ked like nothing else in the world but just
that.

"Come on, now!" ordered Spud harshly, as a figure in gray and gold
appeared around the corner of the coffee shop. "You're plinty late, me
fine lad! Now get in there and clean up that dirty motor and get her
runnin'! Try out every fan on the old boat; then we'll be off.

"You're number CG41!" he whispered. And Chet repeated the number as he
followed the pilot through the gate.

"O.K.," said the guard at the gate, "and I'll bet he gives you hell and
to spare!"

Chet slouched his shoulders to disguise his real height and followed
where Spud O'Malley, with every indication of righteous anger, strode
indignantly down the pavement, at the far end of which was a battered
and service-stained ship.

* * * * *

Her hull of dirty red showed mottlings of brown; she was sadly in need
of a painter's gun. She would groan and squeal, Chet knew, when the fans
lifted her from the hold-down clutch; and she couldn't fly at over
twenty thousand without leaking her internal pressure through a thousand
cracks that made her porous as an old balloon--but to Chet's eyes the
old relic of the years was a thing of sheer beauty and grace.

O'Malley was leading through an open freight hatch; Chet followed, and,
at his beckoning hand, slipped into a dingy cabin.

"Lay low there," the pilot ordered, and still, as Chet observed, his
speech showed how clearly the man was thinking, since the emergency
still existed "I've cleared some time ago, Mr. Bullard; we're ready to
leave as soon as we get the dispatcher's O.K."

The minutes were long where Chet waited in the pilot's cabin. Each sound
might mean a last-minute search of departing ships, but he tried to tell
himself that the attention of the officers would be centered upon the
passenger liners.

Beyond, where he could see out into the control room, a white light
flashed. He heard the bellowing orders of the Irishman at the controls.
And, as other sounds reached his ears, he had to grip his hands hard
while he fought for control of the laughter that was almost hysterical.
For, beneath him, he felt the sluggish lift of the ship, and, from every
joint and plate of this old-timer of the air, came squawking protests
against the cruel fates that drove her forth again to face the
buffeting, racking gales.

But the blue light of an ascending area was about them, and Spud
O'Malley was shouting from the control room: