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 with another airplane or with an airship. The report, yesterday, disagreed with this opinion because no other aircraft had been damaged yesterday; none was missing. None had been seen in the vicinity. Moreover, Selby had been altogether too good a pilot to smash, midair, with another machine on a calm, clear morning. The same was true, today, of Billy Kent.

"You figure he ran into a rock up there?" I asked Pete.

"D'you remember," he put to me, "What Selby's altimeter showed yesterday?"

The altimeter was the recording device registering altitudes and it had given us Selby's height above the sea before he fell.

"Twelve thousand feet plus," I said.

"His gives twelve thousand slightly short," Pete told me. "That's where they both struck something hard enough to break off that wing." He pointed to the right wing of Kent's plane which floated a couple of hundred yards away.

"Let's look at it," I suggested; and Pete stood on my float while I started my engine