a blooming owl."

Martins sped around the house, a white-clad figure racing bare-footed
for the car and muttering under his breath every time his flying feet
struck bits of gravel and sharp stones. The sound of the airplane motors
was now much nearer; the siren was still screaming its fright;
anti-aircraft guns were futilely belching steel into the air, and the
searchlights were getting jumpy in their haste to locate the intruders
and hold them in a beam of light.

3

Martins, with Larkin seated at his side, hurled the car through the
narrow streets and out to the airdrome with a daring recklessness known
only to war-trained chauffeurs who could push a car faster without
lights than most people would care to ride in broad daylight. But their
speed was slow compared to that made by the surprised motor cycle
orderly who had thundered off with McGee, and when Larkin sprang from
the car as it screeched to a stop at the edge of the 'drome his ear
caught the sound of a Clerget motor pounding under an advanced throttle
as it lifted a plane from the ground at the far end of the dark field.
An excited, buzzing group of pilots and mechanics were huddled together
on the tarmac near the circus tent that served as a hangar, and still
more men were emerging hastily from the humpbacked, black steel
elephants that served them as quarters.

Larkin ran toward the group near the hangar entrance,

"Where's McGee?" he shouted, knowing the answer but hoping for some word
that would give the lie to what his ears told him. He knew that the
plane which had now swung back over the field and was roaring directly
above as it battled for altitude was none other than McGee's balky
little Camel. But no one answered him; they merely stared, as men who
have just witnessed a feat of daring too noble for words, or as girls
who face an impending tragedy and are too horror-stricken for action.

"Where's McGee?" Larkin shouted again. "Don't stand there like a bunch
of yaps! You'll be getting a setting of high explosive eggs here in a
minute. Don't you hear that siren? Those Boche planes? Where's McGee, I
asked you?"

Yancey stepped from the group and pointed up.

"I reckon that's him up yonder," he said in the slow drawl that was
doubly maddening at such a moment. "He blew in here a few minutes ago
like a Texas Panhandle twister, ordered the greaseballs to roll his
plane on the line, and was off before she was good and warm. I reckon--"

Larki