and camps and railway trains like a pack of aerial
cowboys; when, on your way home, you have deliberately disobeyed
orders and loafed a long way behind the other members of your group in
order to watch the pretty sunset, and, as a punishment for this
aesthetic indulgence, have been overtaken by darkness and compelled to
land in strange country, only to have your machine immediately
surrounded by German soldiers; then, having taken the desperate
resolve that they shall not have possession of your old battle-scarred
_avion_ as well as of your person, when you are about to touch a match
to it, if the light glistens on a long French bayonet and you learn
that the German soldiers have been prisoners since the battle of the
Somme, and have just finished their day's work at harvesting beets to
be used in making sugar for French _poilus_--Oh, BOY! Ain't it a GRAND
AND GLORYUS FEELING?"

To which I would reply in his own memorable words,--

"Mais oui, mon vieux! Mais OUI!"

XI

THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS

Nancy, a moonlight night, and "les sales Boches encore." I have been
out on the balcony of this old hotel, a famous tourist resort before
the war, watching the bombardment and listening to the deep throb of
the motors of German Gothas. They have dropped their bombs without
doing any serious damage. Therefore, I may return in peace to my huge
bare room, to write, while it is still fresh in mind, "The Adventure
of the Camouflaged Cows."

For the past ten days I have been attached--it is only a temporary
transfer--to a French _escadrille_ of which Manning, an American, is a
member. The _escadrille_ had just been sent to a quiet part of the
front for two weeks' _repos_, but the day after my arrival orders came
to fly to Belfort, for special duty.

Belfort! On the other side of the Vosges Mountains, with the Rhine
Valley, the Alps, within view, within easy flying distance! And for
special duty. It is a vague order which may mean anything. We
discussed its probable meaning for us, while we were pricking out our
course on our maps.

"Protection of bombardment _avions_" was Andre's guess. "Night combat"
was Raynaud's. Every one laughed at this last hazard. "You see?" he
said, appealing to me, the newcomer. "They think I am big fool. But
wait." Then, breaking into French, in order to express himself more
fluently: "It is coming soon, _chasse de nuit_. It is not at all
impossi