e entrapping branches. One plane, indeed, did
try it, and Bell scudded lower and lower until the wheels of the small
plane were spinning from occasional, breath taking contacts with the
feathery topmost branches of jungle giants. That other plane flattened
out not less than a hundred feet farther up and three hundred yards
behind. To fire on him with a fixed gun meant a dive to bring the gun
muzzle down. And a dive meant a crash.

* * * * *

A stream flashed past below. There was the glitter of water,
reflecting the graying sky. A downward current here dragged at the
wings of the plane. Bell jerked at the stick and her nose came up.
There was a clashing, despite her climbing angle, of branches upon the
running gear, but she broke through and shot upward, trying to stall.
Bell flung her down again into his mad careering.

It was not exactly safe, of course. It was practically a form of
suicide. But Bell had not death, but life to fear. He could afford to
be far more reckless than any man who desired to live. The plane went
scuttling madly across the jungle tops, now rising to skim the top of
a monster _ceiba_, now dipping deliberately.

The three pursuing planes hung on above him helplessly while the
short, short twilight of the tropics fell, and Bell went racing across
the jungle, never twenty feet above the tree top and with the boughs
behind him showing all the agitation of a miniature hurricane. As
darkness deepened, the race became more suicidal still, and there were
no lighted fields nearby to mark a landing place. But as darkness grew
more intense, Bell could dare to rise to fifty, then a hundred feet
above the tops, and the dangers of diving to his level remained
undiminished. And then it was dark.

* * * * *

Bell climbed to two hundred feet. To two hundred and fifty. With more
freedom, now, he could take one hand from the controls. He could feel
the menace of the tumultuously roaring motors in his wake, but he was
smiling very strangely in the blackness. He reached inside his flying
suit and tore away the front of his shirt. He reached down and
battered in the top of one of the five gallon gasoline tins in the
cockpit with the barrel of his revolver. He stuffed the scrap of cloth
into the rent. It was wetted instantly by the splashing. Another
savage blow, unheard in the thunder of the motor. In the peculiarly
calm air of the cockpit the reek