She didn’t understand perfectly then what had happened to Ned. It was this: while he was on the field, talkin’ with Alton--while Jane was talkin’ with me, private!--somebody brushed past him, and then Ned discovered a scratch on his hand, lookin’ like it was made by a pin. He thought nothin’ of it, but that scratch was full of a drug. What it was we don’t know yet, but it was powerful, and without the shadow of a doubt it had been used by somebody in the Stormbird people’s pay--somebody, probably at Stud Walker’s behest. The object was to put the Alton out of the race by cripplin’ its pilot--and, if it hadn’t been for Jane, the trick would have succeeded! But with Jane at the stick, it was far from succeedin’! Jane stretched that ship to the limit. The Imp bobbed far behind. Territory unreeled under her. The Stormbird loomed large again. Both ships were goin’ their limit. The race settled down to a question of which ship had the more speed and power and stamina, and the victor would be decided by a very narrow margin. Jane kept the throttle wide, and waited for the Alton to do its stuff--and it did. Slowly she drew up. She kept the Alton on a level with the Stormbird’s tail for a hundred miles. Then slowly the differences in the ships began to tell. The Alton crept up. An inch. Another inch. Another inch--forward always, at a mad airspeed, the motor blasting like a demon loose out of hell, the whole ship shaking, the wires screaming. The earth spun and veered. Another inch--another. Little by little the Alton crept up on the Stormbird until, prop even with prop, they drove ahead without either gainin’ a mite. Once again the Stormbird began to slip back; and Jane--yes!--tossed Mr. Stud Walker an ironic kiss! Jane kept that ship howlin’. On she went. On. The skies began to darken. The air got a little bumpy. The visibility dropped. The exhaust tubes of the planes, white-hot, spouted orange fire. And Jane drove on. Little by little, again, the Alton took its margin of lead. What was that? Water! Long Island Sound! Only a few miles away was the finish field! Jane kept the plane drivin’. The Stormbird howled on the Alton’s tail. Both planes were crazy flyin’ things--crazy. Then the field, the big square! Closer and closer! Jane stepped down to it, slowin’ as little as possible. Down she swooped, and the ground swung up at her. She felt the trucks touch. She zipped across the sand; she ground looped; she trundled back. And as she came to a stop, and the crowd started for her, the Stormbird dropped out of the sky. Jane jumped out of her plane. She knew Ned wasn’t seriously hurt, but he needed help, and to the first man she saw she shouted: “Get a doctor!” Then, with reporters mobbin’ her, she just smiled, gave her name and that of the plane, and waited until a fat man with an official badge, head of the Committee, came up to her. Then she said pertly: “Well, I guess I won, didn’t I?”