Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/193

188 been in several small flurries of the kind, but that was in the broad light of day. To be caught when on a night journey would be a new experience for both of them.

After a while he made out that they were now above some river, and had apparently altered their course, as if the pilot meant to follow the stream.

Jack was not puzzled at all by this fact. In company with his chum he had studied a chart of the country of Lorraine and the Rhine district beyond. He knew that the Mosel River flowed in an almost northeasterly direction, with numerous bends, to empty finally into the Rhine on the border of Hessen Nassau, one of the German provinces.

When presently they glimpsed many lights below Jack knew they were passing over the fortified city of Metz, once a French possession, but taken by Germany, just as Strassburg in Alsace had also been taken when they won the war in 1870.

"They must have been great war times too," he reasoned. "But not as bad as now, not by a long shot!"

Still the raiders kept steadily on. They were fired at frequently, but without being injured, since they maintained their safe altitude.

Another glow of lights, much modified, told