Dressing, he looked at his watch; the hands pointed at four-twenty-six.

•

“Big Al” Bruntton, the pilot, was checking over the trip forecast with the dispatcher at the Salt Lake City airport. It was five-twenty-nine (Mountain Time), and he was taking out the big sleeper-plane, non-stop, to San Francisco, a four-hour flight, better than six hundred miles. Either Al or the dispatcher, not liking the weather conditions, could cancel the trip. But it was hard even to think of canceling when conditions at Salt Lake City were perfect for flying. The forecast indicated that the same conditions would hold almost to Reno. Farther on, the storm was continuing.

“The five A.M. reports,” said the dispatcher, “don’t show anything very bad over the Hump. It’s tropical air—stable. Trip six-eight flew it, and just went through between cloud levels. The Bay has been having violent showers, but that’s very local—as yet anyway.”

“Let’s get started,” said Big Al.

“If we have to ground you at Reno, all right. But I think the chances are pretty good you can go all the way through.”

Big Al walked out to the plane. The night was snappy cold, not much above zero. Only a slight drift of air was moving up from the south. The sky was a wide arch of stars, glittering bright through the desert air. Far to the west, ahead, a full moon was low in the sky. Back eastward, over the mountains, was just a hint of the coming dawn. On a night like this the idea of storm was unreal. Big Al could hardly bring himself to believe that within five hundred miles he might be ordered down.

He settled himself at the controls; trying not to bump his sleeping passengers more than was necessary, he took off. Gaining altitude he swung around and headed west; the beam was a dull steady buzz in his ears. He leveled off as soon as he had reached safe flying height, for if he went higher he would meet heavier headwinds. He settled to cruising speed. Ahead he saw the moon. As always he felt that he was racing the moon, even overtaking it. Actually, he knew, the plane was making about one-hundred-eighty miles an hour, the moon at this latitude roughly seven hundred. He could not even keep the moon in sight. And even faster, the sun was racing up behind him. Tonight the moon would not set, but would be caught in the open; and somewhere over Nevada he would watch it grow dim ingloriously before the rays of the sun.

•