Our airplane had caught on fire and she fell within 300 yards of our lines. I saw one of our airmen crawl from her and then fall over on the ground. I crept out in a rain of bursting shells to where our machine lay and managed to extricate Flight Lieutenant Ross from the débris and as good luck would have it he was not much hurt. Then I lifted Observer Gilfillan onto my back and we started for our line. When we were within a hundred feet of it a sliver from an exploding shell struck me in the leg and shivered it. I crawled back and another man brought Gilfillan the rest of the way. After being treated at the field hospital we were removed to the base hospital where I was decorated. Soon after I was sent to Paris and since it was clear I could no longer be of service I was returned home and discharged, and--here I am. That’s the thumb-nail sketch of how I did my bit for Uncle Sam. CHAPTER XII--MUSTERED OUT Jack Heaton and I had just finished our goulash at Moquin’s on Sixth Avenue (New York), and the waiter, under the stimulus of a piece of money, graciously removed the table cloth as he had been asked to do on twelve previous occasions. I took a couple of quires of blank paper out of my brief case and laid them in front of me; then I produced a pair of fountain pens, one filled with black ink and the other with red ink, the latter for writing on chapter headings and putting in such corrections as might be necessary, and all of which showed without any deduction that I was in for a writing spell. “Well, Jack, we’ve got down to the last chapter and this sitting will finish it,” I started off encouragingly. “I’ve told you all my experiences and if there’s any more to be said I guess you’ll have to say it, Mr. Collins,” remarked the bored young soldier. “No, my boy,” I said firmly, “there are still some outstanding features about wireless I want to talk over with you, and besides I have never turned in a script to my publishers that had less than twelve chapters, that is, except a shortcut arithmetic and the shorter a book of that kind is the better.” “I don’t know of any outstanding features as you call them; it seems to me I’ve told you everything that ever happened to me. What else can I say?” protested the young man. “Give me your version of how we met, tell how you looked in that natty overseas uniform, how I looked, what is on your mind now and all that sort of thing. Then we’ll discuss the wireless transmission of power, wireless airships and submarines, talking to Mars and finally about the diamond fields of South America for I’m as interested in them as your friend Bill Adams,” I suggested. Jack laughed. “Why, if I painted a word picture of you I’m afraid you and I’d part company.”