Of the other starters, Gladwin was the nearest to the boys. He was
driving ahead at a forty-mile clip about fifty feet below them and a
little to the west. Owing to the construction of his machine, the wind
was sweeping him more and more off his course as he rose, and the boys
saw they had little to fear from him. The others were in a bunch, a
quarter of a mile to the rear, and, even as they glanced back, the
boys saw one of the aviators dive downward and land. Evidently
something had gone wrong with his engine.

The wind was freshening and this, while good for the boys, evidently
meant trouble for the Buzzard; for the black craft, swiftly as she was
going, was now giving occasional giddy careens. Malvoise apparently
had a hard time to keep her on an even keel.

The ground below them, a vast level plain, was dotted all over its
flat surface with automobiles, men and women on horseback, and boys
and men on motorcycles, but fast as the people following the
aeroplanes drove their various means of progression, the sky clippers
flew along even faster.

The Golden Eagle was capable of making seventy miles an hour and, as
her engine warmed up and Frank speeded up the spark and found a
favorable air current, she gradually picked up speed till she found
her full capacity.

Through powerful binoculars Harry scrutinized the landscape ahead. It
didn't take him long to make out the low white buildings, with their
red roofs that marked the half-way point of the race--namely, the
Harrowbrook Club. So swiftly were they going that it seemed as if the
buildings rushed at them instead of their dashing toward the