WITH the first pale streaks of Sunday morning light, Tom was out of bed and over to the window of his room. He scanned the skies anxiously, shivering slightly as a chill dawn breeze struck him. In the thin light, he saw no sign of bad weather, for there was hardly a cloud visible. He smiled, shivered again and retreated to his bed, to climb gratefully under the warm blankets. It looked, he told himself, like a perfect day for flying.

A short while later, after daydreaming and dozing in his bed, he went down to the kitchen and polished off a huge breakfast without effort. Then, without much urging, he persuaded his father to drive Ralph and him to the airport immediately after church services.

Nick Crynes had his shop open and was working in the hangar when Mr. Carroll dropped off the pair at the field.

"Wish I were going along with you," Nick said after Tom had told him the reason for their visit.

"We ought to be able to do a lot of this sort of thing after the squadron gets going," Tom declared.

"Think the flying bug will bite you, Ralph, the way it has Tom?" Nick asked.

"Maybe so," Ralph answered with a grin.

Just then the drone of an airplane motor came to their ears. The trio moved to the front of the hangar, spotted the approaching craft and watched it circle over the airport. A moment later it nosed down and made a perfect landing on the strip, finally taxiing to the hangar door where the roaring motor was cut.

The familiar figures of Major Boswell and Cadet Sherman emerged from the four-place ship. After greetings and introductions were completed, Sherman handed the officer a rolled up map which he had been carrying under his arm and asked, "Do you want to explain our flight plan, sir?"

"Good idea, Ed," Boswell replied. "Hold it so everyone can see it."

"This reminds me of when I was a red-hot liaison pilot during the war," Nick said.

"Well, here's the idea," Major Boswell said, after Sherman had unrolled the navigation map and held it out so all could see it. "This area, here, is our search area. Somewhere in that quadrangle, marked here on the map, there is a red buoy that a Coast Guard cutter dropped this morning. Our job is to locate it as we sweep the area."

"Do you return to Sandeford as soon as you find it?" Ralph asked.

"No, we don't. As soon as we locate it, we plot it on our map. Then we radio back to base the co-ordinates, that is, the position of the buoy. We continue our flight, though, even after we find the marker, just as we would on a regular patrol. Now, just to add some interest to the exercise, we've offered a little prize to the crew that locates the target in the shortest time."

"But how will you know who makes the best time?" Tom queried. "When we're in position, we contact the base. We then start sweeping the area. When we've plotted the buoy and sent back the co-ordinates, our time is recorded. And the same thing goes for the other crews."

"Sounds like it ought to be a good exercise, besides a lot of fun," Nick put in.

"That's what we try to do in all of our training, whenever we can," Major Boswell stated. "Now, how about it? Are we ready to go?"

Tom and Ralph agreed with practically one voice, and in a few moments they were fitting themselves into parachutes which Ed Sherman pulled out of the plane. Awkwardly, with grins the width of their faces, they then climbed aboard the aircraft and were soon followed by the major and his observer. Seconds later, the motor turned over, roared throatily and subsided into a steady, pulsating drone. Bouncing along the uneven ground, the ship moved out to one end of the strip. There the major throttled up the engine until the little plane shook like something meeting hurricane-force winds. Once more the engine was toned down, and the plane swung around to point down the runway. Suddenly it shot forward, engine at full power, and skimmed along the uneven ground. Halfway down the length of the strip, the jouncing ceased and the earth fell behind. Grass, bushes, then trees passed swiftly underneath. Climbing rapidly, the ship swung around in a lazy circle over the airport.

"How does it feel back there?" the major shouted.

"Great!" Tom cried back.

"I'll circle over Wayfield and give you a look at your home town," the officer yelled.

Still climbing, but in a banking turn, the plane passed over the toy-like houses of Wayfield. Familiar landmarks, seeming strangely in miniature, came into view and disappeared. Tiny human figures and slow-moving vehicles crept along the ribbon-like streets; trees, now resembling small bushes, shadowed the winding avenues. Then the plane leveled off, headed seaward and left the town fading in the distance behind it.

