AT the time of which I write, the smoke of battle still filled the air. The freedom of men and nations, the heritage of the ages, hung in the balance, so that even brave men were often filled with doubt and despair.

Rittmeister Heinrich von Spitzer, late flight-commander in the German Air Service, was one of the Prussian irreconcilables, who, rather than submit to the peace terms enforced by the Allies after the defeat of Germany, resolved to become an aerial brigand, an outlaw of the nations, and to wage a bitter warfare of violence and plunder against his late enemies.

"Here's a beauty, Jack " "Hold him, Jamie, till I come " "Come quickly then, old fellow--he's slipping away from me Quick Hang it, the fellow's gone I've missed him, and----" "Splash " The sentence was never finished, for Jamie, stepping too excitedly on a treacherous, moss-covered rock in mid-stream, slipped, and the next instant found himself sitting down, up to the armpits in the water which raced past him like a mill-stream.