"Colonel, permit me to present a likely pair of air travelers who are never satisfied with the ground space they occupy."
Billy and Henri tipped their caps to six-feet-three of superb manhood, in Austrian uniform of dark blue.
Roque made the introduction, and the boys felt quite sure that this ceremony only completed advance notice of the character of service they were capable of rendering.
The officer, measuring the young aviators with a keen gray eye, nodded approbation.
"They will admirably fit in the carrying service," he remarked to Roque; "they are jockey weight, which is a good point for the assignment."
Billy assumed from the manner, if not the language used, that Henri and himself had successfully passed inspection.
It appeared that airmen here were persons of some importance, as affording the only connecting link with the outside world.
Almost every day, the boys were advised, anaëroplane went to Galician headquarters, on the outward flight carrying only letters and postcards, but on the return trip bringing tinned meats and hand grenades for the soldiers.
The big biplane piloted by Billy and Henri dwarfed anything else in the way of air machines shown in the fortress.
Other aviators, viewing the No. 3's, cheerfully conceded that they were certainly built to be winners.
These experts, however, as usual with their kind just getting acquainted with our boys, were inclined to be doubtful of the capacity of the youngsters to rank with themselves as drivers of aircraft.
It was up to time—a little time—to convince them of their error of judgment.
The crack driver of the Przemysl air squadron, Stanislaws, which name Billy promptly shortened to "Stanny," was the earliest convert to the new belief when he went as observer with the boy from Bangor on the latter's first foraging detail.
Lack of knowledge of the country prevented the chums from working together at this period.
"He will show me the way, but just hazard a little guess that I'll have a little show of my own on the way."
Billy buzzed this in the ear of the grinning Schneider, when the order to get away was received.
Henri, with the comfort that his turn was coming, stoutly backed the belief that his partner intended to exceed the speed limit as a lesson to the doubters.
"'Stanny' will have a new kink in his whiskers before he gets back," was the expression, to be exact, used by Henri on this evening.
The great bird machine, soaring like an albatross in the northern sky, soon vanished from the view of the watchers in the fortifications.
"He's six horses and a wagon with a dog under it," Stanislaws earnestly advised the officers at army headquarters, pointing at Billy, who was reducing heat in the propeller by liberal use of the oil can.
"Stanny" had already made good with the American boy, not so much by his frank expression of admiration for the youngster's handling of the military biplane as for the reason that the Austrian talked plain United States when they were alone. Billy was dead-set against the trial of eternally groping for the meaning of foreign phrases.
"Do you know why we aviators are running a freight line just now?" queried this new friend.
Billy acknowledged that he had not the least idea on that subject. "Why?"
"Filimonoff."
"Who in the dickens is Filimonoff?"
"He is the greatest of all Cossacks," explained the senior airman, "and the very devil on two sticks.Near Przemysl, not long ago, he held up one of our convoys and captured 200 wagons of grain and coal. He strikes where least expected, plays the peasant to perfection and secretly gets a lot of information that does not belong to him. It would be worth a lot to a fellow who dulled the spurs of this cock of the walk."
"Ah hum," thought Billy, "I can pretty near guess now what brought Roque to this neck of the woods."
So long was the enforced wait at headquarters this day that it was not until after nightfall that the biplane set out on its return voyage to the fortress.
A strong air current from the north, with a decided snap to it, forced the aviators out of fixed course, but despite the biting blast Stanislaws was yet able to advise the pilot as to the general direction to be pursued.
They saw ahead of them a red glow and the uplift of a spreading fountain of sparks. It was a house burning to the ground, probably fired by a Russian shell.
The blaze revealed a familiar landmark to the biplane observer. "Keep her nose to the left," he advised the pilot.
Billy, who figured the speed fully 70 miles to the hour, had the machine under perfect control, and it instantly responded to every shift of the steeringlever. With the ordered slight turn it was scarce ten minutes before the biplane hovered over the vast, shadowy mass of the fortress below. The powerful propeller stopped, and the winged racer stood still against the black dome of the midnight sky. Now the forward plane dipped as the throbbing of the motor again was heard, and the bird machine plunged down at an angle of 45 degrees, settling in the plaza within the silvery ring formed by its own searchlight.
