“Glad to know it,” said Tom. “There's nothing like having friends. I hadn't any notion that I'd meet any when I started out with him tonight,” and he motioned to Jack.
“Well, I like that!” cried Bessie in feigned indignation. “I like to know how you class my mother and me?” and she looked at Tom.
“Oh,—er—well, of course—you and your mother, and Jack. But he and you—”
“Better swim out before you get into deep water,” advised Jack quickly, and he nudged Tom with his foot.
Then the boys had to tell about their final experiences before leaving the Lafayette Escadrille with which many trying, as well as many happy, hours were associated, and the girls told of their adventures, which were not altogether tame.
Since Mrs. Gleason had been freed from the plotting of the spy, Potzfeldt, she had lived a happy life—that is as happy as one could amid the scenes of war and its attendant horrors. She and Bessie were throwing themselves heart and soul into the immortal work of the Red Cross, and now Nellie bad joined them.
“It's the only way I can stop thinking about poor Harry,” she said with a sigh. “Oh, if I could only hear some good news about him, that I might send it to the folks at home. Do you think it will ever come—the good news, I mean?” she asked wistfully of Tom.
“All we can do is to hope,” he said. He knew better than to buoy up false hopes, for he had seen too much of the terrible side of war. In his heart he knew that there was but little chance for Harry Leroy, after the latter's aeroplane had been shot down behind the German lines. Yet there was that one, slender hope to which all of us cling when it seems that everything else is lost.
“He may be a prisoner, and, in that case, there is a chance,” said Tom, while Jack and Bessie were conversing on the other side of the room.
“You mean a chance to escape?”