For the next few moments nobody said a word. All three of them leaned forward in their seats and strained their eyes at the darkness ahead and below. Dave's hands felt cold and clammy, and he could feel the little drops of sweat ooze out on his forehead and trickle down his face. For the last fifteen seconds or so he had spotted what he believed to be a mountain peak just ahead, and not more than a hundred feet below. He didn't say a word to the others. He kept his mouth shut and eased the plane a little to the left so as to be able to pass on by the peak with enough free air to spare between his right wing tip and the unseen trees or jagged rocks he knew must dot all sides of that peak. Once past it, he could start the engines again and climb for altitude. It was a cinch that the unknown attacker was cutting about in the black sky somewhere far behind him. But once he got beyond that peak he felt that his lead would be great enough for him to risk showing his exhaust plumes. As a matter of fact, though, it was quite possible that the unknown attacker was miles and miles behind. It was possible that the man had cut around to the east, believing that Dave wouldn't dare chance holding his westerly course with the mountains so close. "Yeah, maybe!" he murmured. "But I'm going to make sure just the same!" "What did you say, Dave?" Freddy Farmer cried out in a voice of alarm. "I didn't say a thing," Dave grunted, and tightened his hold on the controls. "Just thinking a little out loud. Shut up, little man, or you'll make me rock the boat." Freddy Farmer caught his breath as though he were about to speak. Instead, though, he said nothing. He simply leaned farther forward in his seat. Dave caught the movement out the corner of his eye, and grinned, tight-lipped. Freddy had sighted the mountain peak, but realized that he had seen it and was trying to slide by on the left. So the English youth had snapped his lips shut so as not to give Colonel Welsh a slight case of heart failure. Good old Freddy. Always knew when to open his mouth, and when to keep mum. Perhaps it was six seconds, but it seemed like six thousand years to Dave before the slightly darker shadow that was the mountain peak slid past the tip of the right wing and disappeared behind. The instant it was gone from view he whipped on the switches, caught both engines, and fed them high test gas at full throttle. The roar of the engines breaking into life was a sound akin to worlds crashing into each other. Yet at the same time it was a welcome sound to Dave's ears, and to Freddy Farmer's too. But what filled their hearts with an even greater happiness was the Lockheed climbing upward to a safe altitude above the mountain range. The instant he was well clear, Dave swung the plane onto its westerly course again, and relaxed in the seat. "Top-hole, Dave," Freddy Farmer said quietly. "A very pukka bit of flying, that."