n him."

"Good stuff!" approved Billy.

"That's what happened this morning," continued Dick. "This fellow came
sailing along as calm and cheeky as you please, and was having a bully
time taking pictures of our positions. At least I suppose that is what
he was doing, as he evidently wasn't out looking for fight. I thought
it wouldn't do any harm to take a look at him, although I saw the
machine had French markings. I gave the signal, but of course he
couldn't give the countersign. I repeated it three times without
getting an answer, and then I pitched into him. That makes the
thirteenth that I've brought down."

"Thirteen was an unlucky number for him, all right," remarked Billy.

"How are you fellows getting along?" asked Dick, stretching himself out
on the ground for a brief resting spell. "I notice that you've been
right up to your neck in fighting lately."

"Its been pretty hot along this sector," Frank admitted, "though I
suppose it's nothing to what it will be after the big German drive gets
started. That is if it ever does start. I sometimes think they've
given up the idea."

"Don't kid yourself," replied the aviator grimly. "It's coming, all
right. If you fellows had been up in the air with me you wouldn't have
any doubt about it. The roads back of the German lines are just black
with troops. It's like an endless swarm of ants. The trains move
along in endless procession and they're packed. Big guns, too, till
you can't count them. It seems as if all Germany was on the move.
It's the old invasion of the Huns over again."

"Where do they get them all, I wonder," remarked Billy.

"That's easy," replied Frank bitterly. "They're coming from the
Russian front. The breakdown of Russia means a cool million at the
very least added to the German troops on the western front."

"That accounts for most of them," agreed Dick. "Then in addition
Germany's combing out her empire to put every available man into
service. She's enslaving the Belgians to work in her factories so that
German workmen can be sent into the ranks. She's calling up mere boys
who ought to be at their schoolbooks. I tell you, boys, Germany's
desperate. She's beginning to realize what a fool she was to bring
America into the war, and she's going to try to get a decision before
we get a big army over here."

"She'll have to get busy mighty soon, then," said Bart, "for Uncle
Sam's boys are coming into France by the hundreds o