five or six hours of driving was considered quite a feat.

The more she considered the man before her, the more she marvelled
at his powers. She confessed he interested her; she wondered why she
disliked him. The only answer that seemed acceptable was that he was
"not her kind."

Towards dusk, they hove in sight of the derricks of the Beaumont oil
region. The leader with the red plane descended in a large meadow.
Komoru was well to the front and brought his plane to earth a few
meters from the red wings. The man in the flag plane who had that
day led them over a thousand miles and a score of cities got out and
stretched himself. With an exclamation of joyful surprise, Ethel
recognized that he was Professor Oshima.

The Japanese camped where they were for the night. The wings of the
planes were guyed to the ground with cordage and little steel
stakes. Beneath such improvised tents the tired aerial cavalrymen
rolled themselves in their sleeping blankets and for twelve hours
the camp was as quiet as a graveyard.

That day had been a great day in history; it was the first
consequential aerial invasion that the world had ever known. While
the arrivals of the morning had been circling in fear-inspiring
flights above the neighboring states, the later starters from the
Japanese squadron had continued to arrive in the oil regions. Like
migrating birds, they settled down over the rich fields and grazing
lands of that wonderful strip of flat, black-soiled prairie that
stretches westward from the south center of Louisiana until it
emerges into the great semi-arid cattle plains of southern Texas.