ith its own destroyers, submarines, cruisers,
battleships, aircraft carriers and the ZX-2, sister dirigible of the
Blue Fleet's ZX-1. Chris spurted the scout ahead and murmured:

"This war game's goin' to be a big affair--the biggest yet!"

It was. The Atlantic Fleet of the United States Navy, termed "Blue"
for convenience, had been assigned to guard the Panama Canal; the
Pacific Fleet, "Black," to attack it. The cream of America's sea
forces had been assembled for that week of March, 1935, all the way
from crabby little destroyers to the two newly completed monarchs of
the air, the twin dirigibles, fresh from the hangars at Akron, a
thousand feet each in length and loaded with the latest offensive and
defensive devices developed by Government laboratories.

[Illustration]

The war game around the Canal was planned for more than practice,
however. The eyes of the whole world were on that array of America's
ocean might--the eyes of one foreign nation in particular. Washington
knew of the policies of that nation, and wished to impress upon is the
hopelessness of them. More than a game, this concentration of sea and
air-borne fighting power was a gesture for the continued peace of the
world--a gesture strong with the hint of steel.

Chris Travers was vaguely aware, through the rumors of the mess-room,
of the double meaning of the game he was playing his part in, but this
morning he didn't give a single thought. He was too wrapped up in his
job of spotting the van of the Black Fleet, radio-telephoning latitude
and longitude to the bridge of the Blue Fleet flagship, and getting
home to his dirigible without being declared destroyed by one of the
war game umpires.

Therefore, half an hour later, his heart thrilled as he glimpsed,
wraith-like on the steely horizon, a wisp of smoke.

* * * * *

He catapulted forward, eyes steady on that hint of ships. The smoke
grew to a cloud of black pouring from the funnels of a V-shaped squad
of destroyers, rolling through the lazy swells of the Pacific waters.
Behind them came the bulldogs, larger warships, hazy blurs in the
distance.

Chris struck fist in palm to the tune of a gleeful chortle. He was
first! He hauled the microphone from its cubby in the dashboard and
spoke the code words. Latitude, longitude and steaming direction of
the Black Fleet he gave rapidly, and the information knifed back to
the bridge of the Blue Fleet flagship, a hundre