"Feels as steady as a rock. You know I haven't felt the least bit nervous since we started."
"Why should you?" demanded Leon. "We're a good deal safer here than we are in the trenches."
"I suppose that's true," mused Earl. "You wouldn't think so, though, would you?"
"I don't know. The way the machines are perfected nowadays there is practically no danger from accident and with a good aviator you are as safe as any one can be in war. Of course plenty of machines are destroyed and the pilots and observers killed, but I believe the proportion is smaller than in any other branch of the service."
"Say," called Jacques from the pilot's seat.
"I've got a question to ask you. There are two ways of reaching Flambeau and I want your advice as to which to take. One way we can go around back of the firing line and be practically safe all the way."
"Go that way then," exclaimed Leon quickly.
"But," objected Jacques, "that course is much longer."
"Major Villier and General Petain both said that the dispatches should be delivered as soon as possible, didn't they?"
"'At the earliest possible moment,' was the way they expressed it," said Jacques.
"Then," said Leon, "we ought to take the shortest route."
"It crosses the battle line twice," said Jacques. "You know the trenches make a big loop below here and we will have to cut straight across that loop."
"Never mind," exclaimed Leon. "If they said to deliver the dispatches at the earliest possible moment it's for us to take the shortest possible course in order to do that."
"I think so too," agreed Earl. "We'll have to run our chances, that's all."
"There are the trenches below us now," cried Leon suddenly. "See them up ahead there?"
"Sure enough," exclaimed Earl. "Don't they look funny from here? They look just like a series of deep scars running in all directions."
"You can't see the first line trenches yet," said Leon. "You can easily tell them for they'll run exactly parallel to one another and the space in between them will be the only place where you see no trenches. Behind both the French and German first lines there are any number of other trenches running in all directions and all connected. But in between the two front ones there is nothing; 'no-man's land' they call it."