Page:Air Service Boys Flying for Victory.djvu/138

128 seemed surprised when told that the two air service boys did not expect to fly that day.

"Something's up, I warrant," he told them bluntly, "and you're bound to keep a tight upper-lip about it. All right, I wouldn't ask you to whisper just one word to me; only I feel sore because they have left me out of the game. But I never was lucky in drawing prizes. I'll go out and vent my spleen on some Fritz who happens to get in my way."

When the airmen trailed in toward noon on that October day, first, rumors reached Tom and Jack, and then came the plain story connected with Harry's extraordinary conduct on that wonderful morning.

Other pilots said the boy seemed to be possessed of a spirit such as they had never known him to show before. He hunted out the Boche wherever he could find him, forced him to give battle, and then simply played with him, no matter if he chanced to be one of the best-known German aces.

Two he had sent down in flames, for which he would receive due credit; and there were reports that he had also made as many more drop to the earth in a condition of impotence.

"Why," said a pilot who recounted some of these happenings to the air service boys, "Harry seemed possessed of a reckless spirit that will be