It required Tom’s diplomacy to restore peace and calm consideration of what they were to do in the situation confronting them. “Only one thing to it, as I see it,” said George Harper at last, “and that is to head out toward the sound of those guns and just keep on until we come up with some of our own men.” “Yes, just keep on going, that’s you,” Ollie answered, his mischievous nature again cropping out. “But how about your sense of direction?” A tart reply which Harper already had phrased upon his lips remained unsaid as he abruptly pointed upward to where a big aeroplane was approaching them from out of the north. They stood silent as it came swiftly and majestically down the wind toward them. “An American,” Tom announced at last, when able to make out the markings on the machine. “Wish he’d come down and give us our bearings.” “Seems as if he was thinking of that himself,” said Ollie, as the ’plane nosed downward in its approach. “Maybe he’s got some engine trouble and is going to make a landing.” “Changed his mind,” Harper remarked, as the machine passed over them, took an upward tack again, then at a higher altitude began circling about them. “Looks as though he was sort of sizing us up. Tom, why not signal him?” Acting upon the suggestion, Tom, who was the only one of the three who could talk in the arm signalling code, began to reveal their identity, while if the maneuvers of the aeroplane were significant, those in it looked on with interest. “Americans seeking our own lines,” Tom spelled out with quick upward and outward jerks and sweeps of both arms. The three youths waited for something that might be taken as an acknowledgment or reply, but none came, or, if it did, they were too far away to see it; and a moment later the machine swept to the eastward, swooped down so close to the ground that for a time it was completely lost to sight behind a nearby wood, then rose again and taking a wide swerve east and north finally disappeared entirely. “He’s polite, anyway, whoever he is,” Ollie commented as they gave up hope of the pilot having any intention of returning to them. “He might at least have dropped us a biscuit or two.” “Which reminds me that I’m pretty hungry myself,” admitted Tom Walton. “Ravenous, better describes my awful emptiness,” said Harper, “and I don’t see any hope of eats around here. Let’s get started.” They descended together into the dug-out to roll their blankets and get their equipment, but they were not to move on just then with the freedom they had expected.