er liner
_Valhalla_, of the Red Star Line. It is believed to have collided with
the abandoned hulk of an Italian-owned tramp freighter, the _Roma_,
which was left by its crew yesterday in a sinking condition.
Radiograms from the liner ceased three hours ago, when she was said to
be sinking. The officers doubted that her boats could be launched in
such a sea--"

I waited to hear no more. Charlie checked our route while we were
stopped. And we took off; we crossed the Rio Grande and flew across
the rocky, brush-scattered hills of Mexico, in a direct line for the
rock in the sea.

"If anything happens so we have to land again--well, it's just too
bad," Charlie said grimly. "But we've got to go this way. It's
something over six hundred miles in a straight line. Fifteen minutes
to four, now. We have to average nearly three hundred miles an hour to
get there."

He was silent and intent over his maps and instruments as we flew on
over the lofty Sierra Madre Range, and over a long slope down to the
Gulf of California. Head-winds beset us as we were over the stretch
of blue water, and we flew on into a storm.

"We had hardly time to make it, without the wind against us," Charlie
said. "If it holds us back many miles--well, it just mustn't!"

* * * * *

Purple lightning flickered ominously in the mass of blue storm-clouds
that hung above the mountainous peninsula of Lower California. I had a
qualm about flying into it in our untested machine. But Charlie leaned
tensely forward and sent the _Golden Gull_ on at the limit of her
speed. Gray vapor swirled about us, rent with livid streaks of
lightning. Thunder crashed and rumbled above the roar of our racing
engine. Wild winds screeched in the struts; rain and hail beat against
us. The plane rose and fell; she was swirled about like a falling
leaf. The stick struggled in Charlie's hands like a living thing. With
lips tightened to a thin line, he fought silently, fiercely,
desperately.

Suddenly we were sucked down until I had an uneasy feeling at the pit
of my stomach. I saw the grim outline of a bare mountain peak
dangerously close below us, shrouded in wind-whipped mist.

In sudden alarm I shouted, "We'd better get out of this, Charlie! We
can't live in it long!"

In the roar of the storm he did not hear me, and I shouted again.

He turned to face me, after a glance at the clock. "We've less than an
hour, Hammond. We've got to go on!"