“Don’t try to thrill ’em by dropping an egg on the town pump,” said Hap Newton. “General MacArthur has caused the word to be spread among the tribesmen that United Nations airmen are their friends. We wouldn’t want to give them the wrong impression.” “I wonder how many New Guinea wild men could tell the Jap ‘rising sun’ from our insignia,” Chick remarked, “even if they were near enough to—oh-oh! Look, Barry! Straight ahead on that little grassy plateau ... don’t those patches look like native gardens to you?” By way of answer, Barry eased the wheel forward. In a long, flat dive _Rosy O’Grady_ roared down toward the plateau. Moment by moment the tiny squares and oblongs of different colors took the shape of cultivated gardens. Near by appeared a few loaf-shaped native houses. “There’s your village!” Barry exclaimed. “Looks like a busy place, too. They’re clearing more grassland for garden space, if I’m not mistaken.” Looking down through the plastiglass of the big bomber’s nose, her crew could distinguish twenty or thirty human figures at one end of the cultivated section. Suddenly the natives stopped gaping at the diving plane. They ran for cover. “We’re wowing ’em, all right,” whooped Hap Newton. “Just see those grass skirts scatter! You ought to be ashamed of scaring the ladies this way, Barry!” “They’ll have something to talk about for a month at least,” laughed the _Rosy’s_ skipper, as he pulled back on the wheel. “Are you satisfied with this glimpse you’ve had of native culture, Chick?” “Not by a long shot!” the homely bombardier replied. “I wish you’d turn back for another look, Barry. There’s something blamed queer about that village. Several things, to be truthful.” There was a grim note in Chick’s voice that Barry recognized. His bombardier was in deadly earnest. “Okay,” he said shortly. “Slap on the coal, Hap. We’re going back for another look-see. What was it that struck you as queer, Chick?” “Since when do _men_ wear grass skirts, or New Guinea women wear their hair clipped short?” Chick responded. “I had a better view here in the nose than the rest of you did. I’ll swear to what I saw. And, while we’re asking questions, will somebody tell me when the natives of this country became _market gardeners_? There’s enough cultivated land around those dozen thatched huts to supply food for ten villages.... Look down now and tell me what you think of it!” For wordless moments every man in the cockpit gazed at the orderly patchwork of little fields below. Suddenly Barry grasped the truth. “Look at the pattern down there, Hap!” he exclaimed. “They’ve broken it up pretty cleverly with camouflage, but the cleared place is L-shaped. If that isn’t an airport I’m cockeyed.” “Then those birds in grass skirts—” Curly Levitt’s voice gasped through the interphone. “—were _Japs_!” Chick Enders finished the sentence. “Go as low as you dare, Barry, and see what else we can spot.”