“It staggers you at first, of course, Jack,” he said, in his confident, convincing way.  “But why should it?  The danger is great, but nothing more than we’re up against every day we set out for the clouds to give battle to a tricky Hun ace, who may send us down to our death.  And I assure you we’d have at least a fighting chance to get across.  What do you say, Jack?”

For answer the other whirled on his chum.  His face was lighted up with that sudden and unexpected renewal of hope, just when it had seemed as though he had fallen into the pit of despair.

“Tom, would it be madness, do you think?” he cried, clutching the other by the arm, his fingers trembling, his eyes beseeching.

“We’d have a fair chance of making it, just as Colin says,” Tom slowly answered.  “Much would of course depend on contrary winds; and there’d be fighting in the fog banks we’d surely strike.  But Jack,—­”

“Yes, Tom?” gasped the other, hanging on his chum’s words eagerly, as one might to the timbers of a slender bridge that offered a slim chance to reach a longed-for harbor.

“If you decide to accept the venture I’m with you!” finished Tom.

At that the eager flight lieutenant showed the utmost enthusiasm.

“Call it settled then, Jack, so we can get busy working out the programme!” he begged, again insisting upon gripping a hand of each.

Jack found himself carried along with the current.  He could not well have resisted had he so desired, which was far from being the case.  It seemed to him as though he were on a vessel which had drifted for hours in the baffling fog, and then all of a sudden the veil of mist parted, to show him the friendly shore beyond, just the haven for which he was bound.

“It is, perhaps, a desperate attempt to make such a flight on short notice,” Jack said.  “But think!  If we succeed!  And think, too, of that schemer winning the prize!  Yes, Tom, since you’ve already agreed to stand in with me, I say—­go!”

After that a fever seemed to burn in Jack’s veins, due to the sudden revulsion of feeling from despair to hope.  He asked many questions, and for an hour the three talked the matter over, looking at the possibilities from every conceivable angle.

Tom was not so sanguine of success as either of his mates; but he kept his doubts to himself.  As an ambitious airman he was thrilled by the vastness of the scheme.  As Lieutenant Beverly had truly remarked, while it held chances of disaster, they were accepting just as many challenges to meet their death every day of their service as battleplane pilots.

Then again it seemed to be the only hope offered to poor Jack; and Tom was bound to stick by his chum through thick and thin.  So he fell in with the great scheme, and listened while the flight lieutenant touched upon every feature of the contemplated flight.

Luckily it was no new idea with him, for he had spent much time and labor in figuring it all out to a fraction, barring hazards of which they could of course know nothing until they were met.