Jack gave a whoop.

“Here we are!” he cried exultantly.  “It’s an opening in the scrub timber, a big gash too, for a fact!  Why, already I can see that it looks like a level green field.  How queer it should be lying right there, as if it might be meant for us.”

“You don’t glimpse any other chance further on, do you, Jack?” continued the pilot.

“Never a thing, Tom.  Just a continuation of those same old dwarf oak trees.  But why do you ask that?  What’s the matter with this fine big gap?”

“I’m afraid it’s a marsh, and not a dry field!” Tom answered.  “But all the same I presume we’ll have to chance it.  Better to strike a bog than to fall into those trees, where the lot of us might be killed.”

“Suppose we circle around, and try to find the best place for a descent,” proposed Beverly.

All of them strained their eyes to try to see better.  Unfortunately a cloud passed over the sun just then, rendering it difficult to make sure of anything.

“What’s the verdict?” sang out Tom presently, keeping a wary eye on the straining motors.

“Looks to me as if that further part might be the highest ground,” was Jack’s decision.

“I agree with you there!” instantly echoed Beverly.

“That settles it!  Here goes to make the try,” Tom announced, again swinging in and shutting off all power.

He continued to glide downward, approaching the ground at a certain point which he had picked but with his highly trained eye as apparently the best location for the landing.

Suspecting what might happen, Tom held back until the very last, so that the big bombing plane was not going at much speed when its wheels came in contact with the ground for the first time.

Something happened speedily, for it proved to be a bog, and as the rubber-tired wheels sank in and could not be propelled, the natural result followed that the nose of the giant plane was buried in the soft ground, and they came to an abrupt stop.

Tom was the first to crawl forth, and Beverly followed close upon his heels.  The third member of the party did not seem as ready to report, which fact alarmed his chum.

“Jack, what’s wrong with you?” he called out, starting to climb aboard the smashed plane again.

“Nothing so very much, I think; but I seem to be all twisted up in this broken gear, and can hardly move,” came the answer.

Tom secretly hoped it was not a broken arm or leg instead.  He started to feel around, and soon managed to get the other free from the broken ends of the wire stays that had somehow hindered his escape.  Together they crawled out, to find Lieutenant Beverly feeling himself all over as if trying to discover what the extent of his damages were.

“Try to see if you’ve been injured any way seriously, Jack,” begged his anxious chum, still unconvinced.

An investigation disclosed the marvelous fact that all of them had managed to come through the smashing landing with but a small amount of damage.  When this was ascertained without any doubt Jack started to prance around, unable to contain himself within bounds.