“What--what are the dials--radio-dials? Oh, see how they light up when the flash-light moves off!” cried one or two voices.
“Those that face me in my little cock-pit! Why, clock, compass, altimeter, inclinator--and a few more to guide us on the sky-trail.”
“If--if you just stroll down to the water’s edge, you’ll see a radio freak!” laughed Sybil. “A shining figurehead on a dory! She’s camouflaged too, that wooden bead-eye! I had the prettiest little Milky Way on my own arm last night,”--holding up that round member--“six tiny stars; I washed them off this morning.”
“So you’re no longer a Camp Fire galaxy!” Now, it was the aviator’s turn to chuckle, as compliantly he strode towards the murmuring tide, extinguishing his torch.
“But--but why the camouflage?” he demanded. “Rather a rub-in joke, eh, on a humble little rowboat that’s as innocent as a lamb; she’ll never chase anything--dodge anything....”
“Hold on--hold on there, you Cavalry Man of the Skies, as my soldier-brother would say! How do you know?” suddenly challenged the piquant voice of the dory’s owner, bristling with “pep” behind him.
“When--when aviators drop from a height of ten thousand feet.... Oh! don’t say you weren’t as high as that----” Sara bit her lip comically.
“Higher, part of the time,” was the amused reply. “I saw a double sunset this evening. Just after witnessing the first we ‘zoomed’ up, soared for the fun of the thing, outside the earth’s shadow, saw Old Sol rise again, blood-red, in the West--like a tricked rooster with a flaming comb--and set for the second time. Jove! Some sight that!”
“There! I told you anything--anything is possible these times. Well! What I’d like to know is, where the cavalry of the sky would like to sup--indoors or out?” questioned Sara, waving her fringed arms towards that violet night-sky, no longer locked to man.
“Outdoors, by all means, I should say, by that corking bonfire!” The aviator glanced backward over his shoulder at the blazing pile of driftwood whose shading smoke-reek, floating high over the dunes, had guided him to earth.