had been to watch, with another
hunter, while a speedy, big bomber dropped hundreds of pounds of
explosives on an enemy munition dump.

The whole affair went through like a dress rehearsal, and without a
hitch. They flew straight for their objective, found it without the
slightest difficulty, deposited a load of high explosives upon it in
quick time, and soared away back home without a single encounter with
an enemy plane. They were, it was true, severely "Archied," as they
called it, but no one of them was the worse for it.

Harry Corwin had been over the Boche lines three times, and had found
the experience quite sufficiently exciting, though he had not been in
actual combat at close quarters with the enemy as had Jimmy Hill.

His work for three mornings had been to escort a certain observation
plane which had been sent each day to watch the development of a
reserve line of dugouts well in the rear of the German front line.
As a matter of fact, the pilot of the observation machine, a swift
triplane, was well known as a dead shot. He needed an escort machine
less than Harry did, Harry thought.

That triplane was about as formidable in appearance as any aircraft
could be. It was only a two-seater, but it was armed with two
machine-guns, singularly well placed. The front rapid-firer was fixed
between the two supporting planes, the barrel next to the motor and
parallel with it. This front gun was fired by Richardson, the pilot
of the triplane, who controlled it with his right hand. This was a
radical departure from some of the more usual gun positions, in which
the gun was customarily located on the upper plane and operated by the
observer.

Having a gun all to himself had pleased Richardson mightily, and he
had become a wonderful shot.

The second gun on the triplane was placed on the framework behind the
observer's station. It was mounted on a revolving base, and had an
exceptionally wide range of fire.

"It is a pure joy, sometimes," Richardson was once heard to say, "to
see the way the little major grins when some chesty Boche has thought
he had us sure, and comes creeping up behind, only to get a dose right
in the nose. That gun of the major's carries further than anything
we have run against yet, and he just couldn't miss a Hun to save
his life." The major was Richardson's observer.

Another yarn that Richardson was accustomed to tell on his companion
of the upper reaches ran as follows: "When th