“He says he has good friends not a great ways off,” reported Giraffe, after some more talk with the wounded aviator, “and thinks he could manage to reach them, if only he can hide somewhere till dark settles down.”
“That’s all right!” Thad declared, “and so far as we’re concerned we hope he may sooner or later manage to get back inside the German lines. He’s a brave man, and we’re only too glad to have been of service to him.”
“Thad,” continues Giraffe, “he says he wants to write something down if you’ve got a pencil and paper handy. I think he means to fix it so that in case we run across some of his people they’ll be good to us. It’s the only way he knows to show how grateful he feels.”
“I don’t know but what it might be a good idea, although we hope we won’t come across any of those German raiders,” Thad remarked, as he searched his pockets, and found the needed articles.
The man wrote with some difficulty, for his hand was stiff, but after he had completed his task Giraffe said he could read it all right.
“He’s gone and told how he happened to land in a tree top, and would have died there only for us getting him down,” explained Giraffe; “and then he goes on to tell how we bound up his wounds, and did everything for him we could; so that he asks any German officer who reads this to be kind to us for his sake. I reckon now that the name he’s signed is well known among German airmen; seems to me I’ve heard it, or seen it in print.”
The air pilot had gotten out his pipe, and was actually enjoying a smoke. Doubtless, being addicted to the weed he would have suffered less during the long night could he have had the satisfaction of an occasional puff.
Allan looked at him curiously, while Giraffe was filled with admiration.
“These air pilots have to be pretty cool customers, it strikes me,” he remarked, as they prepared to say good-bye to the man, who evidently did not think it wise on his part to go near the road, lest he be seen and taken prisoner.
“They certainly do,” said Thad, “because there isn’t a second when they’re up in the air that they’re not in deadly danger. A man may stumble on land; he may have an accident when on the water, but he’s got a fair chance to save himself. With them a collapse means being snuffed out of existence.”