“Some of our biggest news stories will break above the clouds. The skyways are going to unfold great tales of romance, of daring, possibly of banditry, but whatever it may be, we must have the stories. Do you want the job of getting them?” George Carson, the sandy-haired managing editor of the Atkinson News, fired the question at the reporter standing at the other side of his desk.

“Do I want the job?” There was amazement in Tim Murphy’s voice. “Give me a plane and I’ll bring you some of the best yarns you ever printed.” His clean-cut features were aglow with interest.

“All right Tim,” said Carson. “This afternoon the News will announce the first flying reporter. I thought you’d like the job. That’s why we sent you to an aviation school—so we can have the jump on the Times and the Journal. They can hire plenty of aviators but it will take them time to train a first class reporter to fly.”

Tim grinned and his blue eyes snapped. Even though he was one of the star reporters on the staff he liked the managing editor’s indirect compliment.

“We’ve got a plane all ready for you at the municipal airport,” went on the managing editor. “It’s one of those new Larks with a Wasp motor that will take her along at 150 miles an hour. She’s all ready to go. The sky’s your assignment—go the limit to get your stories.”

Tim hurried back to his desk where the half completed story of a down-town fire was still in his typewriter. He picked up a pad of notes beside his machine and turned to the reporter at the next desk.

“Finish up this fire story for me, will you Ralph? Here’s all the dope and the city editor wants it for the noon edition.”

“What’s the big idea?” Ralph Parsons wanted to know.

“Big idea is right,” fairly exploded Tim. “I’ve got a new job—flying reporter. Carson has just bought a dandy new plane and I’m going to pilot it and write the stories.”

“Good, Tim. I don’t blame you for being excited. It’s a great chance. I’ll finish up the fire story for you. Will you give me a ride if I run out after I’m through this afternoon?”

“Sure, Ralph, a dozen if you want them,” and with that Tim seized his hat and dashed through the door of the big news room, down the stairs and into the street where he found one of the flivvers used by the reporters.

Fifteen minutes later Tim tucked his elongated legs into the cockpit of the trimmest little plane he had ever laid eyes on. He ran the motor up and down the scale, then gave it the gun, darted over the surface of the field, flipped the tail up—and the flying reporter was in the air.

It was a glorious feeling to be in the air—to be free of the smoke and smell of the city and for an hour Tim circled over Atkinson. High, then low, he dived, banked, zoomed and looped—did everything to test the flying qualities of the little plane. At the end of the test flight he was more than pleased. It was perfectly rigged.

Tim, an orphan who had joined the News after school days, had worked up from cub reporter to the police run and then up to special assignment writer. He had been sent to an aviation school three months before and while there had written a series of Sunday features on learning how to fly. Tim hadn’t dreamed of being given a flying assignment but he had mastered the intricacies of an airplane with the same wholesome enthusiasm which characterized everything he did. That was one of the reasons why he was a star reporter in spite of his comparative youth, for Tim had just turned twenty-one.

The Lark was still swooping over the field when one of the cars used by News reporters dashed through the main gate of the big airport. Tim cut the motor, made a three point landing, and climbed out of the cockpit.

Ralph Parsons hopped out of the car and ran toward the plane. He shoved an extra into Tim’s hands.

“TRANSCONTINENTAL AIR MAIL ROBBED; $200,000 TAKEN.” The headlines, in heavy, black type, fairly screamed the story at Tim. In brief clear sentences he read how the eastbound mail plane, which had left Atkinson at midnight, had been found a hundred miles east near Auburn, a village in the valley of the Cedar River. The plane was a mass of tangled wreckage, its pilot dead, the registered mail sacks looted.

“Carson says for you to hump yourself and get over there before dark,” said Ralph. “He wants a lot of copy for the early editions tomorrow. The roads over that way are practically impassable and we can’t get enough of the details over the telephone. The air mail people are sending out a ship but we don’t know when they’ll be back. It’s bad country to fly over, Tim, so be careful.”

Ralph’s well meant warning was lost on Tim. Calling a mechanic, the lanky young flyer swung his ship around, opened up the powerful motor, and sped down the field and into the air. The flying reporter was off on his first assignment.

