over the sides and stretched their cramped
legs, pushing off the goggles and leather headgear that disguised them!
Laughing, talking, swapping experiences, listening in good-natured
silence to the "balling out" that so often came from the harried and
sweating instructors, splendid young gods were these airmen,
super-heroes in an heroic age and time.

In the shade of one of the hangars sat two boys. They were blind and
deaf to the sights and sounds around and over them. The planes were as
commonplace as mealtime to them, and not nearly so thrilling. All their
attention was centered on a small box on the ground before them. It was
made of screen-wire roughly fastened to a wooden frame. One side was
intended for a door, but it was securely wired shut. The box had an
occupant. Furious, raging with anger, now crouching in the corner, now
springing toward the boys, only to strike the wires, an immense
tarantula faced his jailers with deadly menace in his whole bearing. One
of the boys gently rested a stick against the cage. The great spider
instantly hurled himself upon it.

Involuntarily both boys drew back.

"What you going to do with him now you have got him?" asked the taller
of the two boys.

"Dunno," said the other, shrugging his shoulders. "No use expecting
mother to let me keep him in quarters, and the C. O. won't have 'em
around the hangars. I guess I will have to give him back to Lee and let
him get rid of him."

"What does C. O. mean, and who is Lee?" asked the first boy.

"Gee, you are green!" scoffed the smaller of the two. "Tell you what
I'll do, Bill; I will take a day off and teach you the ropes."

"I will learn them fast enough if I can get a question answered once in
awhile," answered Bill, laughing pleasantly. "You can't expect to learn
_every_thing there is about the Army in a week."

"It is too bad you are in Artillery," said the other boy, whose name was
Frank and whose father was Major Anderson, in the Air service. "There is
a lot more doing over here, but of course as long as I am sort of your
cousin, why, you can get in on things here whenever you want to."

"Much obliged," returned Bill. "And of course whenever you want, I will
take you any place you want to go in my car."

"That car is the dandiest little affair I ever did see," said Frank half
enviously. "Just big enough for two of us." He glanced over to the
boy-size automobile standing in the shade. It was a long, racy looking
toy, c