“No trouble to do it,” came the quick reply, and with a pencil Tom made a cross on the chart while Jack’s eyes danced with joy.

“Then that must be Virginia off there to the west!” he cried, again snatching up the glasses for another earnest look.

Tom watched him out of the corner of his eye.  Well did he know that as Jack feasted his gaze upon the far distant land in imagination he was seeing that dearly loved home, with the friends who were so precious to him, and in fancy receiving their warm greetings.

They continued on for some little time.  Tom felt pretty confident that he was correct, though he would be glad to have some confirmation of his figuring.

“The fog is thinning some!” he finally stated, “and I think we’d better seek a lower level.”

“Might as well,” added Beverly, approving of the idea instantly.

“Yes,” added Jack, “when the time comes to fly landward we’ll want to be down far enough to see where we’re going.  We needn’t be afraid any longer of making a sensation, because seaplanes must be cruising over these waters nearly every day, coming from the station near Fortress Monroe at Hampton Roads.”

Accordingly it was not long before they were skirting the upper reaches of the diminishing fog bank, being about a thousand feet or so above the sea itself.  Now and then slight rifts appeared in the disappearing mist, and at such intervals it was possible for them to catch fleeting glimpses of the Atlantic, whose wide expanse they had successfully spanned, an event that would make history, if only it could ever be publicly known.

Jack could no longer see the low shore, much to his distress; but then he knew positively it was there, and when the time came to change their course directly into the west a brief flight would carry them over the land.

It really mattered little to him where they made their landing, since he would be able to find a way of reaching Bridgeton within a few hours.  He consulted his little wrist watch again and again.

Tom was more than a little amused to see Jack even clap it close to his ear.  He knew the reason of his doing this, for time was crawling on so slowly in the estimation of the impatient one that he even suspected the faithful little watch had ceased to go, though its steady ticking must have speedily assured him such could not possibly be the case.

“Listen!” Lieutenant Beverly suddenly called out.

A strange weird sound came faintly to their ears.  Even above all the noise of their working engine they could make it out.  To any one who came from the interior of the country it might have seemed a bewildering sound, and have called up strange fancies connected with marine monsters that were said to have once inhabited these waters near the Gulf Stream.

But the trio of voyagers had lived too long near the coast not to recognize a fog-siren when they heard its strident call.