"Where am I?" he asked himself, reaching for his pocket flashlight.
"Surely this must be No-Man's-Land!"
Thus thinking, he stumbled against another plane; not his, but the wreck of another one. Intuitively he felt that he must have landed right. Feeling round him, he detected certain signs that made him almost sure one of the raiding scout machines had fallen here.
"This must be one of those big shell holes," he thought. "Why — what if it is where those signals came from?"
Just as Blaine was about to climb up the incline of disrupted earth, his flashlight sending gleams here and there, a voice he recognized ,sounded:
"Halt, you! I heard your motor, but you won't get me without a fight."
"Damn if it ain't Buck all righty," said Blaine, still climbing.
He turned his light to where the voice sounded, and bellowed, regardless of consequences:
"Don't you know your squad leader?"
"Good gracious! You — here?" The youth from Butte, Montana, was peering down at advancing form, delighted amazement in face, but he only said: "Shut off your light Sergeant! We're surrounded by - by - them! That's better! Where'd you come from?"
"Oh, I just dropped down in answer to your signal. I thought if the Boches were about to get you, they might have another chance at me, see?"