chin with thumb and finger in a
thoughtful way he had when a little puzzled.

"It might be done in a pinch," he finally muttered.

"What, Tom?"

"She's such a little mite that her weight wouldn't amount to much, if
only she had the nerve to do it, Jack."

"Do you mean that you'd be willing to carry Bessie off with us? To help
her escape from her guardian? I'm sure he must be treating her badly, or
else she wouldn't be sobbing her poor little heart out, as we heard
her."

"That would have to depend a whole lot on Bessie."

"As far as that goes I know she's a gritty little person," Jack
instantly remarked. "Many times she said to me she wished she were a boy
so that she might also learn to fly and fight for France against the
detested Kaiser. Why, she even told me she had gone up with an aviator
who exhibited down at a Florida resort, one having a hydro-airplane in
which he took people up. And Bessie declared she didn't have the least
fear."

"That sounds good to me, Jack."

"Then let's get busy, and try to let her know we're here," continued
Jack.

"First of all, we'll get under the open window where she must have been
standing at the time we heard her crying. I think I saw a movement up
there while the two men were conversing on the porch. Perhaps Bessie was
listening to what they said."

Tom's words gave his chum a new thought.

"Oh, it would certainly be just like Bessie to do it! She seemed to be
full of clever ideas."

Tom, being mystified by such words, he naturally sought further
information.

"What would she do?" he demanded.

"Send me that mysterious message by the little hot-air balloon," Jack
announced with a vein of pride in his voice, feeling delighted over
having solved the puzzle that had baffled him for so long.

"It hardly seems probable," Tom answered softly. "At the same time it
isn't altogether impossible."

"How far are we from the French front, do you think, Tom?" pursued his
comrade, determined to sift the whole thing out.

"Twenty miles or so, I should imagine."

"That isn't very far. Once I caught just such a little balloon in a tree
in our yard that had a tag on it, telling that it had been set free in a
village that lay _seventy_ miles off. The wind had carried it along
furiously, so that it covered all that distance before losing buoyancy,
and coming down in the heavy night air."

"Yes, I know of other circumstances where such balloons have traveled
long distances be