to put it in words," young Farmer replied.
"But--well, after that little talk with the colonel last night, I was
quite steamed up, as you would say. Very mysterious, and exciting, and
possibly dangerous, if you get what I mean."

"I do," Dawson grunted. "But all it is to me now is mysterious. You can
have my share of the excitement and danger, if any. I'm just full of
beans, though, I guess. After some of the close shaves you and I have
had, routine stuff just gets me down, but quickly! But there have been
two bright spots in this thing so far, thank goodness."

"Bright spots?" Freddy Farmer echoed. "Then I must have been looking the
other way at the time. What do you mean?"

"At Miami and San Juan," Dawson replied. "The way those two commanding
officers tried to pump us as to what the sealed envelopes contained. It
was nice to look very wise and not tell them a darn thing. It was fun to
see somebody else floundering around in the dark. Misery loves company.
Say! Know what I hope, Freddy?"

"I wouldn't even dare guess!" the English-born air ace replied. "What do
you hope?"

"That the lad we contact at San Fernando has a copper disc with numbers
that add up to forty-five!" Dawson told him.

"What?" young Farmer gasped. "Forty-five? But, Dave, the number is--"

"Sure, forty-one!" Dawson cut in. "But don't you catch on, pal? If the
number is forty-five, it means that the lad is a phoney. And that means
that maybe we'll get some excitement out of this aerial messenger boy
job."

"Rot, and very much so!" Freddy snapped angrily. "Come off it, Dave!
This is very serious business, and you are absolutely balmy to even hope
that things will go wrong. Just remember what Colonel Welsh said, Dave.
If one of these sealed envelopes should fall into Axis hands, he'd
rather put a bullet in his brain than go on living. Stop being a blasted
fool, old thing! It's not a bit like you at all!"

"Okay, okay, papa!" Dawson chuckled. "Consider that you have up-ended me
and given me the shingle where it counts most. Just the same, I hate to
think of going stark, raving mad in the cockpit of a Wright-powered
Vultee."

"Well, if that's all that's bothering you, you can put it out of your
mind at once," Freddy snapped, "because you were that way a long, long
time ago!"

"Oh, yeah?" Dawson shouted.

"Yeah!" Freddy Farmer replied. "But definitely!"

They left it that way for the next fifteen minutes or so. At the end of
that time the