Instead of presenting a slanting pair of wings, the big machine was tipped in such a way as to present for a minute, its whole under side to Erwin's view. It was the critical moment. With feet on controls, and one hand on the wheel, the lad managed to pour a continuous volley of those leaden hailstones squarely into the entrails of the foe. Then up he climbed, at almost lightning speed, and as he came to dancing level off the German's tail, out from the sagging biplane pitched another human body, this time not the murdered, but the murderer. "Good riddance!" almost gasped Erwin. "He's gone to hell, where he and his like belong! But -- what's this? Glory! His tank is busted; his plane goes down with him and on fire!" Erwin was correct. The biplane's tank -- always in danger in fights like this -- had been badly punctured by the same hail of Lewis bullets that had also hit the German, just as his plane got out of control. Instantly the flames burst forth as the big airship plunged downward, only a little behind the falling body of its pilot. With great effort -- for the excitement had weakened the lad -- did Erwin bring his scouting plane to an easier level and gait. Then he looked down. Already both burning biplane and falling pilot had vanished. Far below, the earth was only faintly visible through the mantling haze that now permeated the lower atmosphere. All directions looked alike. The air was comparatively still, and only the far distant rumble of artillery, seldom absent along that front, was audible. It sounded not unlike intermittent thunder. What to do next? Which way should he go? For the first time since starting he felt for his compass. It was gone. "What'll I do now?" he asked himself. "Where is the sun? I suppose all the boys that started when I did must have gone back long ago. The time must be at least mid-afternoon." The mists below evidently were rising and thickening. The boy hated to acknowledge to himself that he must be lost, but it looked that way. Cautiously he descended to lower levels but the landscape thus opaquely revealed showed but little that was definite. Lower still he flew. As the earth grew more and more distinct its strangeness did not diminish. Though it was risky, he went lower still, until the tops of trees, the signs of half ruined houses began to appear. But nothing familiar was in sight. About this time, with day waning and his anxiety growing, Erwin was at last rewarded by glimpse of the sinking sun, seen hazily through a canopy of clouds. There was no mistaking that it was the sun and Orris found that he must have flown wrongly ever since he had put the Boche biplane out of commission. Already he was heading westward when from below there came a series of sharp reports from artillery evidently close by. "Surely they cannot be shelling our trenches from way back here. I must be far behind the enemy lines -- much too far to suit me. Ah, I what's that?"