s back with the 'plane, for you," said he, as he
climbed into the driving seat, after the passengers had been stowed.
"That will be tomorrow night. Of course, we daren't fly by day. And
mind," he added, adjusting his spark and throttle, "mind you meet me
with this very same machine, safe and sound, at the Lake Erie refuge!"

"Why this same machine?" inquired Craig.

"Why? Because I intend to use this, and no other, in the final attack.
Could poetic justice be finer than that the Air Trust works be destroyed
with the help of one of their own 'planes?"

No more was said, save brief good-byes. Those were times when
demonstrativeness, whether in life or death, was at a discount. A
hand-clasp and a few last instructions as to the time and place of
meeting, sufficed. Then Gabriel pressed the button of the self-starter
and opened the throttle.

With a sudden gusty chatter, the engine caught. A great wind sprang up,
from the roaring, whirling blades. The Floriot rolled easily forward,
speeded up, and gathered headway.

Gabriel suddenly rotated the rising-plane. The great gull soared,
careened and took the air with majestic power. The watchers on the
mountain-side saw its hooded lights, that glowed upon its compass and
barometric-gauge, slowly spiralling upward, ever upward, as Gabriel
climbed with his two passengers.

Then the lights sped forward, northward, in a long tangent, and, as they
swiftly diminished to mere specks, the echo of a farewell hail drifted
downward from the black and star-dusted emptiness above.

Craig turned to Grantham, when the last gleam of light had faded in a
swift trajectory.

"God grant they reach the last remaining refuge safely!" said he, with
deep emotion. "And may their flight be quick and sure! For the fate of
the world, its hope and its salvation from infinite enslavement, are
whirling through the trackless wastes of air, to-night!"

CHAPTER XXXII.

OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS.

The first intimation that Flint and Waldron had of any opposition to
their plans, of any revolt, of any danger, was at quarter past three on
the afternoon of October 8th, 1925. All that afternoon, busy with their
final plans for the immediate extension of their system, they had been
going over certain data with Herzog, receiving reports from branch
managers and conferring with the Congressional committee that--together
with Dillon Slade, their secret-service tool, now also President
Supple's private secre