Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/52

 winds. The thing screamed down upon the Long Island estate with an overwhelming stridency.

Both men looked up as one. At first they saw nothing, but, in an instant, they spotted the tiny point of light. A speck of brilliance in the soft blue sky above, growing rapidly to a red flare directly overhead.

"By Jove! What's—" started Burleigh, then stopped short. Both men ducked instinctively as the flame from out of the sky seemed to come pouncing down upon their heads.

The ground shone red for an instant, then, suddenly, the carnate glow disappeared. For a moment there was shocked silence, then a terrific crash that shook the ground under their feet and sent them both sprawling.

Burleigh straightened up slowly, shook his head to clear it. "Lord," he queried in a shocked tone, "what was that?"

Staunton seemed too stunned to speak for an instant. His eyes stared out unseeing for a second, then, fixing upon something untoward in the view, stopped and came to a focus. His face leaped into startled amazement, quickly followed by fury.

"Hey! That's my tulip bed you've ruined!" he yelled and started running in the direction of the shining metal ovoid now nestling comfortably in a pit of its own making, surrounded by strewn rocks, soil, and crushed and mangled flowers of the now-vanished garden.

Staunton scarcely took note in those first few moments of the unusual design of the flying craft; his ire could see only that it had chosen his favorite flower beds for a landing field. But, as his mind took in the remarkably stream-lined silvery sides of the rather bullet-shaped craft, his sense of proportion returned and he came to a halt.

It was perhaps fifty feet long and twenty feet wide at its greatest dv ameter. In many ways it resembled a giant cartridge, its nose, with its jutting bull's-eye porthole, tapering down to a blunt point, its stern flat and tubed as if intended for a large number of exhaust pipes. Right now that section was smeared with black soot as if recently exposed to flames. And bits of up-thrown dirt were spattered over the otherwise glistening sides and against the three or four tiny thick-glassed portholes that studded the side.

Burleigh panted up to his friend, gasped "What kind of airplane is that? It's a new one to me."

"Looks like one of Gatling's rockets grown to monstrous proportions," commented Staunton walking cautiously a little closer.

"I'll bet that's what it is. The fellow had a place over in New Jersey once, and he's probably back again—making a damned nuisance of himself," added Burleigh as if in afterthought.

"He's going; to pay for this nuisance, though," growled the estate owner, regaining some of his anger. "He'll wish he stayed back in the Border Territory before I get through!"

HE long lanky man carefully un-strapped the belts around his waist, eased himself down onto the narrow floor of the cramped control room. "Whew!" he muttered to himself, "That's over!" He tried to stretch his tired muscles, cramped from long hours of sitting hunched up in the tiny space the ship afforded.

"Yay! Halloo! Three cheers! We're home, Congreve, old boy; we've made it!" a cheery voice boomed