captain and a navigating officer. She was in dark clothes! But she had been there all the time. He suddenly recalled the French maid Jeff had mentioned in the hotel. That answered his puzzled wonder. He knew who had thrown that life preserver, at any rate. It could not be the mistress. It left only the maid to suspect.

Fast as a dart the hydroplane cut the surges.

“She’ll get there—they see the life preserver!” he cried, looking past the tilting wing as they executed a split-S to turn to head back the quickest possible way.

“The amphibian can set down on the water and she’ll pass the place—already there’s somebody climbing out of the front cockpit onto the wing—to grab the thing as they pass!” Sandy muttered.

“That seaplane is coming fast!” mused Dick. “What a race! It will be a wonder if there isn’t a smash when they all come together!”

It took only seconds for the race to conclude.

With a warning cry that was drowned by their engine noise, Larry saw that the amphibian was in such a line of flight that it must be crossed by the course of the hydroplane—and from the respective speeds, as well as he could judge, there might be either a collision or one of the craft must alter its course.

“The seaplane is almost down on the water—and coming like an arrow toward that white preserver!” gasped Dick. “Will its wings hit the yacht?”

“Can’t we do anything at all?” Sandy wondered desperately.

Evidently Jeff either caught his thought or decided on a course through his own quick wit.

Opening the throttle full-on, he kicked rudder and depressed his left wing. Around came the airplane. Skidding out of her course from the momentum and the sharp application of control, she moved sharply upward and sidewise.

Deftly Jeff caught the skid.

Righted, Sandy exultantly screeched at the maneuver.

Flying fast, in a steep descent, they went across the nose of the amphibian, and in the turmoil of their propeller wash she went almost out of control, and before her pilot caught up his stability the hydroplane raced across her path in a slanting line and made for the small round object bobbing in the trough between two swells.

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