nstantly he
recognized it as the letter of authority Colonel Welsh had given Farmer
and him to carry.

"Holy smokes!" he whispered to himself. "So he _did_ get something off
us. This! I'd forgotten all about this thing."

"What thing?" Major Parker asked sharply, and stepped close.

Dawson hesitated, but when he saw that the major and he were standing a
little apart from the others, he removed the letter of authority and
smoothed it out so the senior officer could read it. Major Parker did
just that.

"But you didn't give me any--" he began, and stopped short as Dawson
nudged him quickly.

"I know, sir," Dave said in a low voice. "We decided it best to destroy
them, after the message we got from Tiger. We did just that about five
minutes before your corpse there jumped us. He didn't find what he
wanted, but he did find this letter. No doubt he figured that we'd given
them to you, or, at least, that you had been given yours. He went after
you, and--" Dawson came to a halt and gave a little angry shake of his
head. "I seem to be doing fine, I don't think!" he grated after a
moment. "I guess you could almost say, sir, that I gave you that crack
on the head. I was responsible for it, anyway."

"No, that's not true, Dave!" Freddy Farmer spoke in his ear at that
moment. "I'm the thoughtless blighter. Don't you remember? I began
carrying that letter at Puerto Rico. I confess I had forgotten all about
the blasted thing."

Dawson looked hard at his pal and then shrugged.

"Okay, you or me, what does it matter?" he sighed. "The major should be
plenty sore at both of us."

"You can skip that, both of you," Major Parker spoke up instantly.
"After all, maybe it's a break in a way. The rat is dead, and that makes
one less of his breed to bother us. Ten to one he killed that field
laborer and searched my office. If so--"

The major let the rest slide, for at that moment all heard the roar of
an approaching aircraft. It was coming in fast from the north, and as
Dawson stared in that direction, he caught sight of the winking green
and red running lights. A couple of moments later, the field lights were
turned on to light the long runway. Shortly after that an American B-25
slid down to a nice landing, and went trundling over toward the
Administration Building. Dawson, glancing at his watch, saw that it was
exactly midnight.

CHAPTER TEN

_Invisible Eyes_

No sooner had the North American B-25 bomber braked to a