"Let, me
rise first. I'll mosey towards that fire. As for you and Stan -- you
make your get-away. Sooner you get back to the home plate, the more
you'll be apt to do for Stan. Stan's a bully chap -- durn 'im."
Up into the air rose the Nieuport, while Buck was thus delivering
himself. Over towards the line of fires and the shadowy circling of
planes he went while Blaine himself made an attempt to rise. What was
the latter's consternation to find that his plane would not rise
sufficient to clear the concrete oval by which the open space was
surrounded!
"What will I do now?" Blaine almost gasped. "Must be something wrong
with the machinery that I failed to notice."
Another explosion, much nearer, that seemed to tear up trees within the
forest. At the same time he distinctly saw Buck's machine circling
round and round, high up in the air, and directly over where the last
explosion had occurred. It looked puzzling. But Lafe had no time just
then to observe Buck's doings except that, during the last flash, the
concrete oval had given way.
Meantime the biplane was trying to lift itself a trifle higher, and
happened to be beaded towards where the explosions were occurring.
"Damn if he ain't droppin' bombs, too," Blaine gasped, then quickly
solved the riddle of Buck's maneuvers.
Without waiting further, but applying all his power, Blaine drove the
biplane forward at full speed, at the same time using both forward and
rear steering blades to assist further elevation of the prow.
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