aystack to try to find Potzfeldt. He and his
pretty little ward may be hundreds of miles away from here."

"Perhaps you're right, Tom," mused the other sadly, as he stared afar
off toward the north. "I'd be glad of a chance to do something for that
poor girl. She is to be greatly pitied, if she's wholly in the power of
a man who wouldn't hesitate to do _anything_, if he saw a chance
for gain ahead."

"Well, all you can do, Jack, is to live on and hope a lucky chance will
bob up for you. But there's our captain beckoning to me. Perhaps another
battle is on the carpet for to-morrow, and I'll be given a look-in
again."

"Oh, if the lightning would only strike me too!" sighed Jack, enviously.
"Please beg him to figure out something I can do, Tom. If it's only
occupying a place aboard an observation plane or taking photographs of
the Germans regrouping far back of the lines, I'd gladly welcome it.
Anything but sitting here, when all the other pilots are at work."

Tom hurried to join the commander of the Lafayette Escadrille. He had
taken a great fancy to the gallant man, and believed this feeling was in
a measure returned. Jack continued to sit and mope. He really felt
slighted to be left out when so much thrilling work was being done.

He had put away the well-thumbed scrap of paper with its mysterious
lines of warning, for the time being Bessie and all her troubles passing
from his mind. Jack was now full of his own affairs. He found himself
growing a bit discontented because thus far he had been allowed to do so
little for the cause, when his heart was full to overflowing with a
desire to assist.

There were aviators going and coming all the time, and surely many of
them did not excel him appreciably in talents. Why did not those in
charge find something for an ambitious pilot to do? He was striving
daily to master the weak spots in his education; and had not the captain
himself assured him he was doing bravely? He turned to cast an
occasional look toward the spot where Tom and the commander of the air
squadron still talked earnestly. Yes, something was certainly "on tap,"
as Jack expressed it, for he saw the other carefully examining a bit of
paper his companion had evidently placed in his hand.

Jack began to be interested. Perhaps after all it might turn out to be
something quite different from what Tom had anticipated. Had the captain
simply wished to notify the other to be ready to answer a call on the
follo