The night was hot and hazy. The aerodrome was in darkness save for a moving light in the black maw of one of the hangars and a shine from the open window of the office on the other side of the ground. All the machines were down and in.

Two men were in the small hut which served as field-headquarters and office for this particular unit of the Dominion Air Force. They sat at opposite sides of a large table, one leaning back in his chair with a cigar in his mouth, the other stooped forward over a map which he studied intently. Clerks, orderlies, pilots, observers and mechanics all were gone, with the exceptions of these two and the man with the lantern across at the hangars.

“Ottawa seems determined to decorate every one who ever flew, be he alive or dead,” remarked the elder of the two, without removing the cigar from his mouth and still gazing upward at the low ceiling. “We seem to have more Military Crosses and such things than we know what to do with.”

“Yes, sir?” returned the younger officer inquiringly, looking up from the map.

“It seems so to me,” continued Colonel Nasher. “You knew a fellow named Angus Bruce, I believe.”

“Yes, I knew Angus Bruce.”

“Ottawa suggests a posthumous Military Cross for him.”

The younger officer said nothing to that, although the expression of his face suggested that he wanted to say a great deal. Instead of speaking he fell to studying his map again. The line of his mouth was tense. Even the set of his broad, lean shoulders looked tense. A keen observer would have noticed a general air of tenseness about him—tenseness of self-control practiced under difficulties.

“But I think my letter to Ottawa will fix that,” added the colonel, still speaking around his cigar.

The other looked across the table again.

“Fix it?” he queried.

His voice was low but slightly tremulous.

“Kill it,” replied the colonel.

“I don’t understand you, sir,” said the junior, still speaking quietly. “Bruce earned it several times, to my personal knowledge.”

“I don’t agree with you. I knew the fellow for years. We used to live in the same town. There’s a yellow streak in the breed. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

“He had no yellow streak. He proved his courage a dozen times—scores of times—his courage and his worth.”

“So you say, major.”

At that the major pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Yes, that’s what I say!” he cried.

Colonel Nasher sat up straight, plucked his cigar from his mouth and stared at his second-in-command.

“And I mean what I say,” continued the major, in a loud and shaken voice. “And I know what I am talking about.”

“But you forget to whom you are talking!” roared the colonel.

“No I don’t,” retorted the younger man, wildly. “I am talking to you—and there is some true talk coming to you. You’ve been asking for it ever since I joined this outfit. I know what your game is. You want to get me out—to make people believe that my nerve is gone and I’m no longer fit for the service. I’m fit enough—fit for anything but to sit and listen to you lie about a friend of mine—about the memory of a friend who was killed over the Boche lines. You’re not fit to name a man like Angus Bruce. You never saw him fight. You never saw anybody fight. A yellow streak? I have seen him go up alone after four of them! You’ll swallow that lie, Colonel Nasher, here and now!”

The colonel got to his feet, glaring. He was a large man with a large face. The only small things about him were his heart and mind. His eyes looked like polished gray stones in his red face.

“Your dead friend won’t get his cross and you’ll lose yours!” he cried, pointing a thick finger at the ribbons on the major’s breast. “I’ll break you for this, you upstart! Consider yourself under arrest. I’ll teach you that you’re not in France now!”

The major stepped swiftly and with smooth violence around the end of the table; and then, quick as a flash, his right fist came in contact with the colonel’s red chin. Down went the colonel with a crash.

The major stood above his prostrate C. O. for a few seconds, staring down at the motionless bulk and shaking as if with fever chills.

“What’s the use!” he exclaimed hysterically, turning away. “I’m as helpless as if I were under French mud with Angus Bruce.”

He took his leather cap and leather coat from a hook on the door, opened the door and stepped into the dark warm night. He saw the lantern beyond the level field and hastened across to it.

“I want the old bus out again, Dever,” he said.

“Very good, sir,” replied Dever.

They wheeled the ’plane from the open hangar. The major put on his leather coat and cap and climbed in. He started the engines and switched on the internal lights. Then he leaned over and said, “You remember Major Angus Bruce, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I remember him well,” replied the man on the ground. “We don’t forget that kind, sir, do we—nor ever will.”

“A good soldier, Angus Bruce.”

“One of the smartest and bravest in the Old Force, sir. He crashed his sixth just a day after you crashed your seventh, sir.”

