Drake chuckled and looked forward again. Camden had always adored his younger brother—not that he’d ever admit it aloud, but woe to anyone who harassed the younger Camden at school. “I’ll stop praying when you stop trying to pick a fight with everyone you see.”

Camden pursed his lips. “It’s an embarrassment, having to claim a clergyman for a brother. I don’t need a pious friend too.”

“Apparently you do. Because so far as I’ve seen, you don’t have many others just now.”

“Fine by me. I’m not interested—”

“In making friends. Yes, I’ve heard your new mantra. How fortunate for us both that I didn’t need to be made.” He craned his head back again as they drew near the tree. Though of course, from this angle he couldn’t see anything flashing. “This is the one, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Here, hold this.” Camden whipped off his hat, shoved it at Drake’s chest, and clapped his hands together. Then leapt up to the nearest branch.

“You don’t have to be the one to climb. I’m perfectly capable—”

“You were shot recently, Elton. Last thing we need is you pulling something open halfway up a tree. I don’t much fancy carrying you back to the airstrip.” He pulled himself up to a standing position on that branch and jumped for another. “Besides, it takes me back to our school days. I passed many a happy hour in those trees.”

“Mm. When you should have been in Latin, you mean.” Drake backed up a few paces to get a better view. “Try to angle toward me when you can. I think I see it, though I can’t tell what it is.” Not a codebook, certainly. That wouldn’t be glinting in the sunlight. But if they could place it as being something from the zeppelin, then they’d know they were on the right track.

“Right. Working on it.” Grunting with the effort, Camden continued to scale the limbs, coming round the tree bit by bit as the branches allowed.

“Almost there. Two more, I should think.”

Camden reached for the next branch. “You know, I’ve changed my mind about that favor. I didn’t owe you. Which means you now owe me.”

“Uh-huh.” He lifted a hand to his eyes to shield them from the midmorning sun. “Well?”

Camden made a snatch for something, and apparently he hooked it, given his laugh. “Got it!”

“What is it?”

“A canteen.”

An odd thing to find fifty feet up a tree, to be sure. Obviously dropped from above, which boded well for them. “German?”

“Well, it sure isn’t English—we have more sense than to give ours a round bottom that you can’t actually sit on a table.”

Drake was still smiling when Camden’s feet hit the forest floor again. “Seems like zeppelin debris to me.”

Camden was grinning too. “Onward.”