an unusually pyrotechnic celebration. All evening skyrockets flared up, and round the home pasture glowed pots of Roman fire. Far from cold-shouldering the M.M. guards, Trowbridge warmly invited them to help set off rockets and join the gang in beer and sausages. The lonely soldier boys off there on the prairie — they were so happy shooting rockets!
An aeroplane with a Canadian license, a large plane, flying without lights, sped toward the rocket-lighted area and, with engine shut off, so that the guards could not tell whether it had flown on, circled the pasture outlined by the Roman fire and swiftly landed.
The guards had felt sleepy after the last bottle of beer. Three of them were napping on the short, rough grass.
They were rather disconcertingly surrounded by men in masking flying-helmets, men carrying automatic pistols, who handcuffed the guards that were still awake, picked up the others, and stored all twelve of them in the barred baggage compartment of the plane.
The raiders’ leader, a military-looking man, said to Walt Trowbridge, “Ready, sir?”
“Yep. Just take those four boxes, will you, please, Colonel?”
The boxes contained photostats of letters and documents.
Unregally clad in overalls and a huge straw hat, Senator Trowbridge entered the pilots’ compartment. High and swift and alone, the plane flew toward the premature Northern Lights.
Next morning, still in overalls, Trowbridge breakfasted at the Fort Garry Hotel with the Mayor of Winnipeg.
A fortnight later, in Toronto, he began the republication of his weekly, A Lance for Democracy, and on the cover of the
