Half of the upper wing of the monoplane crumpled as Tim raked his landing gear through it. The propeller shivered into a thousand pieces and the motor raced madly.
Tim and Ralph, peering from their plane, saw the black craft pause in mid-air for a moment. In that fleeting second they saw the Sky Hawk half rise in his cockpit and rip the gas mask from his face.
It was Kurt Blandin and in the anger-marked face Tim recognized the likeness to Max Reuter, the German ace. The mystery was solved, the puzzle fitted and Blandin punctuated its completion with a final show of bravado as he raised clenched fists toward them.
Then the black plane fell away in a tight spin. Blandin made no effort to escape and a thousand feet above the ground the wings collapsed and the Sky Hawk crashed to his death.
Tim swung the Good News in a great circle, then headed for Atkinson. The Sky Hawk was gone; the airways were clear once more.