ness--dawn't expect ma till ye see ma.'

"He moonts his graind machine an' soon the intreepid baird-man is
soorin' to the skies. He looks oop--what is that seenister for-rm
lairking in the cloods? It is Tam the Comet!"

"Up, you talkative devil," said Blackie pleasantly.

Tam rode upward at an angle which sent so great a pressure of air
against him that he ached in back and arm and legs to keep his balance.
It was as though he were leaning back without support, with great
weights piled on his chest. He saw nothing but the pale blue skies and
the fleecy trail of high clouds, heard nothing but the numbing,
maddening roar of his engines.

He sang a little song to himself, for despite his discomfort he was
happy enough. His eyes were for the engine, his ears for possible
eccentricities of running. He was pushing a straight course and knew
exactly where he was by a glance at his barometer. At six thousand feet
he was behind the British lines at the Bois de Colbert, at seven
thousand feet he should be over Nivelle-Ancre and should turn so that he
reached his proper altitude at a point one mile behind the fire trenches
and somewhere in the region of the Bois de Colbert again.

The aeronometer marked twelve thousand feet when he leveled the machine
and began to take an interest in military affairs. The sky was clear of
machines, with the exception of honest British spotters lumbering along
like farm laborers to their monotonous toil. A gentlemanly fighting
machine was doing "stunts" over by Serray and there was no sign of an
enemy. Tam looked down. He saw a world of tiny squares intersected by
thin white lines. These were main roads. He saw little dewdrops of water
occurring at irregular intervals. They were really respectable-sized
lakes.

Beneath him were two irregular scratches against the dull green-brown
of earth that stretched interminably north and south. They ran parallel
at irregular distances apart. Sometimes they approached so that it
seemed that they touched. In other places they drew apart from one
another for no apparent reason and there was quite a respectable
distance of ground between them. These were the trench lines, and every
now and again on one side or the other a puff of dirty brown smoke would
appear and hang like a pall before the breeze sent it streaming slowly
backward.

Sometimes the clouds of smoke would be almost continuous, but these
shell-bursts were not confined to the front lines. From