"The work of an artist," proclaimed Stanislaws to the aviators in the night watch.
"Carrying some weight, too," added the soldier who superintended the removal of the cargo.
Billy had a bedtime story for Henri about Filimonoff.
It having been determined to regularly use both biplanes in the carrying service, the detail at last put the boys together in the same machine, with Stanislaws and Schneider manning the other.
"None of your self-made adventures," Roque admonished, when he had informed Billy and Henri of the arrangement.
The young aviators were, in duty bound, compelled to mumble some sort of assurance that they would stick closely to the task set for them.
That they failed to keep the agreement proved, strange to say, the fault of Schneider, the very man charged to keep an eye on them.
It was the third aërial expedition of the week, and following the same route, without mishap, had no longer the charm of novelty to Billy and Henri, and, it may be stated, the easy sailing had begun, also, to pall on the high-strung warrior with the sorrel hair, now sitting as observer behind the Austrian pilot.
At army headquarters, Stanislaws was giving his entire time and attention to checking up the needs of the garrison, and figuring closely on the capacity of the biplanes to carry all that he deemed absolutely necessary to take back to the fortress on this particular return journey.
The balance of the crew—the trio who were getting weary of the uneventful freight business—had nothing special to do but wait.
"No use of sitting still and twiddling our thumbs; I don't see any harm in looking around a bit."
Schneider's suggestion appealed to his companions, and they had no trouble in securing the loan of a pony each from the large number of these hardy specimens of horseflesh browsing around the camp.
They were advised by a good-natured member of the commissary department not to venture too far beyond the line of patrols, and Stanislaws gave them to understand that he expected to be ready to start within the next three hours.
"We'll be here on time all right, Stanny," calledBilly, clucking his pony into a smart canter, following the lead of his similarly mounted friends.
The one who was left behind had no reckoning then that he need not have hurried in his packing.
The roads traversed by the riders were deep in slush and mud because of a thaw, but the fresh ponies reveled in the going, and it was not long before a tempting range of harder ground extended the gallop further afield.
"Say, boys," suddenly remarked Schneider, rising in the stirrups for a survey of their whereabouts, "I think we have gone about far enough, and must take the back-track immediately."
"Wait a moment," urged Henri, "there's a man waving to us over there."
Schneider, looking in the direction indicated by the boy at his side, saw it was a peasant who was making the friendly motions to attract their attention.
"What's the word, my friend?"
The peasant spread out his hands in gesture of cordial yet humble greeting. "My house is near" (pointing eastward over the plain). "It is yours."
"The sun is yet high, let's go over and see the house of his nobs," gayly proposed Billy.
The native shrugged his shoulders, and wore a puzzled look at the words in a tongue evidently foreign to him.
Henri supplied the information in German, itbeing the language in which the invitation had been extended to them.
"I think he could understand even better if we were talking Russ, but still, as he made a fair stagger in German, we will have to let it go at that. We can see him home, as he says it is near, and then strike out for headquarters."
Prodding his shaggy steed with his heavy boot-heels, the stranger showed the path to his guests, the party speedily reaching a small but solidly built farmhouse on the bank of a small river.
Schneider, with soldierly precaution, transferred the heavy service revolver he carried in his belt to a convenient pocket under the cape of his overcoat.
Perhaps the husky fighter felt it was not much of an exhibit of courage to set a gun at hand when he found that no other human than this old farmer with a crook in his back seemed to inhabit the premises.
"I was as dry as a fish," asserted Billy, eagerly accepting a drink of cold water from a stone mug proffered by their host. There were other thirsty ones in the party, for the mug was emptied several times in the passing.
Just about that time Schneider lost all interest in water. Happening to glance out of a window facing to the north, his eye caught a sunflash on a lance-head, and now and again other sparkling tips.
The revolver he now appreciated was in the right place.
But of what avail, after all, was one pistol against a band of reckless and wily Cossacks, if such were under those nine-foot lances?
