UNCLE SAM'S FLYING SQUADRON
"How—-oo—-ooo!"
Ralph gave the long-drawn cry of the timber wolf as he hurried in the direction of Bud's shouts. Hugh speedily joined him, coming from some side quarter, and the pair were soon closing in on the other scout.
They found Bud clinging to a shattered sapling and staring down into a gaping aperture that looked big enough for the excavation of a church cellar. All around were evidences of a most tremendous explosion or upheaval, some trees being actually shattered and others leaning over as though ready to fall.
"Talk to me about your meteors," burst out the wondering Bud as he saw the others coming along, "I hope to goodness one of them never drops down on our roof at home. Just looky here what it did to the poor old earth! That sky traveler's as big as the parsonage, I should think."
Hugh turned to Ralph.
"No doubt about what happened now, is there?" he asked.
"Well, I should say not," came the answer, as Ralph stared down into the hole.
"Must be some new sort of explosive they're experimenting with," added the patrol leader seriously; "and to look at that gap you'd believe it beats dynamite all hollow. Drop a bomb made of that stuff on a fort, and goodby to the whole business."
"W—-what's that?" exclaimed the wondering Bud. "Do you mean to tell me that it wasn't a meteor that made all that racket the last two nights?"