And her crew! As Captain Tex O’Grady glanced at their keen, confident young faces, he knew he could depend on them. They’d meet danger with a grin of defiance and their cool efficiency would whittle down any odds they might meet. Six thousand miles still remained between them and the Indian battlefront to which they had been ordered. The route would lie across Nigeria to Lake Tchad, then northwest to the Egyptian Sudan and down the Nile to Cairo. From there they would fly eastward in easy hops over Iran and India, till they reached their assigned base. That was the plan; but in wartime the plans of mice and men are especially subject to change. A few hours before his take-off from Accra, radioed orders reached Captain O’Grady to head for Australia and the South Pacific. Heavy bombers were more urgently needed there, it appeared. And that meant _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_! The new orders involved a greatly changed route. From now on Captain O’Grady and his crew would be flying below the equator. Heading southeast, they would have to cross the great Belgian Congo into East Africa before stopping to refuel. As soon as Fred Marmon learned that, he gave his “quadruplets” an extra careful inspection. A forced landing in those all but trackless jungles was something he hated to contemplate. From Accra the Flying Fortress took off with all gas tanks full. Nine hundred miles across the Gulf of Guinea she roared to Libreville, where the Fighting French made up her depleted fuel. In the air again, she swept in a few hours over the vast territory that took H. M. Stanley years to explore. Twice she crossed the mighty Congo River. Then the five-hundred-mile expanse of Lake Tanganyika lay below. “Watch out for elephants and giraffes, boys,” came the Old Man’s humorous drawl. “This is the country all the animal crackers come from. I’ll take _Rosy_ down low enough so that you can see them.” There was a general laugh, but as Captain O’Grady nosed his ship down to a thousand feet the crew really started to look. Perhaps the Old Man wasn’t kidding after all. The dense masses of green forest broke up into small patches. Lush grazing lands appeared, with here and there a clump of trees. Farther on stretched a dry plain, spotted with the green of an occasional water hole. As they neared one of these, Barry Blake gave a shout. “There are your elephants, Captain!” he exclaimed. “We interrupted their drink. I see a bunch of ostriches on the run, too—” “Ostriches—ha, ha!” Tex O’Grady chuckled. “We’re not that near to Australia, Bub. Those long-necked critters you see are _giraffes_. Want me to prove it to you?” He shoved the stick forward. As the giant plane dipped down to within two hundred feet of them, the frightened giraffes scattered like sheep. Barry could see their long, pathetic necks swaying like masts as they turned this way or that. Seconds later the herd was far behind.