uainted with them long ago. Of course I don't know him very well,
since I never was around the office much, but the old tiger goes over
big with me."

"Hm--m. Think you'll enjoy playing nursemaid all the rest of the trip?"
Breckenridge asked caustically, but with an enigmatic smile.

"Think so? I _know_ so!" replied Stevens, positively. "I always did
like kids, and they always did like me--we fall for each other like ten
thousand bricks falling down a well. Why, a kid--_any_ kid--and I team
up just like grace and poise.... What's gnawing on you anyway, to make
you turn Cheshire cat all of a sudden? By the looks of that grin I'd
say you had swallowed a canary of mine some way or other; but darned if
I know that I've lost any," and he stared at his friend suspiciously.

"To borrow your own phrase, Steve, 'You'd be surprised,'" and
Breckenridge, though making no effort to conceal his amusement, would
say no more.

In a few minutes the door opened, and through it there stepped a
grizzled four-striper. Almost hidden behind his massive form there was
a girl, who ran up to Breckenridge and seized both his hands, her eyes
sparkling.

"Hi, Breckie, you old darling! I knew that if we both kept after
him long enough Dad would let me ride with you sometime. Isn't this
_gorgeous_?"

Stevens was glad indeed that the girl's enthusiastic greeting of the
pilot was giving him time to recover from his shock, for Director
Newton's "little girl, Nadia" was not precisely what he had led himself
to expect. Little she might be, particularly when compared with the
giant frame of Captain King, or with Steve's own five-feet-eleven of
stature and the hundred and ninety pounds of rawhide and whalebone that
was his body, but child she certainly was not. Her thick, fair hair,
cut in the square bob that was the mode of the moment, indicated that
Nature had intended her to be a creamy blonde, but as she turned to be
introduced to him, Stevens received another surprise--for she was one
of those rare, but exceedingly attractive beings, a natural blonde with
brown eyes and black eyebrows. Sun and wind had tanned her satin skin
to a smooth and even shade of brown, and every movement of her lithe and
supple body bespoke to the discerning mind a rigidly-trained physique.

"Doctor Stevens, you haven't met Miss Newton, I hear," the captain
introduced them informally. "All the officers who are not actually tied
down at their posts are anxious to do the