“Yes, I remember it. Now get me off, Dever, and then go over to the office and see if the colonel wants anything. If he needs a stimulant I think you’ll find something of the sort in the right-hand drawer on his side of the table.”

“Very good, sir. When’ll you be back?”

“Not before sunrise. Don’t wait up for me.”

Dever gave a downward heave on a propeller-blade. Then the wide, white ’plane slid, roaring, into the darkness.

Akerley was flying low; and when he saw the little smudge of yellow light on the black expanse beneath him he went down to it like a wing-weary duck to the sheen of water. The numbness of indifference and confusion that had possessed him for an hour or more passed swiftly from his brain and spirit. His nerves snapped back to duty and his vision cleared. The light expanded to his gaze as he neared it and by its form and position he judged it to come from an open doorway of modest dimensions. It streamed out upon a green level; and he reasoned hopefully that the level ground would, very likely, be of considerable extent in front of the building. So he shut off his flagging engines, swooped around, dipped and flattened.

The machine ran, swaying and lurching, through old Gaspard’s half-grown oats; and just as Akerley was about to congratulate himself on the soundness of his reasoning, the right plane came in violent contact with an ancient and immovable stump of pine.

Akerley recovered consciousness in the dew-wet grain, in the gray dawn. He lay on his left side, with his left shoulder dug into the soft soil. The sappy stems of the young oats had saved his face and head from serious injury; but there was blood on his cheek. He felt a stab of pain through his shoulder as he sat up and looked dizzily around; and his first thought was that a bullet had gone through him. Then he remembered his changed situation and altered circumstances.

He saw the machine on its nose beside the sturdy old stump. One wing was ripped off and twisted hopelessly. That sight did not distress him, for he had finished with the machine anyway. It had served his purpose.

He sat in a field of half-grown oats, ten or twelve acres in extent, rimmed all around by dense forest. A large log-house and two barns stood in a group near the farther edge of the clearing.

Akerley got slowly and painfully to his feet and moved toward the house, the door of which stood open. He had been so badly shaken by his throw from the machine that he had to sink to his knees and right hand several times on the way. He reached the door-step at last and sat down on it. So far, he had not caught a glimpse of anything human and alive. A few hens scratched about a stable door and a small black dog eyed him inquiringly from a distance.

The door stood open upon the main apartment of the house, which was very evidently kitchen and living-room in one. It contained a long, high-backed settle against one wall, a deal table against another and a dresser of unstained pine against a third. Plates, platters and bowls, yellow, blue-and-white and a few adorned with flowery designs in gorgeous hues, and a big brown tea-pot, stood on the shelves of the dresser. There was a wide chimney with a fireplace containing fire-dogs and a crane with dangling pot-hooks; and to one side of the chimney, with an elbow of pipe leading into the rough masonry, stood a small stove. Both hearth and stove were cold. A few rag mats, and two deer skins worn bald in patches, lay on the floor of squared timbers. The log walls were sheathed with thin strips of cedar, the partitions and ceiling were of wide pine boards. Rough hewn rafters ran across the ceiling. There was no sign of plaster anywhere in that wide room. There were closed doors in the partitions to the right and left, and one in the log wall beside the chimney, opposite the open door. A wide ladder went steeply up from a corner to an open trap in the ceiling.

Akerley got stiffly to his feet and crossed the threshold. He knocked sharply on the open door; he crossed to the stove and hit the top of the oven with the poker; he shouted, “Wake up!”, “Good morning,” and “Is any one at home?” Knocks and shouts alike failed to produce a response of any sort except from the little black dog. The dog looked in at him across the threshold with an expression of sharp but good-humored curiosity on his black face; and when the intruder addressed him familiarly by the name of “Pup” and asked him where the devil every one was gone to, he wriggled with delight but continued to keep his distance.

Akerley opened the back door and looked out, under the roof of a narrow porch and across a wood-yard, at the high edge of the forest. Sunshine was flooding over the clearing by this time like a bright, level tide. The porch ran the length of the house; and in its shelter stood an upright churn, a couple of tubs, and two benches supporting empty pails and pans and “creamers” which shone like silver in the sun. Also, there were two old splint-bottom rocking-chairs on the porch; and on the seat of one of these lay an open book on its face.