Less than a half hour later, they put the coastline to their rear. Beneath them, ruffled slightly by white caps, the ocean appeared gray-green in the midday light. Occasionally a small vessel could be seen plodding through the waves at such low speed as to appear almost motionless. White gulls, swooping over the lonely waters, yielded the upper regions to their man-made rival.

"We've reached the search area. Now we start on our southwest leg," Cadet Sherman called back.

"Keep your eyes open, and if you see anything that looks like a buoy, sing out," Major Boswell added.

"Roger!" Tom cried.

Their eyes fixed on the sea, Tom and Ralph had little to say to each other. Two or three times one or the other spotted what they thought was their objective, only to be told by either the officer or his observer that they were in error. Still, they kept searching, both of them eager to be helpful to the friendly CAP crew.

"We're swinging back on our northeast leg," Major Boswell announced as the plane circled to change direction.

But it was fully a half hour later, when they were once again driving southwestward, that Ed Sherman called the attention of the major to an object far below. Quickly the plane banked and dropped seaward. More clearly now, there appeared a small, bobbing red buoy, and the pilot turned about to wink broadly at his two passengers.

Ralph and Tom watched Ed work over the map that he was holding on his lap, looking up every few moment to check the compass. The sound of the motor drowned out the observer's words into the microphone, but they gathered that he was relaying his plotted position back to the Sandeford base.

"Not too good," Sherman yelled back with a rueful grin. "Two crews have beaten our time."

"That's okay," Major Boswell said. "It's much better than not locating it at all. Now we'll finish the patrol and then head back home."

Not much later, the plane made a sharp change in direction and headed toward the coast once again. As the craft slowly lost altitude, the land began taking distinct form. Smoothly cutting through the clear air, the CAP ship sped homeward.

They were still a few miles at sea when Ralph suddenly pulled on Tom's sleeve. Pointing toward the water, he asked, "What's that down there, Tom?"

Tom peered through the plexiglass window. Below, he spotted a small boat tossing about on the seas. Two tiny objects appeared to be huddling closely together in it, and there was no sign of the craft making any headway.

"Looks like a rowboat," Tom said, "but I'm not sure whether there are men or kids in it."

"Maybe they're in trouble. I'm going to tell the major," Ralph said.

Tapping the officer on the shoulder, Ralph pointed toward the ocean, yelling, "There's a boat down there, sir. Do you think it's in trouble?"

The major looked, then banked the plane. Without wasting any time, he dropped it rapidly toward the surface. Moments later, the little boat passed under the speeding aircraft. In it, the flyers could see, were two small children.

Boswell and Ralph, both on the port side of the plane, waved at the two youngsters, whose faces now were close enough to reveal stark fright. Arms locked around each other, they were sitting in the center of the tossing rowboat; and, it was plain to see, they were terrified.

Boswell spoke rapidly to Ed, who was already talking into the microphone. Then he put the plane in a tight banking circle so that it hovered over the boat like a protective mother bird.

"Ed's been in touch with the base," Boswell called back. "They've phoned to Sea Cliff, the town nearest to us, and asked them to get a speedboat out here and pick up those youngsters. Looks to me like they've drifted out to sea."

"Will we stay here and guide the speedboat to the kids?" Tom asked.

Boswell nodded. "It shouldn't take very long. We'll stand by and keep a close watch on them."

The plane kept moving about the boat, with one or the other pair always waving to the two children. Occasionally the youngsters would try to wave back, but their efforts were feeble and they appeared to be reluctant to let loose of each other.

"Speedboat's on the way," Sherman called back a few minutes later.

Now the major varied his circles with zooms into higher altitudes to give the approaching speedboat a chance to fix the location of the helpless children. For the most part, though, the plane traveled a monotonous course above the heads of the tiny sailors.

