m buildings swept
along beneath the soaring plane, growing smaller with uncanny
rapidity. The day's work started. That was all it amounted to.
In the airdrome they had left behind, the eyes that had followed
their first moments of flight were turned to other sights nearer at
hand. The men who had seen the plane well away started for other
jobs, forgetting the departed machine.

Both Archie and Carleton, neither novices at the game, settled themselves
snugly in their seats as the needle crept round the altimeter.
Cold awaited them in the higher levels. That they knew. A persistent,
penetrating cold, driven by a keen wind right through some great-coats.
Leather is the best protection from that sort of wind. The face
feels it the most, however. The cheeks become cold as ice. Far below,
the snakelike windings of trenches---trenches of friend and foe---can
be followed from high altitudes. Some parts of the line seem mile-deep
systems of trenches, section on section, transverse here, approach line
there, support line behind, ever joining one with another in wondrous
fashion. Shell-torn areas between the trench lines, the yellow earth
showing its wounds plainly from well above, caught the eyes of the
fliers.

The bark of a bursting anti-aircraft shell heralded their arrival in
the danger zone. From the earth the tiny white shell clouds have a
fascination for the onlooker. More so perhaps, than for the man
in an aeroplane, not many yards distant from the bursting shrapnel.
The ball of fluff that follows the sharp "bang" is small at first,
but unrolls itself lazily until it assumes quite a size. That morning
the anti-aircraft gunners seemed unusually accurate. The third shell
burst not far below the plane, and two bits of the projectile
punctured the canvas with an odd "zipp." Some shells came so close
that the explosions gave the machine a distinct airshock, though no
other shell struck the plane.

Archie swung his plane now this way now that to render the aim of the
"Archies" below ineffective, smiling to himself, to think that the
nickname given to the anti-aircraft guns was his own given name.

"We are providing amusement for a pretty big audience, below there,"
thought Archie. "I suppose that the closer they come to us with
those shells the better sport it is for those who are watching us."

He laughed quietly at the thought. He was as cool as possible that
day. In fact, he was unusually cool, for of