mine will call me
by it. Thank you for your offer, but you can do nothing--"

John stopped suddenly as he glanced at the aeroplane poised like a huge
bird in the snow.

"Yes, you can do something," he said. "I notice that your plane is big
enough for two. I want to reach the mountains to the eastward without
all this tremendous toiling through the snow. You can carry me there in
an hour or two, and besides this passport I give you a password."

"What's the password?"

"Lannes!"

"Lannes! Philip Lannes, do you know him?"

"I have been up with him in the _Arrow_ many times. I've fought the
Taubes with him. I helped him destroy both a Zeppelin and a
forty-two-centimeter gun."

"Then I know you. You are his friend John Scott, the American. I thought
at first that you had the accent of North America. Oh, I know of you! We
flying men are a close group, and what happens to one of us is not
hidden long from the others. Your password is sufficient."

"You know then that Lannes is in a hospital with a bullet wound in his
shoulder?"

"I heard it two days ago. A pity! A great pity! He'll be as well as ever
in a month, but France needs her king of the air every day. My own name
is Delaunois, and I'll put you down in those hills at whatever point you
wish, Monsieur Jean Castel of America."

John smiled. Delaunois was a fine fellow after all.

"I can't give you an extra suit for flying," said Delaunois, "but your
two blankets ought to protect you in the icy air. I'll not go very high,
and an hour or a little more should put us in the heart of the hills."

"Good enough, and many thanks to you," said John.

They gave the machine the requisite push, sprang in and rose slowly
above the snowy waste. It was a good aeroplane, and Delaunois was a
good aviator, but John missed the _Arrow_ and Philip. He knew that the
heavens nowhere held such another pair. Alas! that Lannes should be laid
up at such a time with a wound!

But he quickly called himself ungrateful. Delaunois had come at a most
timely moment, and he was doing him a great service. It was very cold
above the earth, as Delaunois had predicted, and he wrapped the blankets
closely about himself, drawing one over his head and face, until he was
completely covered except the eyes.

To the westward several other planes were hovering and to the eastward
was another group which John knew to be German. But the flying machines
did not seem disposed to enter into hostilities