The air was smooth and cool. The late winter sun glinted through the lazy clouds in the west and flashed off the crimson wings of the little plane. Tim headed straight east. Far behind him the Great Smokies reared their heads in a dim outline while a hundred miles ahead of his whirling propeller the Cedar River carved its way.

Atkinson, with its bustling streets, its busy factories and 200,000 inhabitants, was soon left behind. For almost an hour Tim held to his course. When he sighted the silver ribbon that was the Cedar River, he swung south until he picked up the village of Auburn. It was little more than a cluster of houses on the right bank of the mighty river.

There was no regular landing field at the village but Tim found a pasture a mile back from the river that looked large enough for his purpose. He stalled down, taking his time. There was no use risking a crackup with his new ship. The pasture was cuppy and there was a slough on one side but Tim killed his speed quickly after he set the Lark down and pulled up less than twenty feet from a fence.

Tim had sighted the wreck of the air mail in a timber patch half way to the village. After landing his own craft it took him less than ten minutes to find what was left of the mail. There was little in the pile of wreckage to resemble the sturdy, silver craft which had left the Atkinson airport the night before. It was just a heap of tangled wires and struts, scraps of canvas and twisted rods. It looked like a crackup, with the mail looted after the smash, but to Tim’s carefully trained news sense there was something more. He couldn’t have defined his feelings in so many words but he played his hunch and examined the remains of the big plane. He had almost completed his examination when something on the motor caught his attention. He bent over it and when he straightened up there was a new gleam of interest in his eyes.

With the aid of a farm boy Tim managed to get a fence post under the motor and half rolled it over. A few minutes more of hard work and he succeeded in removing several parts from the engine.

By the time the flying reporter had completed his task the light was fading fast and, satisfied with his survey of the wrecked plane, Tim hurried toward the village.

Auburn was small but friendly and he soon found out what little the residents of the valley knew.

The east bound mail usually roared over the village about 1 o’clock in the morning, speeding through the night at better than one hundred miles an hour. But that morning the mail plane had failed to go over. That, in itself, was not unusual, for occasionally bad weather forced the cancellation of the trip. Tim, by careful inquiries, learned that one old man, living about two miles from the village, had heard the sound of a motor. His attention had been attracted by the high-pitched drone for the song of the mail was a heavy throbbing that once heard is seldom forgotten.

It had been mid-day before a farmer had found the wreckage of the mail, its pilot trapped in the cockpit, the registered mail sacks, with a big shipment of currency, looted.

Tim had enough material for his first story. Using the one long distance telephone wire in the village, he got in touch with the News office in Atkinson and dictated a detailed story. To spice it up, he added a hint about a mystery plane. It would make good reading.

The flying reporter had scarcely finished telephoning when the heavy throbbing of the motor of a plane echoed from the clouds. Hurrying out into the street from the telephone office, Tim could discern the riding lights of a mail plane as the pilot, hunting for a place to land, circled over the village.

Tim hired a car and sped toward the make-shift field where he had managed to land his own plane. When he reached the pasture he hastily piled some brush at one end of the field and set it afire. Then he raced for the other end and swung the car around so that its headlights outlined the far boundary of the pasture.

The roar of the mail plane’s motor lessened as its pilot cut his throttle and brought his craft down to earth. The big ship bounced and swayed, threatening once or twice to nose over, but the mail flyer jammed his wheel brakes on hard and succeeded in stopping before he crashed into the fence.

Tim left the car and hurried to meet the newcomer.

“That you, Tim?” boomed a deep voice from the cockpit of the mail ship as the new arrival shut off his motor.

Tim smiled. The voice was familiar and Tiny Lewis, who weighed some 250 pounds, eased his bulk gently to the ground.

“Thanks a lot, Tim,” he roared. “I was sure in a pickle. Figured on getting here before dark but made a forced landing about 50 miles back when two of the spark plugs fouled and I had to replace them.”

Before starting for the village, Tim and Lewis put tarpaulins over the motors of their planes and staked them securely lest some freakish wind upset their craft.

