e and
are not; up above the artificial illumination of the city; up where
there are freedom, and space infinite, and abandon absolute.

With an effort, I force myself back into the house. I take down and
oil my old double-barrel, lovingly, and try the locks to see that all
is in order. I lay out my wrinkled and battered duck suit handy for
the morning, after carefully storing away in an inner pocket, where
they will keep dry, the bundle of postcards Mary brings me--first
exacting a promise to report on one each day, when I know I shall be
five miles from the nearest postoffice, and that I shall bring them
all back unused.

And, last of all, I slip to bed, and to dreams of gigantic honkers
serene in the blue above; of whirring, whistling wings that cut the
air like myriad knife blades; until I wake up with a start at the
rattle of the telephone beside my bed, and I know that, though dark as
a pit of pitch, it is morning, and that Sandford is already astir.

CHAPTER V--ANTICIPATION

In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most
disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys,
and dried-grass sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among
gun-cases and shell-carriers--no sportsman will entrust these
essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man--and the
air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so
ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.

"Going to be a great day," he announces succinctly, and despite a
rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice.
"The wind's dead north, and it's cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about
daylight."

"Yes." I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.

"We're going to hit it right, just right. The flight's on. I heard
them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big
fellows, the Canada boys."

"Yes," I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. "I ought not to do
it, though. I didn't have time to break a single engagement"--I'm a
dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and
enamel--"or explain at all. And the muss there'll be at the shop
when--"

"Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!" A fresh torrent of
smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford's face but dimly through
the haze. "If you mention teeth again, until we're back--merely
mention them--I'll throttle you!"

The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corn