But matters were not destined to he as easy and comfortable as they
hoped for. Soon after supper that night the wind sprang up. It
increased in violence until, at ten o'clock, there was a howling
gale, through which the airship had to fight her way with almost all
her available power.
"Some wind!" cried Dick, when he went on duty, and, glancing at the
gage noted it to be blowing at seventy miles an hour.
"Luckily it isn't altogether dead against us," said Mr. Vardon.
"As it is, though, it's cutting down our speed to about twenty miles
an hour, and I don't want to force the engine too much."
"No," agreed Dick. "It isn't worth while, especially as the gale
is serving the other craft just as it is us."
CHAPTER XXVIII
ABLAZE IN THE CLOUDS
There was small consolation, however, for those aboard Dick's craft,
in the thought that other competing airships were in the same plight
as themselves. For, as the night wore on, the wind seemed to
increase in power. Only the mechanical strength of the Abaris
enabled her to weather the storm.
"We could not possible do it were it not for the gyroscope
stabilizer," declared Lieutenant McBride. "We would be on our beams
ends all the while. It's a great invention."
"Well, this certainly is a good test of it," agreed Mr. Vardon, with
pardonable pride.
Indeed, no more severe strain could have been put upon the
apparatus. There would come a great gust of the tornado, and the
ship would begin to heel over.
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