it grew
smaller and smaller, climbing upward.

With a rush, and a spinning of dust in the slipstream, the ship was
away. It lifted as easily as a bird and mounted with great speed. It was
capable of climbing in wide spirals at a hundred and fifty miles an
hour.

A great sigh burst from the thousands who had come to watch history
made. For solid hours now they would watch the plane climb, growing
smaller, becoming a speck, vanishing. Many curious ones would stay right
here until Kress returned, fearful of being cheated of a great thrill.
For Kress was to land right here when, and if, he had conquered the
stratosphere.

* * * * *

Jeter and Eyer wormed their way through the crowd to the road and found
their car in a jam of other cars. Without a word they climbed in and
drove themselves to their dwelling--combined home and laboratory--in
Mineola. There they fell to on their own ship, which was being built
piece by piece in their laboratory.

Every half hour or so one or the other would go to the lawn and gaze
aloft, seeking Kress.

"He's out of eyesight," said Eyer, the last to go. "Is the telescope set
up?"

"Yes, and arranged to cover all the area of sky through which Kress is
likely to climb."

At intervals through the night, long after they had ceased work, the
partners rose from bed and sought their fellow scientist among the
stars. They alternated at this task.

"According to my calculations," said Jeter, when the eastern sky was
just paling into dawn, "Kress has now reached a point higher than man
has ever flown before, higher than any living--"

Jeter stopped on the word. Both men remembered Kress' last words. Kress,
upset or not, properly or improperly, had hinted of living things in the
stratosphere--perhaps utterly malignant entities.

It was just here, in the dawning of the first day after Kress'
departure, that the dread began to grow on Jeter and Eyer. And during
the day they labored like Trojans at their work, as though to forget it.

The world had begun its grim wait for the return of Kress.

They waited all that day ... and the next ... and the next!

Then telegraph and radio, at the suggestion of Jeter, instructed the
entire civilized world to turn its eyes skyward to watch for the return
of Kress.

The world obeyed _that_ day ... and the next ... _and the next_!

But Kress did not return; nor, so far as the world knew, did any or all
of his great airpl