some of you foot
sloggers," said a perky little officer, as the lieutenant approached.
"By Jove, we're a bit too close to be pleasant! Would you like to go up
with me?"

There was something in the observer's tone that rather nettled his
hearer, and Dennis replied promptly: "I should like it very much, if you
mean it?" without giving a thought on the spur of the moment as to how
long the balloon would remain in the air.

"Of course I mean it. Come on!" And as Dennis flung his leg over the
edge of the basket the perky youngster gave the order to let her go.

The steel cable began to unwind as the men of the section loosed their
hold, and Dennis soon enjoyed the novel experience of seeing the
panorama unfold beneath him, and identifying the white-walled chateau
they had captured the night before.

At an altitude of two thousand feet the observer 'phoned down to the men
at the windlass to stop. A stiff wind was blowing, but the "sausage"
behaved itself well until, as the observation officer turned to Dennis
with a cheery laugh, something passed screaming beneath them and burst!

Some fragments of shrapnel struck the bottom of the basket; but that was
not all. The shell had hit the cable fair and square, the observation
officer's laugh changed to a shout of consternation as it snapped, and
with an upward jerk the freed balloon floated away towards the German
lines!

CHAPTER XXV

From Kite Balloon to Saddle

The two occupants clung to the side of the padded basket, from which it
was a marvel they had not been flung by the sudden upward rush of the
huge sausage-shaped envelope above their heads.

The observer's face was very white, but he pulled himself together
pluckily enough, and took the now useless receivers from his ears.

"I'm awfully sorry to have got you into this mess, old man," he said
apologetically.

"It isn't a bit of use being sorry," snapped Dennis. "Get a move on you!
What's the best thing to be done?"

The sharp anger in his companion's voice acted like a tonic, and the
observation officer pulled a cord.

"I don't think it's an atom of good, for all that," he volunteered
doubtfully. "It's a thousand chances to one, with this breeze, that we
shall drop on our side of the fence, and those blessed guns of theirs
have got us set. Look at that!"

A shrapnel burst above them, and as its fleecy white cloud unrolled
there were two more bursts, one immediately below, which carried away
the p