"Hm-m. Well, we'll have to trust to luck." "You know the working of the beacon?" Lance asked. On the other's nod of affirmation he continued: "What's your plan?" "Light about five miles this side of Frisco itself, just near the main Slav military base. Anywhere in that territory would do, though. The beacon doesn't go up in a narrow ray; it spreads, diffuses. The squadron of torpedoes will cover some fifty or sixty miles of ground, I believe. They'll utterly demolish the city, and every damned Slav in it." His face, in the darkness, went grim and hard. "And it'll damn well pay them back," he rasped, "for the horrible way they massacred San Francisco's population...." * * * * * The Singe beacon was in his plane. Hay turned to Lance, stretching out his hand for a farewell clasp. Then Lance asked the question that had been worrying him. "Colonel Douglas told me to give you a last handshake for him. _Last._ Why did he say that?" "Because," Hay said smilingly, "I'm staying by the beacon to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I guess that's why he said it, old fellow...." Lance gasped: "You're sacrificing your life?" "Of course. To save seventy-five million others." Then suddenly they both stared above. A roar of sound--of purring motors, of props, mixed with the chatter of a dozen machine-guns--had belched with numbing suddenness from the low-hanging clouds. Enemy planes! A patrol of them! "God!" jerked Lance. "Ranth's warning got through! Part of it, anyway!" He leaped for his plane, shouting: "I'll hold 'em off! You get away _quick_!" and, through a veritable hail of lead, sprang into the cockpit. Then, a cold pang at his heart, he sprang out again. A bullet had caught Hay! * * * * * For a moment, the Slav fire ceased, while their planes zoomed up to start another death-dealing dive. And in that moment Lance was at Hay's side, where he had fallen. "They--got me," whispered Hay, a stream of blood welling from his gasping mouth. "I'm--I'm going. C-carry me to--to your plane. I've still a--a little strength left. You take the beacon. I--I'll hold them--as--as long as--I can. Put through that beacon, boy! _Put it though!_" His brain a maelstrom, Lance stared at the crumpled figure. It was the only way! He heard the motors above come roaring down again; desperately he carried the blood-choking Hay to his own plane; propped him limply at the controls. Bullets spat through a frenzy of noise. Weakly Hay started the Goshawk's Diesels, and weakly, into Lance's face, smiled, and beckoned him to leave. And, as Lance, a grim resolve at his heart, turned, Hay's blood-frothed lips formed the words: "Carry on!" Through the raining lead, seeming to bear a charmed life, Lance leaped to Hay's plane, hearing as he did so his own, with a stricken pilot at its controls, hurtle upwards. Carry on! For the life of America! Carry on! * * * * *