"There's another shot," cried Leon. "Behind us this time."
"Let's hope their aim continues as poor as that," said Jacques. "We want to get those dispatches to Colonel Erhard at Flambeau before anything happens to us."
"We'll be over hostile territory all the way, won't we?" asked Earl.
"We will," replied Jacques, "and we'll be fired at all the way too. If they should send a couple of machines up after us we might have to run for it."
"I don't know where we'd run to," said Leon grimly.
"Nor I," admitted Jacques. "Let's hope that we can out-distance any machines that start to chase us."
"Do you think this machine is faster than the German ones?" asked Earl.
"Faster than most of them," replied Jacques. "Probably not as speedy as those new fokkers though; they go like the wind, but they are too light and I doubt if one of them could do us a great deal of harm."
They passed over many towns and hamlets; the green fields of France lay spread out beneath them like some soft green carpet. It all appeared very beautiful and peaceful now that they were some miles back of the firing line. An occasional puff of smoke around them, however, showed that they still traversed hostile territory; at least it was land held by the invader.
Once a German machine rose from its hangar far below and set out in pursuit of the speeding monoplane; it was quickly out-distanced, however, and soon abandoned the chase. Without any special incident the three young friends progressed until far ahead of them they could make out the faint outlines of the Vosges.