That redoubtable fighter reappeared in front and below him and Tam dived for him. Müller's nose went down and back to his hiding-place he dived. Tam corrected his level and swooped upward again. There was no sign of Captain Müller. Tam cruised up and down, searching the cloud for his enemy. He was doing three things at once: He was looking, he was fitting another drum to his gun, and he was controlling the flight of his machine, when "chk-chk-chk" said the wireless, and Tam listened, screwing his face into a grimace signifying at once the difficulty of hearing, and his apprehension that he might lose a word of what was to follow. "L Q--L Q," said the receiver. "Noo," said Tam in perplexity, "is 'L Q' meanin' that A' ocht to rin for ma life or is it 'continue the guid wairk'?" Arguing that his work was invisible from the earth and that a more urgent interpretation was to be put upon the message, he turned westward and dived; not, however, before he had seen over his shoulder a dozen enemy machines come flashing up from the clouds. "Haird cheese!" said Tam; "a' the auld cats aboot an' the wee moosie's awa'!" He had intended going home, but a new and bright thought struck him. He turned his machine and pushed straight through the cloud the way he had come. He knew they had seen him disappearing and, airman like, they would remain awhile to bask in the sunlight and "dry off." * * * * * As a general rule Tam hated clouds. You could not tell whether you were flying right side up or upside down, and he had always a curious sense of nervousness that he would collide with something. Yet, for once, he drove through the swirling "smoke" with a sense of joyous anticipation, and presently began to rise gently, keeping his eyes aloft to detect the first thinning of the fog. Presently he saw the sunlight reflected on the upper stratas and began to climb steeply. His machine ripped out into the sun, a fierce, roaring little fury. Not a hundred yards away was a fighting machine. "_Ticka--ticka--ticka--ticka--tick!_" said Tam's machine-gun. Tam's staring blue eyes were on the sights--he could not miss. The pilot went limp in his seat, the observer took his hand from his gun to grip the controls. Too late; the wide-winged fighter skidded like a motorbus on a greasy road and fell into the clouds sideways. But now the enemy was coming at him from all points of the compass. "Dinna let oor pairtin' grieve ye!" sang Tam and dropped straight through the clouds into the rain and a dim view of a bedraggled earth. "There's Burley," said Blackie, clad in a long oilskin and a sou'wester as he checked off the home-coming adventurers. "Do you ever notice how his machine always looks lop-sided? There's Galbraith and Mosen--who's that fellow on the Morane? Oh, yes, that's Parker-Smith. H'm!" "What's wrong?" "Where's Tam--I hope those beggars didn't catch him--There he is, the devil!"