cerned. They are simple light tubes, closed
at the rear end, with a trigger-actuated pin for piercing the thin skin
at the base of the cartridge. This piercing of the skin starts the
chemical and atomic reaction. The entire cartridge leaves the tube under
its own power, at a very easy initial velocity, just enough to insure
accuracy of aim; so the tube does not have to be of heavy construction.
The bullet increases in velocity as it goes. It may be solid or
explosive. It may explode on contact or on time, or a combination of
these two.

Bill and I talked mostly of weapons, military tactics and strategy.
Strangely enough he had no idea whatever of the possibilities of the
barrage, though the tremendous effect of a "curtain of fire" with such
high-explosive projectiles as these modern rocket guns used was obvious
to me. But the barrage idea, it seemed, has been lost track of
completely in the air wars that followed the First World War, and in the
peculiar guerilla tactics developed by Americans in the later period of
operations from the ground against Han airships, and in the gang wars
which, until a few generations ago I learned, had been almost
continuous.

"I wonder," said Bill one day, "if we couldn't work up some form of
barrage to spring on the Bad Bloods. The Big Boss told me today that
he's been in communication with the other gangs, and all are agreed that
the Bad Bloods might as well be wiped out for good. That attempt on
Wilma Deering's life and their evident desire to make trouble among the
gangs, has stirred up every community east of the Alleghenies. The Boss
says that none of the others will object if we go after them. So I
imagine that before long we will. Now show me again how you worked that
business in the Argonne forest. The conditions ought to be pretty much
the same."

I went over it with him in detail, and gradually we worked out a
modified plan that would be better adapted to our more powerful weapons,
and the use of jumpers.

"It will be easy," Bill exulted. "I'll slide down and talk it over with
the Boss tomorrow."

During the first two weeks of my stay with the Wyomings, Wilma Deering
and I saw a great deal of each other. I naturally felt a little closer
friendship for her, in view of the fact that she was the first human
being I saw after waking from my long sleep; her appreciation of my
saving her life, though I could not have done otherwise than I did in
that matter, and most of all my