them.
Just at the right second Tom Raymond, by a skillful flirt of his hand,
brought the Yankee fighting aircraft back to an even keel, with a
beautiful gliding movement.

Immediately the steady throb of the reliable motor took up its refrain,
while the buzz of the spinning propellers announced that the plane was
once more being shot through space by artificial means.

The two occupants were Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly, firm friends and
chums who had been like David and Jonathan in their long association. It
was Tom who acted as pilot on the present occasion, while Jack took the
equally important position of observer and gunner.

Both were young Americans with a natural gift in the line of aviation.
They had won their spurs while serving under French leadership as members
of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. The adventures they encountered at
that time are related in the first book of this series, entitled: "Air
Service Boys Flying For France."

After America entered the war, like all other adventurous young Yankee
fliers, the two Air Service Boys offered their services to their own
country and joined one of the new squadrons then being formed.

Here the two youths won fresh laurels, and both were well on the way to
be recognized "aces" by the time Pershing's army succeeded in fighting
its way through the nests of machine-gun traps that infested the great
Argonne Forest.

It was in the autumn of the victory year, 1918, and the German armies
were being pushed back all along the line from Switzerland to the sea.
Under the skillful direction of Marshal Foch, the Allies had been dealing
telling and rapid blows, now here, now there.

To-day it was the British that struck; the day afterward the French
advanced their front; and next came the turn of the Americans under
Pershing. Everywhere the discouraged and almost desperate Huns were being
forced in retreat, continually drawing closer to the border.

Already the sanguine young soldiers from overseas were talking of
spending the winter on the Rhine. Some even went so far as to predict
that their next Christmas dinner would be eaten in Berlin. It was no
idle boast, for they believed it might be so, because victory was in
the very air.

So great was the distress of the Hun forces that it was believed Marshal
Foch had laid a vast trap and was using the fresh and enthusiastic
Yankees to drive a dividing wedge between Ludendorff's two armies, when a
colossal surrender m