“Don’t be!” He grinned. “It’s only a step.”

“Pretty long step.” She smiled back at him.

“Eighteen hundred miles, plus, and water under us all the way. What could be sweeter? And we’ll be flying out to meet the dawn.”

“Oh, Sparky!” she exclaimed. “That does sound swell! I never did like night. Just to think that we’re hurrying away to meet the sun that is just popping along to meet us! That sure is something.”

The food was excellent so she ordered a lunch “to go” and, producing a gallon thermos bottle, ordered it filled with coffee.

“That,” said Sparky, “will be frozen solid. We’re going to be flying up there among the stars.”

“Oh, no, it won’t,” she gave him a sly smile. “There are some advantages in having a gal for a co-pilot. One of the advantages is a hot lunch half way across.”

“Tasting is believing.” He was a skeptic.

“Wait and see.”

“I’ll wait.”

Ten minutes later they were at the airport and with their arrival a burden seemed to fall upon Mary’s slender shoulders. She had started out light-heartedly enough to do, with her companion, Janet, what no woman of the Ferry Command had ever done before, to ferry a big ship half way round the world. What was more, their ship was to carry a light cargo of vital war equipment. Now her companion was gone. Sparky had taken her place. They had started out forty planes strong. Now one plane was out of action and thirty-eight were a full day ahead of them.

“We’ll have to go it alone,” she said, speaking half to herself and half to Sparky.

“That’s it,” Sparky agreed. “The Fates have arranged that.”

“We’ll Have to Go It Alone,” Said Mary

“And our cargo is priceless. That’s what the Major said.”

“Priceless,” he agreed. “It’s quite as important that it should arrive safely as, well perhaps, as it is for all those big bombers ahead of us to go through.

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