“Sparky,” she said as they soared aloft some time later, “I’m going to resign from this job of mine.”

“And then what?” Sparky asked in surprise.

“Then I’m going from place to place in all these lonely spots cheering up the boys.”

“That,” said Sparky, “would be a noble purpose, but just now you’re bound to this big plane and me. And you’ll not leave us for a long time, not till the journey’s end.”

“Not till the journey’s end,” she repeated softly. And how soon would the end come? Who could tell? Perhaps tonight. One never knew. She shuddered a little, then turned her attention to the work of the hour.

That night Mary did not sleep. Sparky had first call on a time for rest and he surely needed it. He told her to call him in two hours.

“But I won’t,” she told herself. “Not if all goes well. Something tells me I won’t sleep if I have the chance.” She found herself haunted by a sense of impending doom. The tall French woman, all in black, and the stately Moslem lady were constantly being blended on the pictured walls of her mind. And after that, with the slow sleepy tread of the desert, came the two little men and their camels. They too seemed part of the same picture, but just how, she could not tell.

“What foolishness!” she whispered. “Lie down, you ghosts.” But they would not. They continued to haunt her.

She gave herself over to glimpses of the desert and the night. There was a glorious moon. The desert beneath her was full of haunting shadows. For the most part they were shadows of sandy hills, but at times they loomed dark and large.

“Oases,” she told herself. “Wonder if friend or foe live here—” Sparky had told her that this night they were to fly over dangerous country. Little pockets of enemy resistance here had not been crushed. She was to keep a sharp lookout and if she sighted a plane, was to call him at once.

“We can outclimb and outfly most enemy fighters,” he had said. “But we must not let them get the drop on us.”

So, with eyes and ears alert, she rode on through the night.

All went well. She called Sparky in three hours. He scolded her for waiting so long.

“It was the spell of the desert at night,” she told him. “Seems as if 

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