When they reached the little hotel and had ordered their dinner, Tim told Lewis all he knew about the wreck of the air mail. When he had completed his story, Tiny whistled.

“Looks bad,” he admitted, “and I guess there isn’t much that I can do except make arrangements here for them to crate up what’s left of the plane and ship it in to Atkinson. The post office inspectors will be here sometime tomorrow and they’ll take charge of the investigation.”

“I expected they’d be on hand,” said Tim, “but I’ve got a little hunch all my own I’m going to see through to the finish. If it works out as I hope, it will be a real scoop for the News.”

“Here’s wishing you luck, Tim,” said Tiny. “I’m going to roll in now. I flew in from the west today with the mail and then they sent me on out here. It’s been a long day but I’ll see you the first thing in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night, Tiny,” replied Tim.

After the mail flyer had lumbered up to his room, Tim went out to the hotel porch where he had laid the salvaged parts from the engine. He picked them up and lugged them up to his room. There, under the yellow light from a kerosene lamp, he strained over the broken bits. When he finally completed his minute examination, there was a grim smile on his lips.

After breakfast with Lewis the next morning, Tim phoned the News office, and putting a bug in the managing editor’s ear that he had stumbled onto a real clue, got permission to free lance for the rest of the day.

Tim carefully wrapped up the engine parts and carried them to the field where he loaded them into his plane. Lewis was busy supervising operations for the crating and shipping of the remains of the mail plane and with a wave of his hand, Tim dodged over the trees that bordered the pasture and headed for Prairie City, two hundred miles away, where the state university was located.

Noon found Tim closeted with the head of the engineering school of the university, an international authority on electricity. Tim told his story in quick, clear sentences and in less than fifteen minutes the famous scientist had a graphic picture of what must have taken place in the midnight sky over the Cedar River valley.

For two hours the flying reporter and the scientist worked behind closed doors while messenger boys hurried to and from the telegraph offices, delivering telegrams that were eagerly grasped and hastily opened.

By late afternoon Tim was winging his way back to Atkinson, a smile of conquest lighting up his face. In his pocket was a paper with the secret of the destruction of the air mail plane, in his mind was a plan to catch the sky bandits.

When Tim reached Atkinson and entered the big editorial office of the News, he found it deserted for it was early evening and the staff on an afternoon newspaper completes its work before 6 o’clock. A scrub woman, busy at one end of the long room, paid no attention to the flying reporter as he sat down at his desk.

Tim sat before his battered typewriter until far into the night, recording his strange story. He told how the mail plane, speeding through the night over the valley of the Cedar River, had fallen earthward in a death spin, its motor silent, its pilot paralyzed in his seat while over the twisting, falling plane hovered its destroyer.

In glowing language he pictured the scene that must have taken place. A plane loitering in the night over the hills and valleys of the Cedar River in the path of the air mail. Then the red and green lights of the mail as it flashed out of the west, a quickening of the vulture’s motor, a short dash through the night, a flash of invisible death, the mail plane careening down—a dead and fluttering thing.

And Tim wrote more, much more—of how he had found the motor of the mail plane a congealed mass, the pilot’s body a husk of a man, burned by a powerful but invisible electric ray.

Still Tim went on. He told how the invisible ray recently invented and of which little was known, could be shot from a small gun. He described how he had consulted the famous scientist at the state university and how together they had found that one of the few invisible ray guns in existence had been stolen. This, concluded Tim, must be the weapon of the sky pirates.

From then on Tim conjectured as to how one of the men in the bandit plane must have taken to his parachute and followed the mail earthward, robbed the registered pouches of their fortune in currency, and escaped in a waiting car.

He had just completed his story and was reading it over for corrections when the lights all over the editorial room flashed on and the managing editor, who had dropped in on his way home from a theater, trotted up to his desk.

Carson was reputed to be capable of scenting a good story a mile away and he devoured Tim’s copy, but not without evident astonishment and several open expressions of his admiration for the flying reporter’s work.

