Poodle was used to aviating, now. He was whistling quite carelessly and busily packing the food snugly away, and lighting the tetrahedral’s search-light, like a sailor coiling ropes as a schooner pulls out from her moorings, as the _Hustle_ soared up to pass over the Coast Range. CHAPTER VII A GLIDE TO SAFETY The _Hustle_ was hurling herself through the night at a hundred miles an hour. The roar of the great Kulnoch motor filled the air; and through it sounded a sharp whine as the wind struck the planes. The powerful search-light bored a hole through intense darkness ahead, now and then showing a mountain peak; at sight of which Hike shot the machine up so fast that she seemed about to turn turtle. Sometimes the light, turned down on earth, picked out a mining town, with everyone asleep; sometimes, a broad river, shining in the light, between threatening rock walls. On the _Hustle_ dashed, never hesitating, over valleys and patches of yellow desert, from which a warm wind rose to flutter the planes; over hills and forests and long railroad-trestles where rails flashed in the light. Hike had to think about a hundred things, but most of all he thought about keeping the _Hustle_ going _on_—on to Washington—on to save Martin Priest! This was no time to lose his nerve or his wits. On; no matter how much his eyes smarted and watered in the wind. On; though his hands got cold and cramped, as they clutched the levers; and he seemed deaf for life, in the ceaseless smashing sound of the motor. He had to make the _Hustle_ hustle! He remembered a hundred parts of the machine all at once. He studied out where he was, on a map that unrolled from one rod upon another, and avoided bad hill-passes. He kept an eye on the dial of his aneroid barometer, strapped to his wrist like a watch. The barometer showed how high they were, and he never let the machine drop below two thousand feet, if he could help it; and so avoided the bad air-currents near earth. He watched the engine feed, tried the carbureter, saw that the fuel-mixture was right. He looked back at the rudder, and saw that it answered his lever. Most of all, he studied his roadway—the air. Though he was heading as due east as possible, a powerful north wind was driving him southward before it. Sometimes the wind, suddenly charging from a great gap between two mountain peaks, tossed the _Hustle_ like a leaf; picked it up and threw it almost against a hill; then let it drop two hundred feet. The sailor of small boats is rather busy, among heavy seas, when a sudden flaw of wind strikes his sail. He has to keep the tiller on the jiggle, watch the mainsail, and be ready to let go the mainsheet almost before he can think. But sailing a small boat is as much easier than driving an aeroplane through uneven air-currents as sliding down hill is easier than sailing.