"Glory be!" hoarsely rejoiced the boy from Bangor, when his chum again drew to the upper level.
Seventy miles an hour was the clip of the fleeing biplanes, and no less speedy the onrush of the aircraft from the slopes.
"Steady, and a little to the right," Renos instructed Henri.
The observer was resting the rifle barrel on the rigging, awaiting a broadside target.
Sping! One of the attacking aviators was first with his rifle, and the bullet nicked the armored side of the German craft. Sput! Henri heard an angry exclamation behind him, and shifted an eye long enough to see that Renos was nursing a bloody wrist on his knee.
"How hard are you hit?" was the anxious question of the young pilot.
"Nothing to kill," replied the observer, as he used his uninjured fingers and his teeth in knotting a handkerchief above the wound so as to compress the severed artery.
With the utmost calm he then deliberately used his left hand in rifle aiming, and sent a bullet into the nearest hostile machine.
Whether the shot crippled the pilot of the leading pursuer, or whether it was the menace of the heavy howitzers on the German frontier, which was now of short approach—the French flyers suddenly ceased to be aggressive, and with a parting salute of rifle practice, turned back toward their mountain station, while the German machines dashed across the line of safety.
Upon landing Billy indulged in a sort of war dance around his chum.