f youth and health and clean, brave spirit.

CHAPTER II

FIRST STEPS

A month after the Brighton boys had commenced their duties at the
airdrome at the old Frisbie place, they would have been missed by more
than one person about the camp if they had failed to put in an
appearance some morning. It was astonishing to see how much routine
work could pile up around the headquarters' offices.

The machines arrived in some numbers. One by one they were unpacked
from their great crates and set up, then wheeled into their respective
places in the broad hangars which had been built to house them.

The first one of the Brighton boys to settle himself into a regular
billet was Fat Benson. He had been watching the uncrating of box of
spare engine parts one afternoon when no specific job claimed him for
the moment, and fell into conversation with the short, stocky
sergeant who was to be the store keeper. The sergeant was tired and
worried.

He had counted a consignment of sparking plugs twice and obtained a
different total each time. Worse, neither of his totals tallied
with the figures on the consignment sheet. He was fast losing his
temper.

Fat was of most placid, unruffled temperament. He saw that trouble
was toward, and was about to walk away and avoid proximity to the
coming storm when he thought: "This may be a chance to help." He
turned and said to the sergeant: "If you like, I will count those
plugs for you while you sort out the spanners from the other crate."

"Good boy!" at once said the sergeant. "I have got to a point where
those little red pasteboard boxes sort of run together, and I couldn't
count them correctly to save my life. If you can make them come out
to suit this consignment number they have sent with the plugs you
will be a real help, I can tell you."

Henry set to work with a will, and not only checked the number of
spark plugs, which he found to be correct, but at the sergeant's
direction began placing them in neat piles on the shelf of the
store-room that had been set aside for plugs of that type. He was in
the middle of this task when who should come by but the sergeant-major!

"Hello!" exclaimed that worthy, who was nothing if not a martinet, "who
told you to be puttering about here?"

Before Fat could answer, the stores sergeant spoke up. "This man is
giving me a hand, and I need it," he said. "If you don't need him
for something else to-day I wish you would let him