Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1914-11-04
CHAPTER ~.
"We'll give them tit for tat"

ness and pool Of shining black
And even as she stared the mound
above her swayed and crumb.ed, and
rush OF hot water came pouring over
her. Then 1t seemed to her that she
was dragged downward.
When the rather british young avia-
tor with the bullet head and the black
hair cropped zen brosse" who was in
charge of the French special scientific
corps heard presently of this disaster
to the war control he was so wanting
IN Imagination in any sphere but his
own that he laughed. Small matter to
him that Paris was burning. His
mother and father and sister lived at
Caudebec. and the only sweetheart he
had ever had-and it was poor love
making then-was a girl in Rouen. He
slapped his second in command on the
shoulder. "Now," he said, there's
nothing on earth to stop us going to
Berlin and giving them tit for tat.
Strategy and reasons Of state-they're
over Come along, my boy. and We'll
just show these old women what we
can do when they let us have our
heads
He spent five minutes telephoning,
and then he went out into the court
yard Of the chateau in which he had
been installed and shouted for his au-
tomobile. Things would have to move
quickly. because there was scarcely an
hour and half before dawn. He look
ed at the sky and noted with satisfac-
ton a heavy bank of clouds athwart
the pallid east.
he was young man Of infinite
shrewdness, and his material and aero
countryside, stuck away In barns,
covered with hay, hidden in woods.
A hawk could not have discovered auy
Of them without coming within reach
of gun. But that night he only
wanted one of the machines, and it
was handy and quite prepared under a
tarpaulin between two ricks not q cou.
pie Of miles away. He was going to
Berlin with that and just one other
man. Two men would be enough for
what be meant to do.
He had In his hands the black CON-
pIement to all those other gifts science
VAS urging upon unregenerate man.
Kind. the gift of destruction, and he
was an adventurous rather than a
sympathetic type.
H., 1orlr vorrr MON with
something negroid about his cleaning
face. He smiled like one who is ia
vOred and anticipates great pleasures.
There was an exotic richness, chuc-
king favor. about the voice in which
he gave his orders, and he pointed his
remarks with the long finger Of a
hand that was hairy and exceptional
~ big.
We'll give them tit for tat" be said
SWELL give them tit for tat. No time
to lose, boys"
And presently over the cloud banks
that lay above Westphalia and Sax
ony the swift aeropane, with its
atomic engine as noiseless as dane
ing sunbeam and it's phosphorescent
gyrOscOpic compass, flew like an arrow
to the heart Of the central European
hosts.
1t did not soar very high. 1t skim
med a few hundred feet above the
banked darknesses of cumulus that hid
the world. ready to plunge at once
into their wet obscurities should some
hnof{1o Aior irto ,-ic.;D
tense young steersman divided his at
tention between the guiding stars
above and the level, tumbled surfaces
Of the vapor strata that hid the world
below. Over great spaces those banks
lay as even as frozen lava fow and
almost as still, and then they were
rent by ragged areas of translucency,
pierced by clear chasms, 50 that dim
patches OF the land below cleaned re-
motely through abysses. Once he saw
quite distinctly the plan Of big rail-
way station outlined in lamps and sig
nails and once the flames Of a burning
rick showing 1ivid through a boiling
drift OF smoke on the side Of some
great hill. But If the world was mask
ed it was alive With sounds Up
through that vapor floor came the deep
roar Of trains, the whistles of horns Of
mOtOrcars, sound of rife fire away
to the south and as he drew near his
destination the growing of cocks.
The sky above the 1ndistinct horizons
OF this cloud sea was at first starry
and then paler, with a light that crept
from north to east as the dawn came
on. The Milky way was invisible in
the blue and the lesser stars vanished.
The face Of the adventurer at the steer.
ing wheel, darkly visible ever and
again by the oval greenish glow of
the compass face, had something of
that firm beauty which all concen.
trated purpose gives, and something of
the happiness of an idiot child that has
at last got hold Of the matches. His
companion. a less imaginative type,
sat with his legs spread wide over the
long, coffin shaped box which con
tanned in its compartments the three
atomic bombs, the new bombs that
would continue to explode indefinitely
and which no one so far had ever seen
in action. Hitherto carolinum, their
essential substance. had been tested
only in almost in1nitesimal quantities
within steel chambers embedded in
lead. Beyond the thought of great de.
struction slumbering In the black
spheres between bis legs. and a keen
resolve to follow out very exactly the
instructions that had been given him
the mans mind was blank. His aqui
line profile against the starlight ex
pressed nothing but profound gloom