“He was our friend and our master, our pride and our protection. His loss is the most cruel of all those, so numerous, alas, that have emblazoned our ranks. Nevertheless, our courage has not been beaten down with him. Our victorious revenge will be hard and inexorable.” These are the words of Lieutenant Raymond, Guynemer’s successor as Commandant of The Flying Storks. PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 18. SERIAL No. 166 COPYRIGHT, 1918. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC. [Illustration: GUYNEMER AFTER A BOCHE VICTORY] _GUYNEMER, THE WINGÈD SWORD OF FRANCE_ _Hunting in the Air, by Captain Georges Guynemer_ Translated from the French FIVE The public as a rule has a false idea of hunting and the hunters. They very easily imagine that we are ’way up there at our ease, directing events, and that the nearer we are to heaven the more we are invested with Divine Power. I cannot express in words the enervation that I feel sometimes while listening to the inept remarks addressed to me in the form of compliments, and which I am compelled to accept with a smile, which is almost a bite. I want to shout out to the speaker: “But, my poor fellow, you ought not to speak about this subject, for you know nothing whatever about it. You do not understand the first word of it all, and you can hardly believe how little your eulogies please me, under the circumstances.” But if I answered in this way, no one would think of honoring my sincerity, or my desire to spread sane ideas--rather all would declare that I was a rude fellow, pretentious and a swaggerer, or something worse. This is the reason that I listen, remain dumb, and let the enervation gnaw at me. Some tell me: “It is better to leave to hunting that mysterious atmosphere which serves as an aureole to the Ace. If the layman were to become competent to judge, he would possibly no longer hold the same admiration for the hunters.” You will admit that this suggestion is not very flattering to us. In fine, according to this suggestion, we are interesting to them only because they know nothing about our work. They say of me: “Guynemer is a lucky dog.” Certainly, I am a lucky dog, for I have added up forty-nine (this was written before the grand total was made) victories and am still alive, and I might have been killed during my first fight. If we talk this way, every person alive today is lucky; for he might have died yesterday. But I might astonish some persons considerably if I answered: “It’s a good thing that I was a lucky dog, for I have been brought down by the enemy on seven different occasions.”