took in should
arrive, and I could bolt the big headlines and secretly search for the
name of "Monsieur Mars." Then, whether I found it or not, the same
suspense had to be lived through till the afternoon, when the evening
editions came out; and after that again until the hour for the "Last War
Extra."

Often the name of Mars started up to my eyes from the closely printed
columns and set my heart beating and my blood flying to my head. No one
seemed to have identified him as Captain March, not even the British or
American war correspondents who occasionally reported his exploits. Or
if they did, they respected his wish to keep it secret.

"Mars, the Belgian Air Scout," he was generally called, for few
journalists appeared to know that he was a foreigner who had offered his
services to the brave little country. Wonderful, almost miraculous,
feats were attributed to him. Sometimes they were denied; but usually
they proved to be true.

One morning I read that he had made a daring flight of two hundred miles
over German territory, had dropped bombs on an ammunition train, had
been fired on, and returned to his base "somewhere in Flanders" with the
wings of his machine riddled by ninety-eight bullets. Again he and Sorel
(who had been at Liege when we were there) went reconnoitring over the
great German fortress of Metz, hoping to destroy the Zeppelin sheds.
Quickly they were detected, although nearly three thousand feet above
the forts. Up came shots from high-angle guns, spattering around them
like spray from a fountain; but they persevered, making for the
direction of the drill ground. Then suddenly Mars' motor ceased to work.
It seemed that all was over for him, and the task left for Sorel to
finish alone. But Mars, said the papers, resolved not to give his life
away for nothing. Sweeping down in a bold volplane he launched his bomb,
and had abandoned himself for lost when suddenly the motor started
again; whereupon he darted off defiantly, following Simon Sorel, who had
thrown his bomb also, and escaped.

If this had been all, I might have borne it somehow in my pride of
Eagle. But there was always something more. I read of his monoplane
being struck by a fragment of bursting shell over the enemy's lines, and
his volplaning with a disabled engine, to drop into safety and a French
stone quarry with important information to give concerning the
disposition of German forces. When Paris was threatened and almost
despairi