Billy and Henri were unarmed.
The peasant was up with a jump when Schneider proclaimed his discovery of impending peril.
"Hide! Hide!"
With the words of alarm he tugged at an iron ring in the center of the heavily-planked floor.
It was considerable of a lift, this weighty trap-door, but the old man developed a surprising degree of activity and strength, and quickly presented the way to a cellar by means of a ladder, the length of which indicated considerable depth.
"Not for me," strenuously objected Schneider; "they will never catch us like rats in a trap."
"Quick! Quick!" pleaded the peasant.
Billy, at the window, excitedly announced:
"They're the real thing; I can tell by their caps and caftans. The Cossacks are here!"
Schneider was as cool as a cucumber—that was the way the near prospect of a death struggle always affected him. He was hot-headed only when given the smaller provocations.
"Bar that door!"
The boys hastened to obey that crisp command.
The old peasant attempted to leave the house before the entrance barrier was secured and fastened.
"Halt!"
An unwavering line of steel barrel, and the menace of the voice behind it, checked stockstill this attempt to escape.
Fully a dozen of the rough riders of the north had dismounted in the farm enclosure, and advanced upon the house, some with lances and others carrying curved swords without guards.
"Get away from the windows," hissed Schneider, himself backing against the wall. "You too," savagely addressing the peasant, who in the past few moments continued to show remarkable recovery from the infirmity of bent shoulders and halting step. The man nervously fingered the folds of his rusty green tunic as he obeyed the fiercely given command, and as he stood nearest to Billy the latter was inclined to keep at least the corner of his eye peeled on the suspect. It was well for Schneider that the boy was watchful, for when the supposed farmer stealthily lowered his hand it grasped the bone haft of a dagger.
The Cossacks outside vigorously pounded the door with lance butt and sword hilt, and receiving no response to their peremptory summons, set powerful shoulders to work. But they could not budge or even shake the solid barrier.
Then at the window appeared a bearded face offerocious type, surmounted by high-crowned lambskin cap.
Schneider slowly raised his revolver.
The transformed peasant, noting the action, crouched like a panther for a spring, which he made the same instant. But the murderous intent was baffled and the leap fell short.
Billy Barry's foot was purposely in the way, and the would-be dagger wielder hit the floor with a crash. Startled by the tumble, Schneider's trigger-finger caused the waste of one revolver shot, and spoiled further attempt to deceive by silence.
In the moment of excitement no thought had been given by the defenders to the rear of the house, and before Schneider could even turn on his heel, a half-dozen lance points threatened him, front and back.
The fallen peasant was on his feet in a flash, and it was a mighty ugly look that he fixed on Billy.
"You will go to the cellar now, because I say it, and will come out again if I will it."
The sign of leadership was on the man, for none of the strange soldiery about him ventured to speak even a word in his presence.
Schneider, disarmed and no longer resisting, was hustled into the dark hole in the floor, and the boys were forcibly assisted in the same gloomy descent.
The heavy trap was closed with a bang, and sealed by the crossing of a clanking chain.
"Blamedif I oughtn't to be treated for the simples."
Schneider was, indeed, a dejected figure at the foot of the long ladder in this inky well, the only point of light being a porthole sort of window, set high in one of the four stone walls.
"We're all of the same name as chumps," echoed Billy.
The situation certainly had serious aspect to the prisoners. While they had considerable confidence in the trailing ability of Roque, here was a case with about every chance in the world against successful tracing.
An isolated farmhouse, far from the beaten track, not even in present line of military operations, and confinement practically in a granite tomb, from which no wail of distress could possibly be heard outside.
What fate the Cossacks had fixed for them was merely a matter of dreadful surmise.
"Slow starvation," was Henri's unhappy guess.
"Penned up in this den until we go mad," was the blood-chilling view of Schneider.
"Say, you fellows give me the creeps."
Billy wanted his troubles one at a time.
The next one was all too near.
While feeling his way around the rocky walls, Schneider settled in his tracks as though he had been shot.
"Don't you hear water splashing?" For confirmation he stared blankly at the boys who had not as yet strayed away from the ladder.
