anca Base and instantly received a reply that came in loud and
clear.

"So that settles that," he grunted. "Freddy's set has gone haywire. He
probably picked up those Snoopers long ago and hasn't been able to
contact me up to now. He's around. I can't see him, but he must be
around somewhere doing his job of trailing those Snoopers back to their
base. With his eagle eyes, I'll bet a million bucks _he_ can see _me_!"

His heart overflowing with joy at the knowledge that Freddy Farmer was
alive and still flying, Dawson left his set tuned as fine as possible
and gave all of his attention to the Messerschmitt-led air cavalcade of
Junkers 88's that was sliding through the air over the mountain peaks.
They were all well below Dawson's altitude now, and all he had to do was
to throttle to their speed and hug the sides of the cloud banks. True,
there was a small chance that he might be sighted, silhouetted against
the clouds as he was, but that was the chance he had to take. If he was
sighted, he knew that it would be the Messerschmitt 109 that would turn
back to drive him off, and so he kept his gaze on that plane and paid
little or no attention to the bombers.

Eastward and then southward the Nazi planes flew, and then at the end of
some thirty-five minutes, they changed their course to the east again,
and then northward. Most of the Atlas Range was out of sight now. Ahead
lay barren country that looked as though nothing, not even a blade of
grass, had ever lived there. Farther ahead was the border line between
Morocco and French Algeria, but of course there was nothing to mark it.
Nothing, for as far as the eye could see there was only wasteland. These
barren lands of the western rim of the Sahara Desert seemed to shimmer
and tremble in the blistering heat of the sun. Even the banks of clouds
were gone now. They had been left over the Atlas Mountains, and the sun
blazing down made Dawson's throttles feel like red hot pokers, despite
the fact that he was some twelve thousand feet in the air.

As a matter of fact, the constant glare of the sun, and the intense
concentration on the Nazi formation ahead and below him strained his
eyes to the utmost, and he began to see crazy objects and shapes that
were no longer there when he took a second look.

It was because of this that he paid little or no attention to a
gray-green blur that appeared on the barren earth just ahead of the Nazi
planes. That is, he gave it scant attention