Lightning, sheets and strings and chains of it, thrashed down on every side of her. Ordinarily she would have been afraid of it, but now it caused her no concern. So when a bolt leaped down fifty feet in front of her, at the top of a hill, she paid it no attention. She passed that point, went a few steps beyond, and the second bolt struck. Unconscious, she pitched forward on her face.... At three o’clock in the morning Mary Collins staggered up to a rancher’s house near Camp Wood and beat feebly against the door. Presently the rancher appeared, holding a kerosene lamp above his head. He stared at the apparition in amazement. “Storm--at Rock Springs!” the girl moaned. “People dead--dying! Get doctors--medicine! Hurry!” After that she gabbled to him in delirium. He finally got a few disconnected facts about the storm. He tried the telephone, and at last Uvalde answered. He gave his orders quickly.... When he turned back to Mary Collins she had collapsed upon the floor. * * * * * Nick Wentworth, chief pilot of the Air Patrol, in San Antonio, was called out of bed at four-thirty in the morning by Doctor Wilson, from the Grayson Hospital. Grumbling a little, and somewhat startled by the urgency with which the man presented himself, Nick opened the door and let him in. Wilson introduced himself in two words. He explained his presence quickly. “Rock Springs--wiped out in--a storm! ” he panted. “The hospital is sending me--my mother was visiting there. It’ll take me five hours to drive in my car--can you take me, by air?” He asked the question as an order. “They’ve got to have a doctor--quickly! ” Nick, dull and heavy-eyed with sleep, considered the possibilities of getting through. He could not take Wilson in his own plane, because it was a single-seated affair, built for speed and endurance in the air. Scott, his assistant, was gone, hence Scott’s plane was not available. Two of the Patrol’s ships were undergoing motor overhaul. There was only one plane left that Nick could take--an antiquated Vought, a spare, seldom used. “I’ll go,” he decided. “Just a minute till I dress.” Before he dived back into his room he called the flying-field. After a persistent ringing, the telephone was answered by a field mechanic. Nick gave him quick instructions. “She’ll be on the line tunin’ up when you git out here,” Barnes, the mechanic, replied. And then, quickly: “Hey, wait a minute! You can’t take that ship--it’s got a leaky radiator--we just discovered it yesterday.” “Can’t take it? I’ve got to take it! You put it on the line, and have it started when I get there!” Barnes grumbled something. Nick rushed into his room to dress, and Wilson paced back and forth in the other room of the apartment. The Patrol pilot returned three minutes later, buttoning up his coat. He stopped to get an extra helmet and a pair of goggles for Wilson.