his left leg gently. "But something
struck me a nasty blow. Don't know exactly what it was, but I warrant
I'll have a nice black-and-blue mark to show for it. Felt mighty queer,
too, just as if you'd gone and slapped me with a lathe, flat-side out."

"I reckon," spoke up Jack, "it was a bullet striking the part of your
machine that you've got sheathed in steel. You must have been resting
your leg against it just where the Boche bullet struck."

"Now, strange to say, I hadn't thought of that explanation before, Jack.
But I wouldn't be surprised if you'd guessed the answer. But it stung
like everything for a while, and feels sore still."

"But for all that you've cause for being satisfied, Harry," Tom told
him.

"Considering what would have happened to me if I didn't have that
sheathing outside the frame of my plane, I guess I ought to be grateful.
Do you know only to-day I was figuring whether it paid for the extra
weight, and had nearly made up my mind to have it ripped off. Nothing
doing about that from this time on. Saved me a bad leg I tell you,
boys."

Arriving at the Y. M. C. A. shelter the boys halted at the door. It was
so cozy in there the boys could always find some good excuse for bending
their footsteps in that direction; and also loitering after they had
finished the business that took them to the hut. So no one was
surprised, or disappointed, to hear Jack call out:

"I think I upset my glass of lemonade in my hurry to clear out; and as
the thirst seems worse now than ever I reckon I'll have to indulge in
another of the same kind, if Miss Sallie has the fixings. Will you join
me, fellows?"

"Not me, for one, Jack," said Harry. "I got all of mine down without
spilling a drop. I'm not so keen as you about lemonade. But I'll go
along, because these rest places are the only homelike signs we run
across on the front these days."

Jack thereupon gave Tom a sly nudge in the ribs.

"I was right, it seems," he managed to whisper aside. "Keep your eye on
that blue-eyed Miss Sallie, and watch for any tell-tale signs in Harry's
face when he's chatting with her. But she's a mighty nice girl, all the
same, and I don't blame him. Comes of a fine family, too, I'm told."

Sallie, however, was only "conspicuous by her absence," as Jack put it.
In fact she had retired to seek rest, for another day's arduous work
came with the morning.

Tom, as did Jack, ordered another glass of lemonade, but drank only a
small p