"You remember Bauer?"
"That rotter what was found guilty of spyin' for the enemy? Yes, I knew the blighter, the traitor?"
"Well, he's dead. When his plane fell on fire, I had to drop down in a shell-hole back yonder. Bauer and his pilot had fallen near there just before. He was cussing us all out, Boche fashion. But it was from their machine that I got enough petrol to fetch us three safely back. So you see Bauer was some good after all. Of course he was a traitor and should have been hung."
"Well, you two haven't done so bad. Before Senator Walsen and his daughters left they gave me these things for you two, if you had the luck to get back. And Captain Byers, before going on this raid, left this permit, together with all necessary papers for you two to go on leave for ten days."
"That reminds me, said Blaine, fishing in his own pockets. "Here are some photos, maps and so on that I got from those two dead Germans, Bauer and his pilot. They may be of service up at headquarters."
And he handed them over, Buck supplementing them with a few he too had taken on his various ventures within the last day or two.
CHAPTER XIX
CONCLUSION
Two days later a couple of rather spruce looking young men alighted from an eastern train in Paris and, strolling forth in the crowd of passengers, looked about them rather curiously.
Both had passed through the French capital before, but more as strangers and foreigners than as ally Americans, visiting a city famed as the center of all that is best in French history and tradition.