Wing Commander Bobby Thebold took his Lindbergh-style helmet and goggles from a desk drawer, caressing the limp leather fondly, and put them in a dispatch case. He gave a soft salute to the door behind which Jen Jervis customarily worked, more as his second-in-command than his secretary, and said half aloud: "Okay, Jen, we're coming to get you." He didn't know quite how, but Bobby the Bold and Charger would soon be on their way. * * * * * Don Cort regretfully detached himself from Alis Garet. "What was that?" he said. "That was me--Alis the love-starved. You could be a bit more gallant. Even 'How was that?,' though corny, would have been preferable. "No--I mean I thought I heard a voice. Didn't you hear anything?" "To be perfectly frank--and I say it with some pique--I was totally absorbed. Obviously you weren't." "It was very nice." The countryside, from the edge to the golf course, was deserted. "Well, thanks. Thanks a bunch. Such enthusiasm is more than I can bear. I have to go now. There's an eleven o'clock class in magnetic flux that I'm simply dying to audit." She gave her shoulder-length blonde hair a toss and started back. Don hesitated, looked suspiciously at the brief case dangling from his wrist, shook his head, then followed her. The voice, wherever it came from, had not spoken again. "Don't be angry, Alis." He fell into step on her left and took her arm with his free hand. "It's just that everything is so crazy and nobody seems to be taking it seriously. A town doesn't just get up and take off, and yet nobody up here seems terribly concerned." Alis squeezed the hand that held her arm, mollified. "You've got lipstick on your whiskers." "Good. I'll never shave again." "Ah," she laughed, "gallantry at last. I'll tell you what let's do. We'll go see Ed Clark, the editor of the Sentry. Maybe he'll give you some intelligent conversation." The newspaper office was in a ramshackle one-story building on Lyric Avenue, a block off Broadway, Superior's main street. It was in an ordinary store front whose windows displayed various ancient stand-up cardboard posters calling attention to a church supper, a state fair, an auto race, and a movie starring H. B. Warner. A dust-covered banner urged the election as president of Alfred E. Smith. There was no one in the front of the shop. Alis led Don to the rear where a tall skinny man with straggly gray hair was setting type. "Good morning, Mr. Clark," she said. "What's that you're setting--an anti-Hoover handbill?" "Hello, Al. How are you this fine altitudinous day?" "Super. Or should it be supra? I want you to meet Don Cort. Don, Mr. Clark." The men shook hands and Clark looked curiously at Don's handcuff. "It's my theory he's an embezzler," Alis said, "and he's made this his getaway town."