess, half
hysterically. The strain of the white drifting fog was beginning to tell
upon her.
Jimsy looked at her sharply.
"Look here, Sis," he began and was going on when a sharp cry from Peggy
arrested him. At the same instant the _Golden Butterfly_ swerved sharply,
swinging over on her beam-ends almost.
Right in front of them, for one dreadful instant, there loomed the
outlines of another aeroplane. The next instant it was gone. But the
picture of the deadly peril, its outlines exaggerated by the mist, was
photographed in the minds of every one of them.
"We must land somewhere, soon," said Peggy, in rather a faint voice; "I
don't think I could stand many shocks like that. Another inch, and----."
She did not complete the sentence. Her two listeners did not require her
to. It did not take a vivid imagination to have pictured the result of
that "other inch."