ding. The poor fellow waved his hand to Tom as he
was being taken away on a stretcher to the nearest field hospital for
treatment.

"Here, let me have a look at that left arm of yours, Raymond, while I'm
about it," said the surgeon, noticing that the pilot kept wiping drops
of blood from his fingers with a handkerchief that had begun to assume a
gory appearance.

This satisfied Tom, and the wound was speedily attended to, a bandage
being bound in place. The only thing that was troubling the young airman
was a haunting fear that he might be kept out of the fighting for
several days; and at this exciting stage of the advance that would seem
like a real calamity to so ambitious a pilot.

"I suppose you'd kick like a steer," said the surgeon, with a smile, "if
I advised you to keep quiet for a day or two, because I know your breed;
but if you must join in, be easy on that arm, Raymond. It might give you
some trouble if inflammation should set in."

"Oh, I've had much worse scratches than that and never been laid up,
Doctor," Tom remarked with the assurance that goes hand in hand with
youth and abounding good health. "But I will favor it all I can.
Couldn't keep me out of this riot unless you chained me to earth.
There's something that keeps calling me up there, some thing that's
mighty hard to resist."

"Yes, I know. You're all alike, you daring air pilots," said the other,
shaking his head disapprovingly. "But you're splendid, splendid! And
I'm certainly proud to be an American these days. You boys have set a
pace that every British and French aviator will have to hustle to equal.
Your coming has been the turning point of the war. The Hun is already
whipped, only he doesn't wholly realize it just yet."

Tom, instead of seeking his quarters at once for rest, "loafed around"
watching all that went on. Never a plane that came back but he was there
to receive the comrade with enthusiasm. Some had been in the fight and
bore signs of the experience through which they had passed. One
especially was burning with disappointment because he had lost his
"prize."

"Had him going, too, when this motor of mine went back on me and started
in to miss fire so often that he got away," he spluttered. "Never was so
mad in all my life as when I had to turn and sneak back home like a dog
with his tail between his legs. But me for another machine, and back to
the game again. I'll get that Hun yet, see if I don't!"

Often did Tom strain