"That sounded to me like one perfectly good aeroplane going to smash—just like that!" answered Ned, leaning over the rim of the fuselage and peering through the glasses.
"Was it the German who was pursuing us?" asked Harry, eagerly.
"I believe it was," declared Ned. "Yes," he went on, "I can see the smashed plane there beside the train now. That's peculiar!"
"What's peculiar?" asked Jack. "The train being there, or the plane, or what? Please be a little more explicit."
"No nonsense, now!" Ned replied. "I mean its peculiar how that plane came to be smashed that way. I didn't see anything drop on it."
"Perhaps a piece of the machinery gave way as he was starting."
"It needn't worry us a particle to explain how it happened," said Harry. "It's enough to know that the fellow can't chase us."
"That's a good thing, anyway," was Ned's comment.
Had the lads only known how close they had been to being again pursued they might not have felt so easy in their minds, but they assumed that their presence was not known to others than the pilot of the wrecked machine, and therefore felt secure.
"Now it's up to us to make a noise like a drum, I guess," said Jack.