nd came back over
Point Loma, heading straight for the heart of the flying station. She
was past the finlike reef where the pelicans foregather, when the
searchlight brushed its white light over that way, seeking her like a
groping finger; found her and transfixed her sternly with its pitiless
glare.

There was no hiding from that piercing gaze, no possibility of
pretending that she was a government plane and flying lawfully there.
For straight across her middle, from wing-tip to wing-tip, still
blazoned THE THUNDER BIRD in letters as bold and black as Bland's brush
and a quart of carriage paint could make them.

She volplaned, flattened out a thousand feet or so above the island,
circled as the searchlight, losing her when she dipped, sought her
again with wide sweeping gestures of its accusing white finger.

Blinded by the glare, poor Johnny was banking to find a landing place
among that assemblage of tents, low-eaved barracks, hangars, shops--the
city built for the purpose of teaching men how to conquer the air.
Something spatted close beside him on the edge of the cockpit as he
wheeled and left a ragged hole in the leather. Johnny's brain
registered automatically the fact that he was being shot at. They
probably meant that as a hint that he was to clear out or come down,
one or the other. Well, if they'd take that darned searchlight out of
his eyes so he could see, he would come down fast enough.

In desperation he slanted down steeply toward an open space, and the
open space immediately showed a full border of lights, revealing itself
a landing field such as he had read of and dreamed of but had never
before seen. It shot up at him swiftly; too swiftly. He came down
hard. There was a jolt, a bounce and another jolt that jarred the
Thunder Bird from nose to tail.

After a dazed interval much briefer than it seemed, Johnny unstrapped
himself and climbed out unsteadily. He looked fearfully at Cliff, but
there was no sign of life there. Cliff's head had merely tilted from
the right shoulder to the left shoulder, and rested there.

Uniformed young men came trotting up from all sides. Two carried
rifles, and their browned faces wore a look of grim eagerness, like men
looking forward to a fight. Johnny pushed up his goggles and stared
around at them.

"Where's your captain or somebody that's in charge here? I want to see
the foreman of this outfit, and I want to see him quick," he demanded,
as the two