“Treff!”
“Una! Have you found—her?” His voice was hoarse.
“No.” The girl shook him. “You-ou! How did you know? Have you—heard—”
“Anything about her—no! But I got your radio. Cut in when you were talking with Station Y.V.Z. that farmer-fellow. Picked up enough, just enough to know who was missing. Oh—heavens!” The young aviator threw up his hands, rocking, groaning—looking as if the destruction of his plane by fire had been a light “note”, compared to this. “Dad—you see he had been telling me things—s-such things!” he finished lamely.
“W-what had he been telling—you?” Through the girl’s lips, bruised by suffering, the whisper could scarcely creep.
“Merciful hop.... I mean don’t ask me; I don’t know where—how—to begin. He only got back from his fishing trip last night—Dad.”
“Yes?”
“And he got me so worked up—talking, talking—that I couldn’t sleep, so I was just making an owl’s night over the outfit—radio—for fun, you know—” the young fellow threw out his hands again—“when I tuned in on your talk with the other station. After midnight then,” he licked his dry lips, “but I made a howling dash for the nearest farm, borrowed that ‘plug’,” pointing to a lathered, drooping horse—“at night, wouldn’t trust the plane.... Water! Is there any?” He caught at the collar of his khaki shirt.
“Oh! heavens—if I could only—begin to tell you, b-but—but I feel up-choked.” He drained the last drop of water.
“Don’t be a mope.” Pemrose grinned it at him, in fury. “Una!... Una!”