ies, the same furious eagerness to attack.

Tam went home followed by three swift fighters. He led them to within
gliding distance of the Allied lines; then he turned, and this time his
guns served him, for he crashed one and forced one down. The third went
home and told Fritz all about it.

"It's verra curious," said Tam, and Blackie agreed.

Tam went out again the following morning--but this time not alone. Six
fighting machines, with Blackie leading, headed for Douai in battle
formation. At Douai they met no resistance--the aerial concentration had
vanished and, save for the conventional defenses, there was nothing to
prevent their appearance over the town. That same afternoon Captain
Sutton, R. F. C., looking for an interest in life over Menin, found it.
He came back with his fuselage shot to chips and wet through from a
smashed radiator.

"So far as I can discover," he said, "all the circuses are hovering
about Menin. Von Bissing's is there and von Rheinhoff's, and I could
almost swear I saw von Wentzl's red scouts."

"Did you get over the town?"

Sutton laughed. "I was a happy man when I reached our lines," he said.

"Maybe they're trying out some new stunt," said Blackie. "Probably it is
a plan of defense--a sort of divisional training--I'll send a report to
G. H. Q. I don't like this concentration of circuses in our
neighborhood."

Now a "circus" is a strong squadron of German airplanes attached to no
particular army, but employed on those sectors where its activities will
be of most value at a critical time; and its appearance is invariably a
cause for rejoicing among all red-blooded adventurers.

Two days after Blackie had made his report, von Bissing's World-Renowned
Circus was giving a performance, and on this occasion was under royal
and imperial patronage.

For, drawn up by the side of the snowy road, some miles in the rear of
the line were six big motor-cars, and on a high bank near to the road
was a small group of staff officers muffled from chin to heels in long
gray overcoats, clumsily belted at the waist.

Aloof from the group was a man of medium height, stoutly built and worn
of face, whose expression was one of eager impatience. The face,
caricatured a hundred thousand times, was hawklike, the eyes bright and
searching, the chin out-thrust. He had a nervous trick of jerking his
head sideways as though he were everlastingly suffering from a crick in
the neck.

Now and again he raised h