voice rose a little. “When Sparky used to come in after a week’s absence and say, ‘Hello, sister, I’m just back from Russia,’ I was burned up with envy. The next week it would be Africa, and after that London, and there we were plowing through the sky to Kansas City, Des Moines or Peoria. And now,” she breathed, “we are on our way to China by way of Africa, India, and all the rest.”

“We!” Janet exclaimed. “Do they expect just you and me to fly the Atlantic, alone?”

“Why not?” Mary asked, teasingly. “Oh, well—” she added, “Sparky told me tonight that he and I would go on alone.”

“Nice going,” Janet’s tone was a trifle cold.

“Oh, Janet!” Mary put out a hand. “Don’t look at it that way. There’s something aboard the Lone Star that just has to go through. I wish I could tell you what it is. I can’t because I don’t know. Naturally, it’s better that a man pilot the plane, one who has flown the Atlantic many times. It would be natural, too, that Don should go if he were able, but—”

“Oh, sure!” Janet was her old, friendly self again. “I understand. We’ll have to get Don to a hospital somewhere and I’ll stay to see him through.”

“Yes, and you may get to China yet, both of you.”

“Oh, China,” Janet yawned. “Just now I’d love to find myself on Broadway in little, old New York, with a run to Denver waiting for me in the morning. It’s a funny world, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” Mary agreed.

At one A.M. Sparky climbed down from the Lone Star’s cabin. “Go on up there and sleep,” was his gruff but kindly order. “We’ve got a tough day ahead.”

They obeyed. While Janet wrapped herself up in blankets, Mary spread out an eiderdown robe her father had once brought from the far North, and they were soon fast asleep.

Three hours later, just as the moon was nearing the crest of the ridge, lying off to the west, Mary crept down from the plane to join Sparky in his vigil.

“Don still asleep?” she asked.

“Sure is. He’s lucky to be able to sleep.”

“Perhaps he’s not so badly injured after all.”

“Bad enough,” Sparky sighed. “We’ll have to get him over to the hospital at Para. Then you and I’ll have to hop the little channel that lies between South America and Africa. Your cargo must go through.”

“Secret cargo!” she whispered. “Wonder what it could be.”

“Some new weapons for destroying Japs perhaps. A new type of sub-machine gun, or just a badly needed medicine for the soldiers up there in Burma. They say it’s plenty bad up there this time of year. Anyway, that secret cargo must go through.”

“‘Ours’ not to reason why—‘ours’ but to do and die,” she parodied.

“Who knows!” His voice sounded solemn in the stillness of the night. “The enemy has our number. I’ve been looking at my motors. They’ve been tampered with, emery dust in the pistons or something.”

“But where could that have happened!” she exclaimed.

“Caracas!”

“But there were soldiers guarding every plane.”

“Soldiers of foreign lands are sometimes traitors. So, too, are mechanics who tune up the motors. We’ll have to be on our guard every moment. This time we were over the land. The next it may be the sea.”

“We’ll watch,” she vowed. “Day and night. Night and day.”

“But it’s all so strange,” she mused after a time. “Why should there be a sudden demand for so many big planes in China?”

“There are rumors of a plan to bomb Tokio.”

“Oh! I’d like to be in on that!”

“Wouldn’t we all! But it’s just a rumor. I’ve heard that we are to attack Burma from two sides.”

“Try to re-capture the Burma Road?”

“Yes.”

“That would be glorious!”

“Then I’ve heard the Japs are going after Russia and that these bombers are for our Russian allies. All these are rumors. We may never know the truth. That’s the way it is in war.”

For a time after that nothing but the low rush of the river and the croaking of the ‘Why’ frog disturbed the silence of the jungle. Then, suddenly, Mary whispered:

“Listen!”

“Singing,” Sparky whispered back after a tense moment. “Natives on the river.”

“The moon has gone behind the hills. They’re coming back. The natives are coming.”

“Yes, and let them come,” Sparky rattled his sub-machine gun. “If they’re peaceful, things will be all right. If not—” He rattled the gun once more. “This is war. The Lone Star and her secret cargo must go through!”

After that for some time they sat there in silence listening to the wild native chant that, with every movement, grew louder.

Then, suddenly, the dark waters of the river came all alight. The long canoes had turned a bend of the river. In each canoe were a dozen torches held aloft. Mary counted nine canoes in all. To her heightened imagination each canoe seemed a hundred feet in length.

“Do they come like that when they want to fight?” she asked gripping Sparky’s arm hard.

“Who knows?” was the brief reply.