After following Billy and Henri in their perilous and thrilling night ride, it has occurred that they should have first been properly introduced and their mission in the great war zone duly explained. Only a few weeks preceding their first adventure, as described in the initial chapter, they were giving flying exhibitions in Texas, U. S. A. “That’s a pair for you!” proudly remarked Colonel McCready to a little group of soldiers and civilians intently looking skyward, marking the swift and graceful approach through the sunlit air of a wide-winged biplane, the very queen of the Flying Squadron.
With whirring motor stilled, the great bird for a moment hovered over the parade ground, then glided to the earth, ran for a short distance along the ground and stopped a few feet from the admiring circle.
“That’s a pair for you!” repeated Colonel McCready, as he reached for the shoulders of the youth whose master hand had set the planes for the exquisitely exact landing and gave a kindly nod to the young companion of the pilot.
“I’ll wager,” continued the colonel delightedly,[7] “that it was a painless cutting of Texas air, this flight; too fast to stick anywhere. Fifty-five miles in sixty minutes, or better, I think, and just a couple of kids—size them up, gentlemen—Mr. William Thomas Barry and Mr. Henri Armond Trouville.”
Billy Barry adroitly climbed out of the little cockpit behind the rudder wheel and patiently submitted to the colonel’s hearty slaps on the back. Billy never suffered from nerves—he never had any nerves, only “nerve,” as his Uncle Jacob up in the land where the spruce comes from used to say. Billy’s uncle furnished the seasoned wood for a?roplane building, and Billy’s brother Joe was boss of the factory where the flyers are made. Billy knew the business from the ground up, and down, too, it might be added.
And let it be known that Henri Trouville is also a boy of some parts in the game of flying. He loved mechanics, trained right in the shops, and even aspired to radiotelegraphy, map making aloft, and other fine arts of the flying profession. Henri has nerves and also nerve. He weighs fifty pounds less than Billy, but could put the latter to his best scuffle in a wrestling match. Both of them hustled every waking minute—the only difference being that pay days meant more to Billy than they did to Henri.
No brothers were ever more firmly knit than they—this[8] hardy knot of spruce from Maine, U. S. A., and this good young sprout from the lilies of France.
There’s a pair for you!
“Say, Colonel,” said Billy, with a fine attempt at salute, “if I didn’t know the timber in those paddles I wouldn’t have felt so gay when we hit the cross-currents back yonder. I——”
“Yes, yes,” laughed the colonel, “you are always ready to offer a trade argument when I want to show you off. Now you come out of your shell, Henri, and tell us what you think of the new engine.”
“There is sure some high power in that make, sir,” replied Henri. “Never stops, either, until you make it.”
“All you boys need,” broke in Major Packard, “is a polishing bit of instruction in military reconnaissance, and you would be a handy aid for the service.”
“While I am only factory broke, Major,” modestly asserted Billy, “Henri there can draw a pretty good map on the wing, if that counts for anything, and do the radio reporting as good as the next. What a fellow he is, too, with an engine; he can tell by the cough in three seconds just where the trouble is. If I was going into the scout business,[9] believe me, I might be able to make a hit by dropping information slips through the card chute.”
The dark-eyed, slender Henri shook a finger at his talkative comrade.
“Spare me, old boy, if you please,” he pleaded. “Gentlemen,” turning to the others, who were watching the housing of the a?roplane, “this bluffer wouldn’t even speak to me when the altitude meter, a little while ago, registered 3,000 feet. Then he had a wheel in his hands; down here he has it in his head!”
“Bully for you, comrade,” cried Billy. “I couldn’t have come back that neatly if I tried. But then, you know, I have to work to live, and you only live to work.”
With this happy exchange the boys moved double quick in the direction of quarters and the mess table.
Colonel McCready, with the others proceeding to leisurely follow the eager food seekers, in his own peculiar style went on to say:
“There’s a couple of youngsters who have been riding a buckboard through some fifty miles of space, several thousand feet from nowhere, at a clip that would razzle-dazzle an eagle, and, by my soul, they act like they had just returned from a croquet tournament!”
Our Aviator Boys had grown fearless as air riders. They had learned just what to do in cases of emergency, in fact were trained to the hour in[10] cross-country flying. Rare opportunity, however, was soon to present itself to give them a supreme test of courage and skill.
Little they reckoned, this June evening down by the Alamo, what the near future held in store for them.