“It’s great stuff, Tim, great stuff,” exclaimed the managing editor when he had finished reading the story. “I’m glad I dropped in tonight. I’ll edit it now and schedule it for the early mail editions tomorrow. It will certainly set the town talking.”

“I wish you wouldn’t print that story tomorrow, Mr. Carson,” said Tim.

The managing editor, who had started for his desk, spun on his heels.

“And why not?” he demanded. “Didn’t you just tell me it was all right?”

“The story is all right, Mr. Carson,” explained Tim? “but if you print it tomorrow the gang responsible for the robbery of the air mail will never be captured. If you’ll hold the story for twenty-four hours there’s a good chance that they can be apprehended.”

“Not much,” snorted the managing editor, “at least not as long as they have the death ray machine.”

“You’re wrong there,” persisted Tim. “It’s not only possible that they can be captured, but if you’ll give me permission to use the News’ plane I think I can turn the trick.”

Carson was too surprised for words and before the managing editor could regain his poise Tim continued, driving his argument home. For over an hour they talked in low, strained voices, with Carson openly protesting at times as Tim explained his plan. Finally the managing editor gave his consent and Tim arose to go.

“Good luck, Tim,” said Carson, “I’ll see the air mail people the first thing in the morning and fix everything up for you.”

Dead tired, Tim went to his room and turned in, but sleep would not come. Through the rest of the night his mind pictured the lurking bandit plane, the helpless mail flyer, the death ray fired from the gun, and then the bandit drifting earthward to feast on the spoils of the wreckage. Tim turned and tossed, enraged that men should stoop to such villainy, that an achievement of science should be turned to such low ends.

All next day Tim and a crew of mechanics at the municipal field worked desperately on the Lark in a secluded hangar. Carefully they sheathed the motor cowling and the fuselage with thin layers of lead and zinc, alternately spreading them on for they were as thin as paper. By nightfall the crimson plane was half gray with the cockpit and its vital parts protected by the thin sheathing of metal.

The Lark was ready for the test and the chances were that it would come that night. The two previous nights had been clear as crystal with a full moon riding the sky. The pilots of the mysterious vulture of the air would not be abroad on such nights for the risk of detection would be too great. Now, however, a thin cloud film at high altitude had spread over the heavens, making an ideal night for another raid on the air mail. And there was no doubt in Tim’s mind but that they would raid again. They had not the slightest reason to believe that their secret had been discovered and certainly the valuables carried nightly by the mail plane would lure them into further attacks.

Well, Tim was ready for them, but the thought of actually doing battle in the air gave him many a nervous chill as he waited that evening for the time to go into action.

A figure hurried across the field and toward the hangar.

“Tim! Tim!” called an anxious voice.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Ralph. Where are you?”

“Here at the southeast corner of the hangar. Look out you don’t fall into the ditch.”

“Say Tim, what are you up to to-night?” demanded Ralph as he panted up to the hangar. “There are all kinds of wild rumors floating around the office. Carson’s sitting at his desk watching the clock and getting whiter every minute.”

“I’m going to catch the gang that robbed the mail the other night,” said Tim quietly. He hoped that his voice did not betray his emotion for inwardly he was seething with excitement. The waiting was what got on his nerves. He was tense, eager to be in the air and away.

“I had a sneaking idea that’s what you were up to,” said Ralph. “Count me in on the expedition,” he continued. “I stopped at the police station and borrowed one of Chief Flaherty’s riot guns.” From beneath the topcoat which protected him from the raw night air, Ralph produced a sawed-off shot gun, capable of scattering a veritable hail of lead in whatever direction it was aimed.

Tim laughed heartily at his friend’s determination but his next words were not easy to say. Ralph and Tim had worked on many a story together and their bond of friendship was close, but Tim could not afford to risk any life other than his own.

“I’m sorry, Ralph,” he said, “but I can’t take you along tonight. You’re not used to flying, and, besides, this is a one man game.”

“But Tim, something might happen to you,” protested Ralph.

“Something might,” conceded Tim, “and then what would you do a couple of thousand feet up in the air and traveling at 100 miles an hour? No, Ralph, not to-night.”

