opinion."

Leclair peered from under knit brows at the altimeter needle and the
inclinometer. He leaned from the pilot-house window and looked down at
the waves, now hardly a hundred feet below, their foaming hiss quite
audible. From those waves, red light reflected as the sun sank,
illuminated the Frenchman's lean, brown features and flung up wavering
patches of illumination against the pilot-house ceiling of burnished
metal, through the tilted windows that sheerly overhung the water.

"_Eh bien_--" murmured Leclair, noncommittally.

"Well, can we make it, sir?"

The ace inspected the vacuum-gauges, the helicopter tachometers, and
shrugged his shoulders.

"'_Fais tout, toi-même, et Dieu t'aidera_,'" he quoted the cynical old
French proverb. "If nothing gives way, there is a chance."

"If we settle into the sea, do you think that with our damaged floats
we can drive ashore without breaking up?"

"I do not, my Captain. There is a heavy sea running, and the surf is
bad on the beach. This Rio de Oro coast is cruel. Have you our exact
position?"

"Almost exactly on the Tropic of Cancer, half-way between Cape Bojador
to north of us, and Cape Blanco, to south."