“No question but what some devil in human form planned your death, and if I get the dastard it will be a yardarm in the harbor for him, and no waste of time and lead.”
The lieutenant was aroused, and when a calm like his was rudely broken it meant woe for the object of his wrath.
Told of the manner in which Billy had been saved, the anger of the officer relaxed its force for the moment, when he solemnly said:
“Of the like I have never known; it is beyond me.”
Investigation, vigorously pushed, soon developed a significant fact—the youth to whom kit 9 was charged failed to respond at roll call. Max was missing.
Jacob then blurted out the whole story of the fight, and all that had preceded and followed it.
“I want to say right here and now,” was the stern declaration of the lieutenant, “that the next offender in this camp will get his billet to Cologne, where they play checkers with their noses on iron bars. As for Max, if he is captured, you will see an example made that will not rub out of your memories for many a day.”
With that the speaker’s jaws set like a clamp.
When Billy petitioned for the job of making another monoplane test the very next day, the lieutenant was astonished.
“You certainly ought to take something for that nerve of yours, boy.”