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Rh of the series, "Air Service Boys in the Big Battle; or, Silencing the Big Guns."

Among their friends at the front was a young and daring aviator, Harry Leroy by name, who had had the misfortune to be shot down behind the German lines, and it was in connection with his discovery and rescue by the chums that some of the events of the last volume came about.

And it may as well be confessed here that Tom felt more than a passing interest in the pretty sister of Harry, for Nellie Leroy was serving her country as a Red Cross nurse, being just then in one of the American field hospitals to which the wounded were being carried day after day while the Argonne drive was on.

Tom was a full hour and more reading his letters, rereading them, and dreaming over them. After their rescue from the château Mrs. Gleason and Bessie had gone to Paris, where the mother, ably assisted by her daughter, had thrown herself into Red Cross work. Now, so Bessie's note told Tom, her mother was very tired and the two had gone down to Nice for a brief rest. It would be perfect, Bessie wrote, if only Tom and Jack and Nellie Leroy were with them.

For a while Tom lost himself in the thought of being at Nice, by the blue sea, with Mrs. Gleason and Bessie and Nellie—especially Nellie—and