of piloting had planted deep in his veins. He fought for
Lance--for America. His eyes, glazing rapidly, could not distinguish
the roaring phantoms that laced around his lone plane, but uncannily
his bursts of fire went home again and again, while theirs ripped
aimlessly over the Goshawk's hell-driven snout.

Of course it could not last. Gallant spirit alone kept Basil Hay taut
at his controls. Spirit alone thrust back the ever-increasing surge of
black oblivion that pounded at his heart and brain. Spirit alone sent
the pitifully outnumbered plane corkscrewing in peerless maneuverings
that baffled the on-passing Slavs and thrust four of them to the
sodden ground in flame. Spirit that would not surrender--but had to.

They could never have conquered Basil Hay in a plane. An ambushing
bullet that caught him off guard did that. And finally Hay fell.

But he had kept them for ten full minutes. Ten minutes--each one a
lasting, mute testimony to his unquenchable, unyielding spirit.

He flung a last salvo from his hot machine-guns, then, heart numbing,
jerked back the control-stick and careened high. He slumped down. The
plane paused, wallowed crazily for a moment, and then roared
earthward, "Carry on!" formed faintly on its dead pilot's bloody lips.

Basil Hay had fought his last fight.

Ten minutes....

Lance hadn't expected that long. He'd thought Hay would die in a few
seconds. The man was mortally wounded; could not last.

Nevertheless, minutes or seconds, he was entrusted with the Singe
beacon, and it was his job and his will to put it through.

He'd climbed the Slav plane up to its ceiling, driven it till it
simply refused to go higher, and then roared on towards San Francisco.
Each second he expected to see others come hurtling after him. When
they did not, he knew how really great Hay's will was. It was an
inspiring example.

But his brain was tortured by a multitude of conflicting doubts. A
patrol of Slav scouts had ambushed them. Just how much did the Slavs
know, then, about the torpedoes?

He, Lance, had to guide the Singe beacon. Quickly he reviewed what Hay
had told him.

"Light about five miles this side of Frisco. Anywhere in that
territory would do, though. The beacon doesn't go up in a narrow ray;
it spreads, diffuses."

_Spreads, diffuses._

Hay had been clad in Slav uniform, and thus could, with a certain
measure of safety, put the beacon machinery on the ground itself. But
Lance was in Am