cabin and plunged the scout in a dive that tipped six hundred and
fifty miles and threatened to crack the speed dial.

* * * * *

But surprise? Nothing doing! Like angry hornets five Slav planes
pounced on them at ten thousand feet. They'd been waiting there! Lance
cursed savagely. He flung off his flares, Immelmanned up, and in less
than two seconds had sent one Slav shrieking to the ground in flames.
For the moment forgetting Praed, Lance followed after his flares,
three Slavs attempting to sight their guns on the twisting, writhing,
corkscrewing body of his Goshawk. He knew there were disintegrating
flame-throwers below, but gambled on their not shooting because of the
enemy scouts diving with him.

Flattening out at perhaps a thousand feet, Lance threw a rapid stare
at the bulk of Hill 333. He drew his breath in sharply.

Lit dazzlingly by the bleaching white of the slow-floating flares,
huge rows of the dreaded Slav tanks were clustered all around the
hill!

As he looked, ten more Slav planes came soaring up from the ground.
This was too hot! The thought of Praed stabbed through Lance's
whirling brain; he pulled the scout around, doubled over the three
closing in on his tail, and belched lead for an instant at one he'd
caught off guard. It collapsed like a punctured paper bag. Lance
grinned and bounded to the upper regions. The two other Slavs let the
crazy Yank go for the instant, joining forces with the ten brothers
coming to help them out.

Lance, again at ten thousand, looked for Praed. Far above, he glimpsed
two planes, circling and diving. Praed seemed to be fighting, at any
rate! As he watched, the two scouts catapulted still higher; became
tiny, almost imperceptible dots, visible only in the reflected light
of the flares. Then Lance felt a shaft of ice along his spine.

The two planes had practically hugged each other for a second. Then
one of them fell away, somersaulted, tumbled down wildly--out of
control.

It passed Lance like a falling rock.

And it was Praed's scout!

"My God!" muttered Lance. "He's been shot down!"

* * * * *

The next moment the twelve Slavs were on him like a hurricane. Motors
roaring, Lance stood them off--flinging a burst of lead here, dropping
out of range here, looping, catapulting, zooming--fazing them with
every trick he knew. A dozen times he sensed the zinging wrath of
storms of bullets, a dozen