[CHAPTER XXII.]
AN HOUR TOO SOON.
With incoming of the troops convoying the supply train, Captain Neva rejoined his company, and Billy and Henri were promptly adopted by the aviation corps, most of whom spoke both French and English, and all very much inclined to express their admiration of the aëroplane knowledge displayed by the youngsters.
The boys were right on the job, so to speak, when it came to reassembling the parts of new aircraft received by wagon shipment, and so grew in the confidence of the aviation lieutenants that they were quite often permitted to make flying tests of the various machines with only themselves in charge.
If the young airmen enjoyed this concession without watching on the part of the lieutenants, there was no such inattention on the part of a couple of frequenters of a city tavern not far removed from the aviation camp.
Work was evidently slack with this pair of citizens, for hardly a day passed that they did not spend several hours at a tavern table located near a bow-window, which afforded an excellent view of the parade ground and aviation quarters.
One of these constant spectators was remarkable for his size and the vivid hue of his hair, the other for the reason that he paid absolutely no heed to the other patrons of the place, though all appeared to be of his kind, both in manner and attire.
On a particular afternoon, the strangely silent one was deeply engaged with a stump of a pencil in the labor, no doubt, of casting up his accounts on a piece of dirty brown paper, in which had been wrapped his lunch of black bread and sausage.
The puckered lines over his nose indicated thought labor, but the furtively keen glance he occasionally gave to outside movement contradicted the impression that he was of slow order of mind.
The chief actors in the mentioned "outside movement" at the time were two trimly set up lads in new suits of service green, one pulling and the other pushing an armored biplane into its hangar.
"This machine," said the puller, "ran like an ice-wagon to-day but maybe use will smooth her out."