"The war will be won in the air."

The headlines in big black type stared at Jimmy Hill as he stood beside
the breakfast table and looked down at the morning paper, which lay
awaiting his father's coming.

The boys of the Brighton Academy, among whom Jimmy was an acknowledged
leader, had been keenly interested in the war long before the United
States joined hands with the Allies in the struggle to save small
nations from powerful large ones---the fight to ensure freedom and
liberty for all the people of the earth.

A dark, lithe, serious young French lad, Louis Deschamps, whose mother
had brought him from France to America in 1914, and whose father was
a colonel of French Zouaves in the fighting line on the Western Front,
was a student at the Academy. Interest in him ran high and with it
ran as deep an interest in the ebbing and flowing fortunes of France.
The few letters Mrs. Deschamps received from Louis' soldier father
had been retailed by the proud boy to his fellows in the school until
they knew them by heart.

Bob Haines' father, too, had helped fan the war-fire in the hearts of
the boys. Bob was a real favorite with every one. He captained the
baseball team, and could pitch an incurve and a swift drop ball that
made him a demi-god to those who had vainly tried to hit his twisters.
Bob's father was a United States Senator, who, after the sinking of
the _Liusitania_, was all for war with Germany. America, in his eyes,
was mad to let time run on until she should be dragged into the