"Now what do you think of that?" he muttered. "By Jove! I've just naturally got to have that map."
He slowed down the speed of the craft to enable him to make a more careful search of his pockets. The search was futile. The map was not there.
Hal turned the situation over in his mind as the craft sped on.
"I don't know how," he told himself, "but I've lost the map. That much is certain. What a dunderhead I must be, by Jove! Well, what shall I do now?"
Again he considered the matter.
"Well," he said aloud at length, "there is no need alarming the others, but if I don't have a map to show the safety zones at certain hours, I'll just naturally have to get there without one. That's all there is about that."
With Hal to decide was to act. He acted now, and without further thought of the danger that lay ahead.
The speed of the plane increased, and it soared higher into the heavens.
"It's safer up here," the lad told himself.
The airplane had now passed from over the German lines, so it was clear that the danger that Hal feared, whatever it was, was not from German aircraft. What worried the lad was the fact that he might be unable to run safely the gauntlet of allied machines that were patrolling the sky.