“That was why I wanted to see you,” said John. “I had reason to believe that two tramps were somewhere about this mountain, and I feared they might start for the village. If they did, they would come across this camp, and I didn’t like to think they might annoy the scouts.”
“You didn’t know they were convicts, then?” said Julie.
“If I had, do you suppose I would have allowed you girls to win the honor of catching them? I would have taken them myself.”
“How could you—all alone?” said Joan.
“The same way I rounded up five Huns when they shot down my plane on their side of the battle-line. I managed to get them, too, and marched them across No Man’s Land at night, and brought them in prisoners to our Captain.”
“Oh, oh! tell us all about it?” entreated the girls.
“Some other time, scouts, but now I want to answer this lady’s questions,” said John, laughingly.
“Only tell us this much—is that what you got the medal for?” begged Julie.
“That, and one other trick I turned,” said John, without any sign of self-importance.
“My boy enlisted before the United States entered the war,” began Mrs. Vernon. “Because we had no air service, he entered the Royal Flying Corps in Canada. He was with them until we declared war on Germany, then he wanted to fight under his own Flag. It was in his first battle as an American Flyer that he was shot down.”