in the company of Carl Potzfeldt. The girl seemed much afraid of him, though he was her guardian, said to have been so named by Mrs. Gleason, a distant relative of his. Mrs. Gleason had been on the ill-fated Lusitania, and it was related by Potzfeldt, for purposes of his own, that Bessie's mother had been drowned. Moreover, he declared that before she died she had given him charge of Bessie.
Tom and Jack, the latter especially, grew very fond of Bessie, but there seemed to be a mystery about her and something strange in her fear of her guardian.
When the two young men reached England, they lost sight, for a time, of their fellow passengers, but they were destined to meet them again under strange circumstances.
During one of their flights they landed near a lonely house behind the German lines. They were traveling in a Caudron, which contained them both, and on investigating the building after dark they found, to their surprise, that Bessie and her mother were kept there, prisoners of Carl Potzfeldt, who was a German spy.
Bessie and her mother were rescued and then departed for Paris, the latter to engage in Red Cross work, and the boys, remaining with their fellow aviators, longed for the time when they might see their friends once more.