Some twenty minutes later, the rescue craft came into view, slicing through the whitecapped waves. As the flyers watched, the speedboat drew near, finally cutting its power when it pulled close to the rowboat. Edging up carefully to the tiny craft, it wallowed in the waves alongside. Two men reached over the side of the sleek motorboat and pulled the two youngsters aboard, while a third made fast the towline.

Looking up toward the skies now, the crew of the speedboat, as well as the two rescued children, waved at the circling airplane. Boswell and Ralph returned the greeting. Then the plane leveled off and resumed its landward journey.

Thumb and forefinger in the circle symbol of approval, Major Boswell turned about and shouted, "Good work, Ralph. You've saved two lives, to my way of thinking."

Ralph smiled, saying nothing as a blush crept over his face. But as he looked at Tom and winked, he was wearing an expression of deep satisfaction.

A short while later, the plane dropped out of the skies to make a smooth landing at the Sandeford airfield After he had taxied the ship up to a hangar and had cut the motor, the major turned about in his seat once again, his face set with a serious expression. He turned to Ralph. "I meant what I said up there. By spotting that boat, we were able to have those children rescued. They'd have been lost for sure, if you hadn't been alert, son, and I want to congratulate you."

"Thank you, sir," Ralph gulped, nervous with embarrassment.

"Okay, fellows," the officer said, cheerfully now. "We didn't win any prize, but we sure did a good day's work. Let's go and eat."

Loosening their seat straps and slipping out of their parachutes, the two Wayfield visitors followed Boswell and Sherman out of the plane. They found a group of cadets and senior CAP men and women gathering around the ship, and it was all they could do to keep track of their companions as they made their way through the friendly crowd. At last, though, after a round of introductions and handshakes, they entered the Nissen hut that was the head- quarters of the Sandeford Squadron. Still following the major and his cadet observer, they went into the Communications Office.

From Lieutenant Ed James, the squadron communications officer, they heard a full account of what had happened earlier. Immediately on receiving the radio report that the CAP plane had spotted the drifting rowboat, James had called Sea Cliff. He learned that the two children had been missing since early morning and that the parents of the youngsters had been making frantic inquiries. No one, James said, had even considered the possibility that the pair might have been playing in a boat. Had they not been seen from the air, the tots would have almost certainly been lost. As it was, everything had turned out well, for just before Boswell and his crew had landed, word had come that the two youngsters were none the worse for their experience. But, James added, the parents had made it plain that they were eternally grateful for the rescue of their tiny offspring by the CAP.

"You see," Major Boswell said soberly, directing his remarks to Ralph, "even training exercises are sometimes a matter of life or death. A pair of alert eyes changed a routine operation into a rescue job that we all should feel proud of, especially you, Ralph."

"If you could have heard the mother and father of those kids, you'd really have felt good," James added enthusiastically.

"I do feel good about it," Ralph said. "And I feel even better about the CAP. I can see now why all of you fellows here in Sandeford are so keen about your outfit."

"Maybe we'll have an outfit like this one some day," Tom put in hopefully. "It can't come soon enough for me," Ralph said. When the four entered the large room in which most of the Sandeford cadets and seniors were gathered, the warmth of the welcome extended to him and Ralph was more than enough to fill Tom's cup of well being to an overflow. Everything, he told himself, had worked out perfectly. To the pleasure of taking part in the training flight had been added the thrill of an actual rescue. Ralph, playing a key part in the saving of the two youngsters, was gripped by the desire to get started on organizing the Wayfield squadron--of that Tom was certain. Watching his friend moving among the hospitable Sandeford people convinced him that it would take a great deal more than the influence of Ed Dawson to cause Ralph's new-found interest in the CAP to flag.

