en from
the neighboring villages came to visit the camp. Nobody is allowed to
enter, but from the road you can see the machines start or land. The day
was glorious, and the broad sun transfiguring these French landscapes,
with their elongated valleys, their wooded ranges of hills, and
generally harmonious lines suggested Greece, and one looked around for
the colonnades of temples.

Beyond the rolling country rose the Aisne cliffs, where the fighting was
incessant, though its roar was scarcely perceived.

Why had these villages been attracted to this particular camp? Because
they knew that here, in default of Greek temples, were young gods. They
wanted to see Guynemer.

The news had flown on rapid wings from hamlet to hamlet, from farm to
farm, of what had happened on the 25th, and on the next day Guynemer had
been almost equally successful.

Several aviators had already landed, men with famous names, but the
public cannot be expected to remember them all. Finally an airplane
descended in graceful spirals, landing softly and rolling along close to
the railings.

"_Guynemer!_"

But the pilot, unconscious of the worshiping crowd, took off his helmet,
disclosed a frowning face, and began discontentedly to examine his gun.
Twice that day it had jammed, saving two Germans. Guynemer was like the
painters of old who, by grinding their colors themselves, insured the
duration of their works. He resented not being able to make all his
weapons himself, his engine, his Vickers, and his bullets. At length he
seemed willing to leave his machine, and pulled off his heavy war
accouterment, which revealed a tall, flexible young man. As he rapidly
approached his tent, his every motion watched by the onlookers, a
private turned on him a small camera, with a beseeching--

"You'll permit me, _mon capitaine_?"

"Yes, but quick."

He was cross and impatient, and as he stopped he noticed all the eyes of
the women watching him ecstatically. He made a despairing gesture. His
frown deepened, his figure stiffened, and the snapshot was another
failure.

Hardly any of his portraits are like him. Does the fact that he was tall
and spare, almost beardless, with an amber-colored, oval face and a
regular profile, and raven-hair brushed backwards, give any idea of the
force that was in him? If his eyes, dark with golden reflections, could
have been painted, they might no doubt have given a more accurate notion
of him: his capacity for survey