something
may drop."

"Yes, matters are at an acute stage in Washington, that's sure. All
France, bled nearly white in two-and-a-half years of war, is praying
that the day may come soon."

After that the two athletic looking young Americans, dressed in the
uniform of the French aviation corps, fell silent for a brief time.
They, however, continued to trudge over the devastated fields, looking
this way and that for any sign of a stray rabbit that had escaped the
general slaughter.

It was just previous to the world-stirring session of Congress, when the
President made his thrilling speech that sounded almost from end to end
of the world, and put America in line for the cause of democracy.
Anxious days those were across the ocean, anxious not only in France,
Italy and Great Britain, in Serbia, Rumania, Greece and Russia, but in
the Central Empires, also.

For well did those in Teutonic authority know, in spite of their vain
boasting, that once great America decided, the thing was bound to be
done, sooner or later. Never in the course of her history has our
republic been on a losing side. Her wars have invariably brought
eventual victory to her arms, because she has never once fought for an
unjust cause.

These two vigorous young fellows were fair samples of those enterprising
Americans who found it impossible to sit idly by. They could not await
the slow course of events that was bound to carry our country into the
world war on the side of the Allies, in spite of all the powerful
counter currents among the pro-German citizens at home.

Dozens of the brightest of flying men from the States had gone over and
offered their services to France, the country they loved. In time there
came to be so many, that from the ordinary French Flying Corps there was
formed a unit entirely made up of Americans.

This, in honor of the one great Frenchman whom Americans most honor at
home, was called the Lafayette Escadrille. Some of its members had
become famous at their profession. Names like those of Lufbery, Thaw,
McConnell, Chapman, Prince, Rockwell, Hill, Rumsey, Johnson, Balsley and
others became household words among readers of the great dailies in the
States.

Tom Raymond was the son of a man who had gained fame as an inventor.
When the war broke out he started work on numerous inventions, some of
which were calculated to become terrible agents for the destruction of
human life. Then Mr. Raymond's mood changed, and he set