beneath the other and put his engine full out, but Bayard in his faster machine overtook him and shot past
and whirled and with short threatening rushes <forced Evelyn to <<bear away>> give way> was forcing
Evelyn to give way until Evelyn pointed his machine carefully and fired a burst from his Vickers guns across
his brother's nose. Then Bayard fell behind and a little above him and came doggedly on. Evelyn turned
and thumbed his nose at the blur of the other propeller.

What's come over old Bayard? he wondered. Aint any Huns back that way. Wonder what he thought I
wanted with him — just to look at his mug? Being in America again did it, I reckon. The land of the
kike and the home of the wop, where all men are [brave?] and the women are all virgins through the last reel.
It was going to be clear after all; the mist was swirling slowly into <[illegible]> distinct shapes. Pretty soon the
sun would break out and among cloud battlements like <castles on fire> silvery castles on fire he and Bayard
would rush, trailing wisps of rainbow vapor from sheets and bracing-wines; and like knights they would
<rush> dart from out a pearly port-cullis and bag enough Huns for breakfast. That's what old Bayard needed:
just let him smell a Hun, and he'd be all right; he'd forget about <his [illegible]> having wasted damn near a
year with a woman in the land of the eager and rich, and remember what his Uncle George Windsor
gave him those wings and that shiny new machine for.

"Oh, my, I dont want to fly,
I want to go huo-o-ome" Evelyn sang in an unmusical barytone, and then it
happened.

He avoided a collision by inches, stalling, and other blunt things fell through slowly swirlling vapor shapes and he
fired at their short viscid bellies from the center of a web of streaked fading smoke while invisible mice
gnawed at his center-section and he was hit without knowing it. As he whipped out of his stall he
looked for Bayard, but the S.E was gone and as he rolled still firing he searched the mist beneath him.
It too was breaking and through slow interstices he saw earth and a long sheaf of sunlight in sharp relief
across it. Then he was hit again, and again, and holding his machine in a light bank he flashed between
two huns <rushing> whipping over to fire at him again and above the cold <[illegible> [garrulity?] of his own guns he
could hear their bullets rattling upon his <whirling [illegible]> engine cowling and through the delicate blur of his
propeller he saw Bayard again, falling upon one of the enemy with the other 3 huns on his tail.

But the machine on his own tail Evelyn could not shake off. He held in his light bank and prayed and
cursed. Bayard <[illegible]> with his four huns <he> was gone; the fifth sat off and potted at Evelyn as the sixth
one chased him in a circle. He was bleeding into his seat and his legs were cold, but he held on, firing
a burst at the second enemy whenever he saw a chance, trying <maneuver after> trick after trick to dislodge
the other. It'll have to end soon, he found himself thinking quietly, Bayard already . . . . . . then he
saw Bayard again, and his legs were quite cold, and then he <found without surprise that the German's
tracer was no longer following him> noticed that the German's tracer, [illegible] about him, had become a thin
chill of vapor about the nose of his machine, and he looked back. <The <<Germ>> hun and Bayard [illegible]
above him.> The swirling mist shapes were [illegible] into <<cloud shapes>> cumulae tinged with gold, and above
him the hun and Bayard hovered, watching him; and at that moment a single puffing explosion <<came>>
came from beneath his engine cowling and a <<bursting>> bubble of hot <<sickening>> air <<smelly [illegible] a sickening castor-oil odor>>
burst against his face, leaving him surrounded by a sickening odor of castor oil and a tongue of orange flame
blistered along the fuselage fabric, swirling into black smoke. He unfastened his belt and stood upright in the cockpit
and <<dragged his dead legs>> released the stick and dragged his dead legs outside, and just as he leaped>