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CHAPTER VII


SECRET ENEMIES ABOARD


"One thing sure," Jack went on to say positively: "That girl is a true-blue Ally. She told me so, and you couldn't look in her eyes and believe she could deceive. If she's acting a part at all, under orders, Tom, take it from me she hates her job like everything."

Tom seemed inclined to agree with his chum, though he had seen very little of Bessie Gleason.

"Well, when she quizzed me, you know, Tom, about my being afraid when up in the clouds, of course I felt that I had to explain that so far I hadn't felt a grain of fear, only delight, when spinning along at eighty miles an hour in an airplane. Yes, I told her a few things about what we hoped to do. But then anybody who knows we're bound for a French aviation school could understand all that."

Jack evinced a sudden inclination to leave the company of his chum.

"Excuse me now, will you, Tom?" he observed, with a smirk; "but I'm going on the hurricane-deck to have a little promenade with Bessie. She

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