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160 make their presence felt with innumerable quick-firing guns and trench bombs in the endeavor to eject the invaders.

There they would either die, or else surrender, because flight had been made utterly impossible. The barrage had been lifted, and covered a line just beyond the German first trenches. To pass through this hail of fire and live was out of the question, so that the German defenders were in a trap.

All this while Tom had been kept fairly busy. His pilot managed the plane adroitly so as to afford the observer an excellent chance to receive and send signals. Tom kept his glass fixed on the plane far ahead, from which his messages came. He did not know all they stood for; that was not his business. His duty was to send them on exactly as they were received.

There were times between, however, when he could glance earthwards, and see something of the awful events taking place on that blood-soaked field of Verdun. The French were now over the top of the German trenches, and engaged in clearing them of the enemy, even as so many industrious terriers might hunt rats in cellars where all the holes had been previously stopped up.

For hours this went on. The Germans flung