“Fell there!” repeated Bumpus, incredulously. “Oh! now you’re trying to kid me, Giraffe. I don’t take any stock in those big yarns about Mars being inhabited, and all that stuff. Speak plainer, can’t you?”
“If you look close, Thad,” Giraffe said, ignoring Bumpus completely now, “you’ll see something lying on the ground near the tree.”
“Yes, you’re right, Giraffe, I see it,” replied the other; “and it looks as if it might be some sort of wreck, too.”
“Just what she is!” cried Giraffe exultantly; “the wreck of an aeroplane. That man in the tree must have been one of the flying squad, German or Belgian, we don’t know which yet. He met with an accident while up aloft. Mebbe some of that shrapnel injured his machine, and he was making for the earth to land far away from the battle field when he struck that tree, and there he’s stuck ever since.”
“Oh! how hard it must have been for him, hanging up there all night, and p’raps badly hurt at that!” cried the tender-hearted Bumpus. “Thad, you wouldn’t think of going on and leaving him there, I hope?”
“Well, I should say not, Bumpus,” Giraffe told him. “We’d deserve to be kicked out of the organization if ever we did that. How could we look back without turning fiery red every time we remembered such a cowardly act? Leave it to us, and we’ll get him down out of that, eh, Thad?”
“Our duty compels us to do everything we can to alleviate distress,” the patrol leader said, soberly. “And it doesn’t matter the least bit to us whether that poor chap is a German, Belgian or Frenchman. He’s in a terrible position, and may lose his life unless we do something for him. So let’s head that way on the run!”
“What about the car, Thad?” asked Allan.
“Hang the car,” replied the other, impulsively. “It’s stalled right now, and the engine partly dismantled, so there’s no danger of its running away.”
“I hope not,” Bumpus was heard to mutter, dubiously, “but cars are mighty funny contraptions any way you put it, and nobody ever knows what they’re meaning to do. When you think they’re sleeping as sweet as anything they may kick you all of a sudden just like a mule.”