"Are you starting your madhouse already?" demanded Billy.
"But there is water running near," insisted Schneider. "Come over here, if you don't believe it."
As if to humor their friend, the boys joined him.
Sure enough, the lapping sound was plainly audible at this point.
Further ahead in the dim recesses of the cellar the sound was of dripping, a steady patter like rain.
"Maybe they have pulled a sluice between here and the river," suggested Henri.
"The fiends," muttered Schneider.
"Gee!" exclaimed Billy, starting back from a forward step or two, "the floor is filling!"
Stealing along, inch by inch, the water spread throughout the cellar.
The prisoners retreated to the foot of the ladder and sought perches on the rungs. In case of fullflood they could stave off drowning for a time by climbing higher. It was the only way.
"It's a pretty tight place we're in, old man, but not for the first time, and, mind you, we have always pulled out somehow."
Billy was ever ready to pass a cheering word to his chum when cheering words were most needed.
Schneider's nerve was again in the ascendant, he having sufficiently abused his lack of horse sense in being so easily led into such a trap.
"If I had hold of a good steel pike for a bit of an hour, there is nothing like a few planks that would keep us down here."
"Yes, or a couple of axes, or a stick of dynamite, or an electric torch, and so forth," bantered Billy.
While Schneider and Billy were word sparring to keep up their spirits, Henri noticed that the water on the cellar floor had pooled in the sunken spots, indicating that the pressure from without, for the time being, had largely subsided.
"No need for life belts yet," he cried, "the river isn't going to come through."
"And, thanks to that blessed streak of light," Billy pointing to the bull's-eye window, "we're able to see that you are right. So much for a starter."
"We'll beat you yet."
Schneider shook his fist at some invisible foe on the other side of the ceiling.
When, however, the first flush of encouragement at the fading of the flood had dimmed, it seemed a small matter about which to rejoice. The situation appeared as hopeless as before to the imprisoned aviators. With the coming of night the one diamond in the sable setting vanished—no ray of light to slightly relieve a condition now of absolute blindness.
"Oh, for one more glorious chance to meet those dastards in the open," groaned Schneider, who again was overwhelmed with keen regret that he had surrendered at all in the first place. But then he had no idea of such a dungeon as this, and, too, he had feared to provoke instant death for his young comrades.
In the coming dismal hours the troubled trio, deserting their ladder perches, stretched their aching bones upon the slimy floor, and passed the night in uneasy slumber.
Henri was the first to awaken, and as a morning exercise essayed to reach the little window by working hand and toe as a means of scaling the rough surface of the wall. As he clung for a fleeting moment to a protruding stone his chief discovery through the aperture was that outside it was raining in torrents.
Perhaps not much satisfaction in return for sadly torn fingernails and considerable waste of already waning energy, yet it was some assurance that theywere not intended victims of a drowning plot of man's conception.
"It's not the river that is feeding this drip," announced the climber to his companions in misery, "it's raining like fury and the water coming in here is the gutter fall through these rocks."
"A bally lot of moisture," growled Schneider, splashing ankle-deep across the cellar to inspect a swinging shelf which had just caught his eye.
He reached up, and presently turned, holding at arm's length a mouldy sailcloth bag.
"Hidden treasure," whooped Billy. "Bring it nearer the light, Schneider."
The treasure proved to be meal of some sort in a fair state of preservation. A tasting test demonstrated that here was something that would at least dull the gnawing pains of hunger, when mixed with water, of which latter there was more than a plenty.
"We might make a fire out of the shelf," suggested Henri, "and turn this stuff into hot cakes. I've got a few matches in my pocket."
"I see a picture of the fire you could make down here," exclaimed Billy. "But what's the matter with trying it out on the trap door? Burn our way out."
The speaker had taken on an air of excitement at the prospect.
Alas! The matches in Henri's possession had been carried on his sleeping side, the side all nightin contact with the slimy floor. There was not a strike in one of them.
Schneider, inveterate smoker that he was, remembered that his pipe, tobacco and match-case were all in the pocket of his great coat, of which the Cossacks had divested him after capture.
