"Are you strong enough now to take my place?"

"I -- I think so," returned the still reviving Erwin. "What you going
to do -- land?"

At this juncture the machine hit the ground in a decreasing glide,
while Blaine, half rising, pitched forward as if dead.

"Take the machine, Orry," Blaine had said. "I'm dead; you're wounded."

Knowing that Blaine had his plans laid, Erwin followed. Then the Boche,
feeling pretty good over the idea that he had captured an enemy machine
with two men in it, also alighted from his own a few rods distant. To
his view there appeared one man dead and another wounded.

Covering Erwin with his revolver as he sat leaning back ghastly and
still bleeding from the shrapnel that had at first struck him down, the
German eyed his apparently helpless victims.

"Get oudt!" he snapped in rather poor English to Erwin.

The latter started to obey, still covered by the pistol at his head.
Suddenly Blaine, who had tumbled to the ground at the first landing,
now sat up, his own revolver pointed straight at the German.

"Throw down that gun!" he announced in clear, steady tones. "Quick!
No nonsense, Fritz!"

One brief stare. Then, realizing that he had been outgeneraled, he