Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/159

Rh and the area back of them. They were seeking the big gun.

But, though they looked carefully, it could not be seen, and finally when one of the French machines was badly hit, and the pilot wounded, so that he had to turn back toward his own lines, Cerfe gave the signal for the return.

In all this time not a Hun plane had come out to give battle. What the reason for this was could only be guessed at. It may have been that none of the German machines was available, or that skillful pilots, capable of sustaining a fight with the veterans of the French, were not on hand just then. However that may have been, Tom, Jack and the others, after firing a few rounds from their machine guns at the trenches, though without hope of doing much damage, turned back toward Camp Lincoln.

"Well, then you did not discover anything?" asked Major de Trouville, who had been transferred and given the command at Camp Lincoln.

"Nothing," answered Jack.

"If it's in the section we covered, it is well hidden," added Tom.

"And I think, don't you know," went on the Englishman, Haught, "that the only way we'll be able to hit on the bally mortar is to fly low and take photographs."

"That's my idea," said the major. "If we take