“Oh! They’re gone!” Mary exclaimed in dismay as they came in sight of the airfield.

“What? They can’t be!”

“But they are! The bombers are gone. The field is practically empty.”

It was true. Warnings of an approaching storm had sent the big bomber squadron roaring on its way over the mountains. But Mary and Sparky landed a moment later with plenty of room to spare.

To Mary this was a great disappointment. She dearly loved being in a parade, always had. And flying in a great formation like that was a big parade.

“Now we’ll have to go it alone,” she said soberly.

“Nothing new about that,” Sparky grinned. “We’ve made it alone practically all the way and you’re bound to admit that we’ve had all the luck any flier could ask.”

“Yes, all the luck,” Mary repeated slowly.

“You’re tired, Mary,” Sparky said with a show of sympathy.

“Yes, I guess I am. Can’t take it after all, I guess.”

“Can’t take it! Man! Oh! Man!” he roared. “Listen to you talk!”

Just then Scottie came over from Sparky’s plane.

“I covered up the box that the spy pried open,” he said. “Then I changed the loading so it’s on the bottom. And believe it or not,” he added, “I didn’t peek.”

“The secret compartment?” Mary’s voice rose. “Had it been broken open?”

“Don’t know a thing about a secret compartment,” was Scottie’s reply. “I went over the cabin with a fine-toothed comb. Everything but that box seemed okay.”

“Then the roll of papyrus is still there and wasn’t burned up in that plane.” Mary heaved a sigh of relief.

“So that’s what happened?” said Scottie. “Their plane burned.”

“Yes, it burned.” Mary spoke slowly. No other questions were asked.

“The Colonel said if you didn’t bring my plane back in twenty-four hours,” Scottie laughed low, “that I could have yours.”

“And you said?” Sparky asked.

“I said it would be a fair enough trade but that guys like you and Mary always came back.”

“Yes,” Mary agreed. “We always come back—sometimes.”

“Mary,” said Sparky, “I’m going over our plane, every bit of it. People who open secret cargoes also put emery in engines, cut fuel pipes and all that. When we go over those peaks, everything has to be right.”

“It certainly does.” Mary was seeing again those cold, white slopes where a plane forced to land goes rolling down, down, down, to dizzy depths below.

“I’ll go get a cup of coffee,” she said dreamily.

“And have a good rest,” said Sparky. “We may go over the big top yet today. That all depends.”

While she was drinking her coffee, Mary was joined by the Captain who had helped her save the secret cargo from the would-be hijackers. “Sparky tells me that you chased that woman spy to her death,” he said. Mary nodded. “I just wanted to tell you,” he went on, “that while you were gone, I did a little investigating. That woman flew to a small airport owned by a rich native, about forty miles from here. She must have motored over here, though her car wasn’t found. Had an accomplice, no doubt.

“A man I got on the phone,” he went on, “tells me she checks with a native Indian woman who studied in America but who soured on Americans for some reason or other, and so went into spying. Looks as if you and Sparky have done the country a great favor.”

“I—I’m glad,” Mary swallowed hard. “But for my part I’ll do my bit some other way after this.”

Two hours later Mary was wakened from a dream in which she was riding on an ocean liner gliding rapidly down a swiftly moving mountain stream.

“Mary! Mary!” It was Sparky, calling outside her tent. “I’m sorry, but orders have come through by radio. We are to start within the hour!”

“Okay. I’ll join you at the canteen for our last cup of java in Burma.”

“Here’s hoping.” Sparky was away.

“It’s not too promising,” he was telling her a half hour later, talking between gulps of steaming hot coffee. “The barometer is falling. A storm is on the way, but the big shots figure we can make it. This time of year it storms for weeks once it gets a good start and it seems our cargo is vital to some great mission.”

“Sparky,” Mary drawled sleepily, “the next time you and I fly together we’ll insist on having a cargo of toothpicks, crackers, chewing gum, and non-essentials.”

“Something that doesn’t count too much,” he grinned. “I wonder. It strikes me that you’re just the sort that insists on doing hard, important things all the time.”

“You might be right at that, and perhaps I’ve got a buddy that’s built along the same lines,” she answered smiling.

“Might be,” he agreed. “Anyway the next hop promises to be both important and tough so we’d better get going.” He slid off the stool.

Five minutes later, having been joined by Hop Sing, they were back at the plane. Heavily padded suits, fur-lined jackets, and marvelous wool socks were selected with great care for all. Sparky went through the business of getting set for a long flight, then, when his motors were rolling, nodded to the mechanic and they went gliding away.

As if by way of a warning from the storm gods, as they cleared the treetops, a stiff push of wind lifted their plane high, then let it down with a bump.

“Oh, ho!” Sparky shouted. “So that’s how it is! Blow high! Blow low! Not all your snow can stop our motors’ steady roar.” He was in high spirits. But Mary was ill at ease.

“They say that women have instincts,” she said to Sparky.

“Meaning what?”

“Nothing much, I guess.”

He set the ship climbing. They went speeding on toward those eternal fields of white.

Perhaps the events of the morning had shaken Mary’s usually steady nerves. Then again the strain of long, exciting days and nights had begun to tell. Be that as it may, as they came closer and closer to those mountains of eternal snow, her apprehension increased.

They came close to the place where they must climb and climb again to make the pass in safety, and she was obliged to confess to herself that she was really frightened.

At that moment she recalled the words of a pilot who had crossed many times. “They call it a pass but it’s only a slightly lower level between two towering peaks.” She looked at the peaks and the narrow depression that lay between them. At the same time she thought she had discovered a change in the peaks that lay far to the left.

“Some of them are gone,” she said.

“Gone? What’s gone?” Sparky asked.

“Mountains.”

“Mountains! They don’t go away. They’re eternal. It says so in the Bible.”

“All the same there are not as many as there were,” Mary insisted.

Sparky gave her a sharp look, then he gazed away to the left.

“By thunder! You’re right!” he exclaimed. “They are vanishing. Know what that means?”

“A storm!”

“Absolutely. With the direction of the wind, quartering to the direction the range takes, that storm will come and come and come.”