Night hauling was wearisome work, and if it hadn't been for Hal's lively imagination he would have been tempted to doze on his job. But Hal Dane's air-minded brain was seething with spirals and Immelmanns and three-point landings. One of the great events of his life, the State Air Meet at Interborough, had been over for a week, but every flight and entry was still fresh in the boy's mind. He lived them over again. By twist of the imagination old man Herman's two milk cans rhythmically banging against Grocer Kane's crate of lard buckets seemed almost the roar of a stunt plane warming up for action. Hal could almost think himself into seeing in that empty stretch of sky above the host of planes that had formed the "flying circus" of last week. There had been Rex Raynor, famous pilot who stunted upside-down; there had been aerial rope-swingers and ladder-climbers. There had been--