A bright flash of lightning—the brightest he had seen since leaving the clouds—suddenly bathed the earth in its vivid glare. And that swift transition from almost the darkness of night to the brilliancy of noonday brought peace of mind to the young combat pilot of the Lafayette Escadrille. What cared he now for Captain Baron Von Richtofen and his Red Squadron of Death or the loud and angry rumbling of his other enemy—the Storm King! For there, right below him, were the familiar hangars, the familiar fields—the headquarters of the escadrille itself.
And, only fifty feet above the ground, he could hear, above the wind, which still played its wild symphony on the wires of the machine, the welcoming shouts and hurrahs of his fellow pilots of the squadron.
Twenty-five feet—then ten! And presently the rubber-tired wheels jarred against the ground, and the Nieuport, traveling a short distance, was brought to a stop by the gusts of wind that bore down upon it.
And that had no sooner happened than Don Hale, the happiest boy in the world, was lifted out of the machine by his loudly felicitating and joyous friends.
The perilous game had been played and won.
CHAPTER XX—HAMLIN
Don Hale was certainly given a tremendous reception; and a short time later, while comfortably seated in a chair at the villa recounting his memorable adventures, was highly gratified to hear T. Singleton Albert verify his statement concerning the destruction of the observation balloon.
“This is the way it came about,” explained Drugstore: “During that scrimmage with the Boches I happened to see Don’s machine, hotly pursued, enter the clouds. And Don being rather new at the game, I thought I’d try to hang around a bit, so as to keep an eye on him if I could.”
“Bully for you!” cried Don. “Albert, you’re a brick!”
“I had a pretty fierce time of it, too, with tracer bullets cutting holes through the air all about me, but, after a while, I managed to slip away from the attacking planes. By that time the scrap was over and the photographic machine and its escort were on their way home.