Akerley stepped out onto the rough hewn flooring of the porch and stared about him inquiringly. Here was a comfortable and well-kept home; here were the material things of peaceful industry and leisure; but where had the people gone to? He knew that they had been at home last night, for the light from their open door had guided him to his landing. He sat down in one of the chairs, for he was still weak from the shaking and the pain in his shoulder, and lifted the book from the other.

“My hat!” he exclaimed. “Where am I?”

The book was the elder Dumas’ “Three Musketeers,” printed in the original language of that great and industrious romancer.

He replaced the book and reËntered the house. The dog, who had advanced as far as the middle of the room, immediately beat a wriggling retreat to his old position beyond the threshold. Akerley ascended the ladder and searched through the loft, which was divided into three chambers—a bedroom, a storeroom and a lumber-room. Nobody was hidden there. He descended and opened the closed doors off the main room. Behind them he found a pantry and storeroom combined, a long apartment containing a carpenter’s table and several large grain bins, and a bedroom. They were all as empty of humanity as the kitchen and upper floor.

It was now fifteen minutes past six by the clock on the chimney-shelf; and the intruder felt keen stirrings of hunger. He had not eaten since an early hour of the previous day. He made a fire in the stove with kindlings and dry wood which lay ready to hand, and then looked about for water. There was none in the house. He took an empty pail from the porch and followed a path that ran from the chip-yard into the green gloom of the forest. He found the spring within ten paces of the edge of the clearing, roofed over and fenced about with poles. The clear water brimmed the oblong basin that had been dug for it; and in the lower end of the basin stood two tin “creamers” held down by a stone-weighted board across their tops.

“Last night’s milk, I suppose,” said Akerley, as he filled his pail. “What about this morning’s milking? Are they leaving that to me, I wonder?”

He returned to the house and cooked and ate a very good breakfast. He found everything he wanted—bread, tea, sugar, butter, bacon and jam. Then he lit a cigarette.

“I won’t wash dishes, anyway,” he said, “I draw the line at that. I’ll dirty every cup and plate in the house first. But I suppose I’ll have to go and look for those blasted cows.”

His shoulder felt better, but still very stiff. He placed a dish of bread and milk on the floor and pointed it out to the little dog, then hung two tin pails on his arm and went out to look for the dairy herd. On his way, he searched the barns. The stables were empty, save for a few dozens of scratching fowls. He found a pig-house of two pens and open runs behind one of the barns. One suite was occupied by a large sow and the other by five promising pink youngsters. They all greeted the sight of him enthusiastically.

“Pigs!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they think I’ll attend to their confounded pigs.”

He entered the pig-house and found there a small iron stove and large iron pot. The pot, which had a capacity of about two flour barrels, was half-full of a stiff sort of porridge. Beside it stood a spade with a short handle. He set the pails on the floor and spaded a quantity of this mess into the troughs to right and left. The exertion sent stabs of pain through his injured shoulder. He glared at the big sow on his right and the small pigs on his left, who had dashed in from their yards at the sounds of his spading and were now sunk to the eyes and knees in their untidy breakfast.

“They’d better come home before that pot is empty,” he said. “If they think I’m going to cook for a bunch of pigs while they go fishing they’re everlastingly mistaken.”

The big field of oats spread completely around the barns, but from the barn-yard a fenced road led through the crop to a second clearing behind a screen of trees. This clearing, which was rough pasture, was fenced and occupied by three horses and a foal; and in a small, square yard at the near edge of it stood five cows in expectant attitudes. One cow had a bell at her neck, which she ding-donged restlessly.

Akerley had learned to milk when he was a small boy and used to visit a brother of his mother’s housekeeper in the country. The knack of it is not easily lost, though the muscles of hands and wrists may suffer from neglect of the exercise. He milked the five cows, grumbling at the necessity; and he was glad that two of them proved to be remarkably light producers. He then let them into the pasture with the horses; and upon seeing them hasten toward a green clump of alders in a far corner, he knew that he would not have to carry water for them. Owing to the painful condition of his shoulder, he was forced to make two trips with the milk. He found the house still unoccupied, save by the little black dog.

One thing led naturally to another; and Akerley found no time that morning to consider the graver problems of his situation. He was conscientious to an extraordinary degree and knew just enough about farm life to feel the responsibilities of his peculiar position. Milking led to the care of milk and the washing of creamers. He carried the skimmed milk to the pigs, cooked and ate his dinner, then fell asleep in one of the chairs on the porch.

