believed possible was within range. The German machine
guns--for it was a double plane--began spitting fire and bullets at
them. They replied, but did not seem to inflict much damage.

Suddenly Tom saw Jack give a jump, as though in an agony of pain, and
then the young pilot crumpled up in his seat.

"Badly hit!" exclaimed Tom with a pang at his own heart. "Poor Jack is
out of it!"

The machine, out of control for a moment, started to go into a nose
dive, but Tom let go the lever of his machine gun, and took charge of
the craft, since it was one capable of dual manipulation. Tom now had
to become the pilot and gunner, too, and he had yet a long way to go to
reach his own lines, while Jack was huddled, before him, either dead or
badly wounded.

CHAPTER XVI. JUST IN TIME

It was with mingled feelings of alarm and sorrow that Tom Raymond sent
the speedy Spad aeroplane on its homeward way toward the French lines.
He was worried, not chiefly about his own safety, but on account of
Jack; and his sorrow was in the thought that perhaps he had taken his
last flight with his beloved chum and comrade in arms. He could not see
where Jack had been hit, but this was because the other lad lay in such
a huddled position in the cockpit. Jack had slumped from his seat, the
safety straps alone holding him in position, though he would not have
fallen out when the machine was upright as it was at present.

"One of those machine gun bullets must have got him," mused Tom, as he
started the craft on an upward climb, for it had darted downward when
Jack's nerveless hands and feet ceased their control. For part of the
steering in an aeroplane is done by the feet of the pilot, leaving his
hands free, at times, to fire the machine gun or draw maps.

Tom had a double object in starting to rise. One was to get into a
better position to make the homeward flight, and another was to have
a better chance not only to ward off the attack of the Hun planes, of
which there were now three in the air, but also to return their fire.
It is the machine that is higher up that stands the best chance in an
aerial duel, for not only can one maneuver to better advantage, but the
machine can be aimed more easily with reference to the fixed gun.

In Tom's case he did not have access to this weapon, which was fixed
on the rim of the cockpit where Jack could, and where he had been
controlling, it. With Jack out of the fight, through one or more German
bu