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“It’s come!” the secretary gasped, the sweat beading his forehead and his eyes bulging behind their glasses.

“What has come?” Peter demanded. “It–the–the loo-loo bird.”

Then the financier understood.

“Have you gone over the mail yet?”

“I was just going over it, sir.”

“Then continue, and see if you can find another letter from our mysterious friend, the pigeon fancier.”

The letter came to light. It read:

Mr. Peter Winn, HONORABLE SIR: Now dont be a fool. If youd came through, your shack would not have blew up–I beg to inform you respectfully, am sending same pigeon. Take good care of same, thank you. Put five one thousand dollar bills on her and let her go. Dont feed her. Dont try to follow bird. She is wise to the way now and makes better time. If you dont come through, watch out.

Peter Winn was genuinely angry. This time he indited no message for the pigeon to carry. Instead, he called in the detectives, and, under their advice, weighted the pigeon heavily with shot. Her previous flight having been eastward toward the bay, the fastest motor-boat in Tiburon was commissioned to take up the chase if it led out over the water.

But too much shot had been put on the carrier, and she was exhausted before the shore was reached. Then the mistake was made of putting too little shot on her, and she rose high in the air, got her bearings and started eastward across San Francisco Bay. She flew straight over Angel Island, and here the motor-boat lost her, for it had to go around the island.

That night, armed guards patrolled the grounds. But there was no explosion. Yet, in the early morning Peter Winn learned by telephone that his sister’s home in Alameda had been burned to the ground.

Two days later the pigeon was back again, coming this time by freight in what had seemed a barrel of potatoes. Also came another letter:

Mr. Peter Winn, RESPECTABLE SIR: It was me that fixed yr sisters house. You have raised hell, aint you. Send ten thousand now. Going up all the time. Dont put any more handicap weights on that bird. You sure cant follow her, and its cruelty to animals.

Peter Winn was ready to acknowledge himself beaten. The detectives were powerless, and Peter did not know where next the man would strike–perhaps at the lives of those near and dear to him. He even telephoned to San Francisco for ten thousand dollars in bills of large denomination. But Peter had a son, Peter Winn, Junior, with the same firm-set jaw as his fathers, and the same knitted, brooding determination in his eyes. He was only twenty-six, but he was all man, a secret terror and delight to the financier, who alternated between pride in his son’s aeroplane feats and fear for an untimely and terrible end.

“Hold on, father, don’t send that money,” said Peter Winn, Junior. “Number Eight is ready, and I know I’ve at last got that reefing down fine. It will work, and it will revolutionize flying. Speed–that’s what’s needed, and so are the large sustaining surfaces for getting started and for altitude. I’ve got them both. Once I’m up I reef down. There it is. The smaller the sustaining surface, the higher the speed. That was the law discovered by Langley. And I’ve applied it. I can rise when the air is calm and full of holes, and I can rise when its boiling, and by my control of my plane areas I can come pretty close to making any speed I want. Especially with that new Sangster-Endholm engine.”

“You’ll come pretty close to breaking your neck one of these days,” was his father’s encouraging remark.

“Dad, I’ll tell you what I’ll come pretty close to-ninety miles an hour–Yes, and a hundred. Now listen! I was going to make a trial tomorrow. But it won’t take two hours to start today. I’ll tackle it this afternoon. Keep that money. Give me the pigeon and I’ll follow her to her loft where ever it is. Hold on, let me talk to the mechanics.”