Akerley slept heavily and senselessly for several hours; but at last his head slipped along the back of the chair into so uncomfortable a position that his brain shook off its torpor and busied itself with the spinning of dreams. They were startling and distressing dreams. They were of flying in fogs and over strange cities and through resounding barrages, of fighting against fearful odds, and of falling—falling—falling. Crash!—and he awoke just in time to save himself from tumbling sideways off the chair.

He opened his eyes wide and straightened himself with a gasp. His heart was going at a terrific rate, his nerves were all twanging, and for a second or two he felt numb with fear. Then he saw the afternoon sunlight along the edge of the forest and remembered. He laughed with relief.

“This is better,” he said to the black dog, who sat on the edge of the porch and faced him with an expression of undiminished interest and expectancy. “Yes, a great deal better, you black pup. Better for the nerves and better for everything—and you can take a flight-commander’s word for it, Pup.”

So great was his relief at awakening from his nightmares to those peaceful and rustic surroundings that, for several minutes, his mood and manner of whimsical complaint were forgotten. He surveyed the yard, with its cord wood, chips and saw-horse; and the path leading into the brown and green shades of the forest; and the dog wagging its tail in front of him, with the keenest satisfaction. His appreciative glance lowered to the floor between his feet and the dog.

“What’s this!” he exclaimed, staring. “Where’d it come from?”

He stooped forward and picked up a piece of folded white paper. It was written on with pencil, in a round hand, as follows:—

Akerley read with astonished haste, studied the signature, then re-read the letter slowly from the beginning. This done, he raised his head and gazed searchingly around him.

He entered the house and looked at the clock on the chimney-piece. It pointed to four; and he corrected the watch on his wrist by it. Again he read the note before putting it carefully away in his pocket-book. He stood for some time in the center of the room, deep in thought, fingering his stubbly chin. Then he entered the bedroom.

This was evidently Grandfather’s sleeping-place and nothing else. Its walls of natural wood were bare save for a few earthy and unshapely garments of coarse material hanging from nails. A pair of mud-caked boots with high legs stood crookedly in a corner. On the window-sill lay a black clay pipe, the heel of a plug of black tobacco and a shabby spectacle-case. The only articles of furniture were a large chest and a bed. The chest was not locked; and Akerley rummaged through it in search of a razor. He found an ancient suit of black broadcloth, a leather wallet fat with ten and twenty-dollar bank notes, flannel shirts, rifle cartridges rolled up in a woolen sock, a packet of papers, cakes of tobacco, suits of winter underclothes so aggressively wooly that his back itched as he beheld them, a Bible, a cardboard box full of trinkets—and, last of all, a razor in a stained red case.

He had to go up to the bedroom in the loft to find a mirror; but he did not shave there, feeling that he would be taking an unwarrantable liberty in doing so. With the mirror and a purloined cake of pink soap he returned to the kitchen. Nothing like a shaving-brush was to be found, high or low, so he did without. The pink soap proved to be a poor producer of lather, and the ancient razor seemed to prefer either sliding or digging to cutting; and so it was twenty minutes to five before Akerley considered himself shaved. He returned the mirror and soap to their places and went out to his crippled machine.

Akerley had no further use for the plane. He felt that it had fulfilled its mission, quite apart from the fact that it was damaged beyond immediate repair with the tools and materials at hand. He judged by the atmosphere and appearance of his surroundings and the fact that the old man of the place had mistaken him for a devil, that he had gone far enough. And the nearest supply of petrol was sure to be many weary miles away. So much the better—for petrol stood for the very things he was most anxious to avoid at this particular stage of his career. Now he was anxious to put the machine out of sight in the shortest possible time, and for a few minutes he seriously contemplated breaking it to pieces and burning and burying the fragments. But he decided against this violent course. He hadn’t the dull toughness of heart for the task; for this plane had served him well, as many others had served him well and truly in the past. So he set briskly to work at dismantling it.

It was after seven o’clock when Akerley went for the cows. He found them waiting outside the bars in the brush fence among the alders, yarded them and milked them. He then fed the calves and pigs, prepared and ate his own supper, and returned to his work on the machine. Later, he found and lit a lantern. It was close upon midnight when his task was completed to his satisfaction. Then he threw himself, boots and all, on the old man’s bed, and sank into dreamless sleep.