The two Wayfield boys stayed in Sandeford only long enough to accept a generous amount of the sandwiches and soft drinks that made up the squadron buffet lunch. Even in that short time, however, they learned much about the activities of the organization and found it easy to understand why the outfit was so successful. From all sides they heard that the program was well balanced, progressive and wide in scope. Theoretical studies were matched with practical training; classroom subjects, taught in the local schools to cadets, caught on at the start and grew more interesting in each successive phase; recreational highlights vied with a variety of squadron operations to make the schedule one of continual attraction.

Then, too, there was a strong sense of pride in the organization itself. In the easy relationship between the cadets and the seniors, in the snap and precision that marked the official actions and in the neat appearance of both the personnel and the establishment, there was plentiful evidence of high morale. Without in any way giving offense, the members of the Sandeford Squadron made it plain that they thought they belonged to the best outfit in the best organization of the greatest country on earth! As Ralph later put it to Tom, "You could almost taste their esprit de corps."

It was no surprise to find that the efficient Sandeford public information officer of the squadron had phoned the Wayfield Ledger and arranged for Dick Hirsch to be on hand when Major Boswell brought the CAP ship in to land in front of Nick's hangar. Doubling in brass, Hirsch photographed the entire crew in a variety of poses and then took notes on the story of the rescue of the two Sea Cliff children.

"This is going to make a swell yarn," the reporter said as he put away his equipment.

"It's just what we need to help put the CAP over in this town," Nick observed.

"That's right," Major Boswell said with a grin. "That's why I told our PIO to call the newspaper here before we left Sandeford. This story, and others like it, will do a lot of good. Besides, I like to see credit go to the fellow who deserves it, and in this case it was Ralph."

Flushing, Ralph shook his head. "I just happened to be there, Major. The real credit goes to the CAP. That's why I'm sold now on the idea of having a squadron started here as soon as we can get going."

Walking home from the airport, after waiting to see the major and Ed Sherman take off for Sandeford, Tom turned to Ralph and asked, "You're a lot surer of everything now, aren't you, Ralph?"

"You bet I am. It took something like this to convince me, I guess, though after talking to you the other night I had a pretty good idea of things."

"I'm glad," Tom said simply.

"Tom, this is worth fighting for. I still don't feel that I ought to join up in any campaign to turn the vote against Mr. Dawson's proposal, but I'm going to ask my dad to talk to him. I don't think it'll do any good, but it's worth trying. If he turns it down, then you'll all just have to do what you can to wake people up to the need for a squadron."

"That's swell, Ralph," Tom said warmly. "For my part, I'll do whatever I can to sort of keep things on the right track. I'll even try to be nice to young Ed."

Ralph laughed. "Ed's okay. He'd like nothing better than to have everyone like him, but he just doesn't have a knack for making friends. I guess I'm the only one he really gets along with, for some reason or other."

"Do you think it would do any good to talk to him and ask him to see what he could do with his father?"

"If I know him at all, he'd buck the whole business. If he'd thought of it, or even if I had been the first one to suggest forming a squadron, it would be different. But even though I'm his best friend, if I were to suggest that he help out on this, he'd get sore."

"Just because I'm mixed up in it?"

"That's right," Ralph acknowledged uncomfortably. "You or anybody else. It wouldn't matter much."

"Well," Tom said lightly, "I'm not going to worry him or about him. Maybe after we get the outfit going, we'll even get him to join."

"Now that, my friend, would be a good deal," Ralph said with a pleased look. "We'll see about that when the time comes."

So far, so good, Tom thought to himself that night as he lay in bed. Though he was impatient to see things happen quickly, he had to admit that progress had been made. Within a matter of days the whole idea of forming a CAP squadron in Wayfield had caught on. The nucleus of the senior group had rallied around Sam Tolliver; and, unless his guess was wrong, there would be a sizable group of high school students willing to become cadets. Ralph was certain to throw the weight of his prestige behind the cadet program, and that one factor would be enough to insure its success. Dawson alone was the obstacle. One man stood in the way. So, Tom told himself, that man had to change his mind, or maybe have his mind changed for him. It was as simple as that. Tom went to sleep with a smile on his face.