McGee was on the point of calling out, "When shall I call, sir?" but at that moment noticed young Hampden's genuine smile and heard him voicing words of appreciation for the lift. "Don't mention it," McGee said. "It was a pleasure. Cheerio! old man!" "There," he thought, sinking back in the tonneau. "I said 'old man'. Singular case, and that lets Siddons out rather neatly. Hum. I'll bet a cookie he knows more about flying than I do--or anyone else, for that matter. Well, we'll see. I wonder what sort of outfit Buzz drew." Lieutenant "Buzz" Larkin was closer to McGee than any person in the world. Close bonds of friendship had been formed while they were in training in Cadet Brigade Headquarters, at Hastings, England. During their months of service together in the Royal Air Force, on exceedingly hot fronts, those bonds of friendship had become bands of steel, holding them together almost as firmly as blood ties. Both were Americans, but the motives back of their entrance into the R.F.C. were as widely divergent as possible. Larkin, the son of a wealthy manufacturer, had never disclosed the real reason for his entrance into a foreign service. Perhaps he sought adventure. McGee, however, made no secret of the motives back of his entrance. When word reached him that his brother had been killed while doing observation work in a captive balloon, young McGee, not yet eighteen, employed a trick (which he thought justified) to gain entrance to the Air Force. He felt that he must carry on an unfinished work, and few will find fault with him if his actions were motivated by a slight spirit of revenge. After all, blood is thicker than water. Whatever the motives of the two youths, once in the uniform of cadet flyers, the spirit of service seized them. Side by side, encouraging, entreating, helping and driving one another they plugged through their training with their eyes fixed upon the coveted reward of every air service cadet--a pair of silvered wings! Together they had won their wings; together they had gone to the front; together they had gone out on patrol, high above the lines, and met the enemy. Thereafter, the fortune of one was the fortune of both. Each had saved the other's life, the culminating tie in their friendship, if indeed their friendship needed any further tie.