wings of the Japanese army extended to the North
or South. It was certain that the enemy maintained strong lines of
communication in both directions, but it was difficult to determine just
how far their lines penetrated into the wooded slopes and valleys.

* * * * *

When the guard was relieved at 5 o'clock in the morning, one of the
non-commissioned officers was struck by a curiously-shaped bright cloud
the size of a hand, which hung like a ball over the mountains in the
west in the early morning light.

"It must be an air-ship!" said some one.

"It evidently is; it's moving!" said the sergeant, and he at once gave
orders to awaken Captain Lange.

The captain, who had gone to sleep with the telephone beside him, jumped
up and could not at first make out where the voice came from: "A
Japanese air-ship has been sighted over the mountains." He was up in a
second and looking through his glasses! Sure enough! It was an air-ship!

Its light-colored body hovered above the mountains in the pale-blue sky
like a small silver-gray tube.

"Spread the report at once!" called the captain to the telephone
operator; and bustle ensued on all sides.

"What shall we do?" asked a lieutenant. "There's no use in shooting at
it; by the time it gets within range we should shoot our own men."

The air-ship came slowly nearer, and at last it was directly over the
American line of outposts.

"They can see our whole position!" said Captain Lange, "they can see all
our arrangements from up there."

Boom! came the sound of a shot from the right.

"That probably won't do much good."

A few hundred yards below the air-ship a little flame burst out. The
smoke from a shrapnel hung in the air for a moment like a ball of
cotton, and then that, too, disappeared. Boom! it went again.

"We shall never reach it with shrapnel," said the lieutenant, "there's
no use trying to beat it except on its own ground."

"We have some newly constructed shrapnel," answered the captain, "the
bullets of which are connected with spiral wires that tear the envelope
of the balloon."

Now two shots went off at the same time.

"Those seem to be the balloon-guns," said the lieutenant.

Far below the air-ship hovered the clouds of two shrapnel shots.

"They're getting our air-ship ready over there," cried the captain;
"that's the only sensible thing to do." He pointed to a spot far off
where a large, yellow motor-balloon could