y had seen. He stared vacantly at the Infant.
"Didn't know," he said thickly, "--didn't know you were here. I'll set
you down; I'll let you out before I ram him...."
For reply, the other pointed ahead. The red ship had torn through a
layer of thick clouds; Danny was flying below them above a mountainous
world of bare hill-tops and wooded valleys. Directly ahead, hovering
high over a mountain higher than its fellows, was the white craft of
the enemy; Danny, saw it in hard outline against the darker masses of
clouds beyond. He saw that it was motionless, that a slender cable was
suspended for a thousand feet below, and that the end of the cable,
hanging close above the mountain top, was split into a score of wires
that stood out in all directions, while, from each, poured a stream of
blue fire.
And once more all this that he saw was as nothing to the pilot; all
thought, too, of his fellow victim went from his mind. He could see
only the white ship, doubly hideous because of its seeming purity;
and, as before, he brought the cross hairs of directional sights upon
it while he opened the rocket exhaust to the full.
But even pilot O'Rourke, with the highest rating in the A. F. F.,
could not follow the lightning-swift leap of the snow-white thing that
buried itself in the smother of cloud banks above.
* * * * *
Danny set his red ship down on that same barren hilltop; he motioned
Morgan to follow as he stepped out.
"We're somewhere in Pennsylvania," he announced. "You're stayin' here.
Sorry to dump you out like this, but you'll find a way out. Get to a
radio--call a plane." He held out his hand in unspoken farewell.
But the other man disregarded it. "What's the idea?" he inquired.
Danny's reply came in short, breathless sentences. "Going up to find
that ship. Ram it. No use of your getting smashed up, too. Good-by,
Infant; you're a good old scout."
Danny's mind was all on what lay ahead; he was wildly eager to be off
on the hunt. It took him an instant to comprehend the look from
Morgan's steady, blue eyes.
"Listen!" the younger man was ordering. "You're not going to do that;
I am! And not just that way, either."
"Did you see that cable and the electric discharges?" he demanded
excitedly. "It's just as I thought: he accumulates a negative charge;
he has to get rid of it--he's just like a thunder-cloud loaded with
static--and the heat ray does it. I had it figured that way
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