watched the myriads of humans, like birds, rising from the transports that still lay in the sunshine. There were literally thousands of them. She wondered if human eyes had ever before witnessed so marvelous a sight.

They had come over the mainland of Mexico now and were flying at a height of about half a mile. Shrouded in the tropical twilight, the landscape below was but dimly discernible. As the darkness came on, Ethel discovered that a small light glowed from the side of the car in front of the driver. Gripping the hand-rail, she made bold to raise herself; and, stopping beneath the searchlight and machine-gun that hung, one beneath the other, on swivels in the center of the framework, she peered forward over Komoru's shoulder.

The taciturn steersman turned and smiled but said nothing. Ethel noted carefully the equipment of the driver's box. It was a duplicate throughout of the dummy steering gear with which she had practiced in the ship's gymnasium. One conspicuous addition, however, was an object illuminated by the small glow lamp that had attracted her attention. This proved to be chart or map mounted at either end on short rollers. As the girl watched it, she perceived that it moved slowly. A red line was drawn across the map and hovering over this was the tip of a metal pointer. A compass and a watch were mounted at one side of the chart case.

Ethel watched the chart creep back on its rollers and reasoned that the pointer indicated the location of the aeroplane. She wondered how the movement of the chart was regulated with that of the plane. Finally she decided to ask Komoru.

"By the landmarks and the time," he said. "Do you see that blue coming in on the northeast corner of the map?"

"Yes."

"Well, watch it."

After a few minutes of waiting the words "Gulf of Mexico" rolled out upon the chart. "Why, that can't be," said Ethel, "we just left the Pacific Ocean."

"But we have crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec," replied Komoru; "it is only a hundred miles wide."

His companion looked over the side of the car and to the front and. to the right, she could see by the perfectly flat horizon that they were approaching water.

"The map is unrolling too fast," said Komoru, as the pointer stood over the edge of the indicated water—and he pushed back the little lever on the clock mechanism that rolled the chart. "We have a little head wind," he added.

Ethel resumed her seat and sat musing for a half hour or so. Komoru looked around and called to her.

"Look over to your left," he said. "The lights of Vera Cruz. We are making better time now," he added, again adjusting the regulator on the clock work.

The driver contemplated his compass carefully and shifted his course a few points to the right. Ethel settled in her bamboo cage and pulled her aviation cap down tightly to shield her face and ears from the wind pressure.

For hours they sat so—the girl's heart throbbing with awe, wonder and fear; the man unemotional and silent, a steady, firm hand on the wheel, his feet on the engine controls and his goggled eyes glancing critically at compass or watch or out into the starlit waste of the night, disturbed only by the whirl and shadow of other planes which with varying speed passed or were passed, as the aerial host rushed onward. There were only small tail lights, one above and one below the main plane, to warn following drivers against collision.

With her head bent low upon her knees, Ethel at length fell into a doze. She was aroused by Komoru's calling, and straightening up with a start, she arose and leaned forward over the driver. Komoru was looking intently at the scroll chart. In a moment she designed the cause of his interest, for there had rolled across the forward surface of the chart the outline of a coast.

In the far left-hand corner was marked the city of Galveston, and to the right was the Sabine River that forms the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. Ethel raised her eyes from the map and looked far out to the Northwest. Sure enough, she discerned the lights of a city at the point where Galveston was indicated by the chart.

"How far have we come?" she asked in astonishment.

"Eight hundred miles," replied Komoru. "See, it is nearly two-thirty. The first men with the faster planes were to have arrived at one o'clock."

A little later they passed over the dimly discernible coast line, some thirty or forty miles to the east of Galveston. Komoru carefully consulted his compass, watch and aneroid, and made a slight change in his course.

"Where do we land?" asked the girl.

Komoru steadied the wheel with one hand; and, reaching into the breast pocket of his aviator's jacket, he produced a little document-like roll. "These are the orders," he explained, and asked Ethel to spread out the papers on the chart case.

The instruction sheet read:

"Fly twenty-eight minutes beyond the coast line, which will place you ten or twenty miles northwest of the town of Beaumont, where a fire of some sort will be lighted about 3 a.m.

"When you alight locate one or more farm houses and attach one of the enclosed notices to the door.

"This done, fly toward the Beaumont signal fire and assist in subduing the town and capturing all petroleum works in the region.

"At 6 a.m., if petroleum works are safe, follow the lead of the red plane and fly northwest as far as Fort Worth, returning by nightfall to oil region."

Ethel read the paper over and over as she held it down out of the wind by the dim glow lamp. She wanted to ask questions. She wondered what was expected of her. She wondered again as to what was expected of the entire invasion and why the women had been brought along. But her questions did not find verbal expression, for she had schooled herself to await developments.

The roller chart had now come to a stop and showed the red line that marked their course terminating in a cross to the northwest of the town of Beaumont. Komoru tilted the plane downward and flew for a time near the earth. Then checking the speed, he ran it lightly aground in an open field a little distance from a clump of buildings.

The driver got out and stretched his cramped limbs. Taking a hand glow lamp he ran carefully over the mechanism of the plane. Then he opened a locker and took out two small magazine pistols. One he handed to Ethel.

"Don't use it," he said, "until you have to."

"Will you go with me?" he asked, "to tack the poster, or will you stay with the plane?"

"I'll stay here," she replied.

Komoru walked off rapidly towards the house. Presently the stillness was interrupted by the vociferous barking of a dog; Then there was a sound as of some one picking a taut wire and the voice of the dog curdled in a final yelp.

In a few minutes Komoru was back. "Dogs are no good," he said; "they produce nothing but noise."

"Will you kindly get aboard, Miss Ethel? There is much to do."

Ethel obeyed; meanwhile Komoru inspected the surface of the ground for a few yards in front of the plane. Returning he climbed into his seat and started the engine. They arose without mishap.

Within a mile or two, Komoru picked out another farm house and made a landing nearby.

"I will go with you this time," said Ethel courageously.

Approaching an American residence, Ethel suddenly found herself conscious of the fact that she was dressed in a most unladylike Japanese kimo. For a moment the larger sentiments of the occasion were replaced by the womanly query, "What will people say?" Then she laughed inwardly at the absurdity of her thought.