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 evidently, who was up for practice in the quiet air of dawn.

I almost sent the fellow into a tail spin; and I came through, sweating cold from sitting strapped in my seat, helpless to touch a control. A big cabin machine appeared and Bane either intentionally ignored it or noticed it too late to make me graze it. I passed it with a space of five hundred feet between us and found myself climbing.

From the east and fifteen hundred feet higher flew a mail plane. I knew the contour and I thought of the mail-flyer who had been discussed on the terrace. I was climbing to reach the level of this mail machine and, also, was pointed at it.

The three seater, which guided me, also climbed; for the proper position for control was slightly above me and behind. Playing with me, was he? I wondered; and was his sense of sport to remain satisfied with sending me skimming past another machine? Or would he send me into this one, deliberately?

That depended, I thought, upon whether one of the heads in that three-seater was fem-