The roar of the mail coming in from the west halted their conversation and Tim turned to direct the work of the mechanics while Ralph, realizing his helplessness, watched the final preparations.

Just as the mail trundled to a stop the lights on the field blinked out. There were shouts and calls for flashlights and a minute or two later the mechanics started their work of servicing the plane. In ten minutes it was ready to continue its eastward flight.

The pilot, slouched in his cockpit, waved for the mechanics to pull the blocks and gave his ship full throttle. Down the field he sped, then leaped into the air. His riding lights were disappearing in the east when the field beacons flashed on again.

Speeding into the night at one hundred miles an hour, Tim looked back and chuckled. In place of the regular mail plane, his own trim, fast little craft was rocketing eastward with dummy sacks of mail. It had been carefully camouflaged to look like the regular plane and when the lights went out, the larger ship had been pushed into a hangar and Tim’s wheeled out in its place.

In less than another hour Tim would know just how good his theory and plans had been. He was willing to stake his life on them. The night air was exhilarating. Tim didn’t want to die; in fact, he had no intention of doing so. As he raced through the scudding clouds, he carefully checked his plans. Ahead of him two long black machine guns peered over the edge of the cockpit.

For nearly an hour the racy little ship flew through the half clear night. When Tim sighted the curving light line that was the Cedar River, he eased the throttle. His greatest assignment was just ahead—if the air raiders were waiting!

Tim cut his speed to that of the regular mail plane. His riding lights glowed brightly. The young flyer tensed; eager for the test.

Whrrrrrrr! A roaring black plane flashed from the clouds above, it powerful motor spitting flame. Tim’s heart leaped. His mind was racing madly.

The black plane bore down on him. Tim ducked, and the vulture of the skies stormed past. Tim’s own plane held its course. He had escaped from the invisible death. Instead of falling, a wisp of humanity in a lifeless plane, he was hard on the tail of the bandits’ plane.

Tim pushed his little craft hard. The bandits, amazed that the first attempt had failed, were startled when the usually sluggish mail doubled its speed and took after them.

The gap between the two planes closed rapidly. Tim, crouched behind his guns and protected from the invisible rays by the lead and zinc which covered the cockpit, waited. Ahead loomed the black plane, its two astonished occupants glancing back at him.

Tim tripped his machine guns and a stream of tracer bullets, singing their song of death, streaked the blackness of night with threads of sparkling crimson as they coursed through the sky.

The black plane dodged this way and that, but always Tim was at their heels. He flew with the fury of a man possessed. Again and again it seemed as though the black plane must be destroyed by the leaden hail but each time its pilot managed to escape.

Tim zoomed quickly, the nose of his ship pointing into the belly of the bandit craft. Suddenly, with a grinding chatter, his guns jammed and his exultation became maddening disappointment. The chased became the chaser, and Tim was now on the defensive.

His plane had withstood one attack of the death ray but a second time the bandits might find a vulnerable spot. The pilot of the black ship quickly realized that Tim’s guns had jammed and that his nervy pursuer was at his mercy. He lost no time in banking swiftly to make quick work of Tim.

The flying reporter, a desperate plan in his mind, cut his motor and drifted. It was his only chance and Tim staked the success of his midnight venture on a slender possibility. The bandit plane was storming down on him.

Again Tim ducked, again the breathless moment and again the thin covering of lead and zinc saved him from death.

The bandits, completely bewildered by the plane and pilot who defied destruction, slowed down. It was Tim’s chance. Savagely he jammed the throttle on full. The Lark leaped and quivered, a roaring, pulsating king of the air. It was eating up the space separating the two planes. Tim’s brain was in a whirl. Did he dare, would he succeed, what would happen if he failed? But the die was cast; he was almost on the black destroyer.

Hastily he loosened his safety belt, climbed to the edge of the cockpit and before the startled bandits could aim their death ray gun at him, leaped into space.

Then the planes crashed. As Tim floated downward, his parachute billowing out above, he heard the scream of breaking wires, the crash of struts, the last wild, defiant roar of speeding motors as his own plane ate its way into the other. To his left Tim could see two other parachutes drifting earthward. The bandits had not been caught in the crash!