turns and
makes straight for the cedars.

It was a thick, bushy clump. I climbed the stone wall and walked all the
way round. Nothin' in sight. Seemed as if I could see branches movin' in
there, though, and hear a sound like heavy breathin'. Course, it might
be a deer, or a fox. Then I remembered I had half a bag of peanuts
somewhere about me. Maybe I could toll the thing out with 'em. I was
just fishin' in my pockets when from the middle of the cedars comes this
disgusted protest.

"Oh, I say, old man," says a voice. "No shooting, please."

And with that out steps a clean-cut, cheerful-faced young gent in a
leather coat, goggled helmet, and spiral puttees. No wonder I stood
starin'. Not that I hadn't seen plenty like him before, but I didn't
know the woods was so full of 'em.

"You were out looking for me, I suppose?" he goes on.

"Depends on who you are," says I.

"Oh, we might as well come down to cases," says he. "I'm the enemy."

"You don't look it," says I, grinnin'.

He shrugs his shoulders.

"Fact, old man," says he. "I'm the one you were sent to watch
for--Lieutenant Donald Allen, 26th Flying Corps Division, Squadron B."

"Pleased to meet you," says I.

"No doubt," says he. "Have a cigarette?" We lights up from the same
match. "But say," he adds, "it was just a piece of tough luck, your
catching me in this fix."

"Oh, I ain't so sure," says I.

"Of course," he says, "it won't go with the C. O. But really, now, what
are you going to do when your observer insists that he's dying? I
couldn't tell. Perhaps he was. Right in the middle of a perfect flight,
too, the chump! Motor working sweet, air as smooth as silk, and no cross
currents to speak of. But, with him howling about this awful pain in
his tummy, what else could I do? Had to come down and---- Well, here we
are. I'm behind the lines, I suppose, and you'll report my surrender."

"Then what?" I asks.

"Oh," says Allen, "as soon as I persuade this trolley-car aviator,
Martin, that he isn't dead, I shall load him into the old bus and cart
him back to Mineola."

"Wha-a-t!" says I. "You--you're goin' back to Mineola--to-night?"

"If Martin can forget his tummy," says he. "How I'll be guyed! Go to the
foot of the eligible list too, and probably miss out on being sent over
with my division. Oh, well!"

I was beginning to dope out the mystery. More'n that, I had my fingers
on the tail feathers of a hunch.

"Why not leave Martin here?" I sugg