st American Expeditionary Force, to serve under your brave General
Pershing, has reached the shores of France safely, in spite of the
U-boats, and are even now marching to show themselves in Paris! Ah, is
it any wonder that we rejoice? How is it you say in your own delightful
country? Two cheers and a lion! Ah!"

"Tiger, my dear boy! Tiger!" laughed Jack. "And, while you're about it,
you might as well make it three cheers and done with it. Not that it
makes any great amount of difference in this case, but it's just the
custom, my stuffed olive!"

And then he and Tom were fairly carried off their feet by the rush of
enthusiastic Frenchmen to congratulate them on the good news, and to
share it with them.

"Is it really true?" asked Tom. "Has any substantial part of Uncle Sam's
boys really got here at last?"

He was told that such was the case. The news had just been received
at the headquarters of the flying squad to which Tom and Jack were
attached. About ten thousand American soldiers were even then on French
soil. Their coming had long been waited for, and the arrangements sailed
in secret, and the news was known in American cities scarcely any sooner
than it was in France, so careful had the military authorities been
not to give the lurking German submarines a chance to torpedo the
transports.

"Is not that glorious news, my friend?" asked the Frenchman who had
given it to Tom and Jack.

"The best ever!" was the enthusiastic reply. And then Jack, turning
to his chum, said in a low voice, as the Frenchman hurried back to the
cheering throng: "You know what this means for us, of course?"

"Rather guess I do!" was the response. "It means we've got to apply for
a transfer and fight under Pershing!"

"Exactly. Now how are we going to do it?"

"Oh, I fancy it will be all right. Merely a question of detail and
procedure. They can't object to our wanting to fight among our own
countrymen, now that enough of them are over here to make a showing. I
suppose this is the first of the big army that's coming."

"I imagine so," agreed Jack. "Hurray! this is something like. There's
going to be hard fighting. I realize that. But this is the beginning of
the end, as I see it."

"That's what! Now, instead of tinkering over our machines, let's see the
commandant and---"

Jack motioned to his chum to cease talking. Then he pointed up to the
sky. There was a little speck against the blue, a speck that became
larger as the tw