back without having fired even one shot." He stopped short
and pointed upward. "Hold on, Tom; there's some kind of bird going to
pass over right now! Crow or anything, please bring it down! I'll
promise to eat it, no matter what it is."

Laughingly Tom threw the gun up to his shoulder, and the next instant
the report sounded. It seemed almost contemptible, after listening to
the roar of those monster shells exploding for so long.

The bird fell fluttering in a heap. Tom evidently was a fair marksman,
for it had been moving swiftly over their heads at the time he fired.
Jack ran forward and picked the game up. As he did so he gave utterance
to exclamations that naturally excited the curiosity of his chum. So
Tom, after reloading his gun with a fresh shell, waited for Jack to
rejoin him, which the other did, his face full of mystery.

CHAPTER II

THE WINGED MESSENGER

"What do you call this, Tom? A queer sort of crow, I'd say. Looks more
to me like the blue-rock pigeons Sam Becker used to raise at home," and
so saying Jack held up the still quivering bunch of feathers.

Tom took one quick look, and then a startled expression flitted across
his face.

"Just what it is, Jack!" he hastened to say. "A homing pigeon in the
bargain! You can tell that from the bill and the ring around the eyes."

Jack in turn became aroused.

"A homing pigeon, is it?" he ejaculated. "Why, birds like that are used
for carrying messages across the lines! Some of our airplane pilots have
told me that sometimes they take a French spy far back of the German
front. When he had made an important discovery he would write a message
in cipher, enclose it in a tiny waterproof capsule attached to a ring
about the pigeon's leg, and set the bird free. Inside of half an hour it
would be safe back in its loft, and the message on the way to French
headquarters."

He lifted one limp leg, and then the other.

"Look here, it's got a message, as sure as anything!" Jack exclaimed.

Tom leaned forward and took the bird in his hand, dropping the gun
meanwhile. He carefully took off the gelatine capsule, and from it
extracted a delicate piece of tough paper, which he spread open. There
were a series of strange marks on the paper, of which neither of the air
service boys could make anything.

"Looks like hieroglyphics, such as you'd expect to find on an Egyptian
tomb or in the burial places under the pyramids," complained Jack, after
he had stared