around on a revolving stool until all the joy in life seemed to have gone.”

“Spies are Everywhere”

“Ugh!” grunted Dorsey. “The very recollection of that ordeal makes me wish to recollect something else.”

“The kind of air-sickness you get by the unearthly dips and twists of an airplane has sea-sickness beaten to a frazzle,” commented Ben Holt, pleasantly.

“Then I’m not anxious to make its acquaintance,” grinned Don. “I had a few nerve tests, too, made in a pitch-dark room, which weren’t altogether pleasant. Among other things, a revolver was unexpectedly fired several times close beside me.”

“It’s tough, how they treat a perfectly respectable chap,” chirped Cal Cummings.

“My, what a relief it was to receive a service order requiring me to report to the headquarters of the Flying Corps of Dijon!”

“That’s an old story with us,” drawled Mittengale. “Once there, you had to answer a lot more questions. Then you paid a visit to the ‘Vestiare,’ where the soldiers are outfitted. A uniform, shoes, socks, overcoat, hat and knapsack were passed out, and thereby, and also perforce, another chapter added to your brief but eventful history.”

“Besides all that, I received a railroad pass to come here, and also three sous, representing that many days’ pay,” chuckled the new candidate. “The salary I’ve already squandered,” he confessed, with a grin.

“Awful! The French Government should be told about it,” exclaimed Gene Shannon, laughingly. “But now, son, perhaps you would like to begin a new chapter by paying the captain a very necessary call?”

“To be sure!” said Don.

He stooped over, preparatory to gathering up his belongings, when Shannon stopped him.

“Leave the department store there, Don,” he remarked. “We’ll send some of the Annamites over to wrestle with ’em. Now come along.”

The “Annamites,” both Don and George knew, were the little yellow-skinned Indo-Chinese, who had journeyed from far-off Asia to give their services to the French Government.

Led by Tom Dorsey, the crowd began to pilot the new student and his chum toward headquarters. To Don Hale it was all wonderfully interesting. The boy was filled with that eager curiosity and anticipation which is one of the glorious possessions of youth. A new life—indeed a startlingly strange life, would soon be opening out before him—one that held vast possibilities, and also terrifying dangers. Whither would it lead him?

“I say, young chap”—Ben Holt’s voice broke in upon his thoughts—“you’ve got to mind your eye in this place. No talking back to officers; no overstaying your leave, eh, Monsieur Nightingale?”

“Oh, cut it out!” snapped Mittengale.

“Yes, there’s a chap who knows!” Holt chuckled. “One day Roy thought he’d enjoy a few extra hours in Paree—result: a nice little chamber two stories underground; a rattling good wooden bench, but uncommonly hard, as a bed; a bottle of water for company and eight days of delightful idleness, to meditate upon the inconsiderate ways of military men.”

“It was well worth it,” growled Mittengale. “Some tender-hearted chaps smuggled in paper and I wrote sixty-four pages of my book entitled ‘Life and Adventures of an Airman in France!’”

“An airman in France!” snickered Ben. “There’s nerve for you! Why, he hasn’t even been above the three hundred foot level yet.”

“Well, that’s just about two hundred and seventy-five feet higher than your best record,” retorted Mittengale, witheringly. “Don’t talk, you poor little grasshop.”

Don Hale paid no attention to these pleasantries, for, at that moment, one of the distant machines circling aloft, now dusky, gray