Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/194

184 out of commission, and perhaps others, while the location had been made "considerably unhealthy," as Boughton expressed it afterward.

It was time for the French to retire, and those of their machines that were able prepared to do this. But Tom was going to see first what happened to Jack before he returned to his lines.

"He may be spinning down, intending to get out of a bad scrape that way, and then straighten for a flight toward home," mused Tom. "Or he may be—"

But he did not finish the sentence.

There was but one way for Tom to be near Jack when the latter landed—if such was to be his fate—and to give him help, provided he was alive. And that was for Tom himself to go down in a spinning nose dive, which is the speediest method by which a plane can descend. But there is great danger that the terrific speed may tear the wings from the machine.

"I'm going to risk it, though," decided Tom.

Down and down he spun, and as he looked he became aware, to his joy, that Jack had his machine under some control.

"He isn't dead yet, by any means," thought Tom. "But he may be hurt. I wonder if he can make a good landing? If he does it will be inside the German lines, though, and then—"