So in silence the unfortunate three mouthed the soaked meal, bitterly disappointed that they could not realize upon Billy's brilliant idea.
From bad to worse, they did realize, and soon, upon a much less desirable development. The rain had no stop this time to reduce the water flow into the cellar. In restoring the meal sack to the shelf for safekeeping, Schneider's long boots were wetted to the knees, and there was nothing to do but mount the ladder, and stay there.
To save a fall when napping, the prisoners lengthened their belts and buckled themselves each to a rung above the one upon which he sat.
"While you were wishing awhile ago, Schneider, why didn't you wish for a boat?"
"You'd joke on the way to the scaffold, young man," said the subdued firebrand, fixing a reproachful look on Billy.
"Never say die," retorted the irrepressible youth.
Another wearing night, and in Schneider's next trip for the meal bag his hip boots were none too long in the matter of preventing his taking on a cargo of water.
But this third day of desperate contemplation was destined to be marked by an incident which resulted in the lifting of the weight of gloom—and the herald of light and liberation from an apparently hopeless imprisonment was four-footed.
A few lines now in backward trend, to tell about the ambulance dogs, as many as a thousand, renowned for their excellent service for the Germans in both the eastern and western theaters of war. Each of the sanitary companies has attached to it four of these dogs, the German shepherd breed, marvelously trained and fitted for work on the battlefield, commanding everywhere eloquent tribute for their remarkable performances in finding the wounded and their acute scent on any trail.
Stanislaws had long completed his packing of the biplanes, and many a time and oft had impatiently paced Commissary Square, as many times going to the military road upon which he had last seen his aviation comrades riding joyously away. "'Stanny' was in a stew," as Billy would have put it, and he was not averse to letting anyone about him know it.
When night came word was passed from patrol to patrol, and back again, and no definite report of the missing aviators.
An observer was secured from among the young officers in the camp, and Stanislaws himself piloted one of the biplanes on the return journey to the fortress.
Roque was immediately advised of the mysterious disappearance of his three followers, and promptly indulged in some very emphatic comments not appropriate for parlor use.
"You must fly again in an hour," he raged, "and I'll be with you."
Stanislaws, though weary and nerve-strained through the exertions of the long flight just concluded and by the weight of anxiety, would not listen to the offer of brother aviators to relieve him of the added exertion of repeating such a journey without rest.
"I'm going back with him," he stoutly maintained—and he did.
At headquarters Roque took advantage of the first glimpse of daylight to institute work of inquiry, in which practice he was conceded to be without equal. But to no avail. The furthest outpost had seen the riders pass, and, fully satisfied with their credentials, had paid no further attention to their movements.
Somewhere out on the boundless plain, alive or dead, were the three so earnestly and expertly sought for.
"It's a hard nut to crack," Roque stated to a group of officers, "but I have opened just such hulls before, and I am not ready yet to plead inefficiency."
"Perhaps they have fallen into the hands of the enemy," said one of the officers.
"I can hardly believe that an old campaigner like Schneider would run into the lines of the foe with his eyes open. If suddenly attacked by lurking prowlers, I'll warrant we'll find some sign, for I know the man too well to believe he would be taken without a struggle and somebody biting the dust."
Roque had evidently not figured on Schneider's present handicap in the shape of the boys, forcing discretion ahead of valor.
Then the winning thought flashed into the mind of the secret agent—put the ambulance dogs on the trail!
The reminder was the approach of one of the sanitary officers. The latter, when he was told of the situation, at first presented a doubtful front.
"The heavy rains out there," said he, indicating the plain by a sweeping movement, "have drowned the scent, even if we had a good lead from this point; but," he concluded, noting the disappointment in the face of Roque, "I do not mind making a try for it. Here, Blitz."
The splendid animal bounded to the side of his master, lifting expressive eyes, and indulging in a series of short barks, showing readiness to serve in the best dog language.
Hasten, dog, there is sore need for aid in a dark place of yonder sea of mud!
Schneider, Billy and Henri had not ventured from the ladder since the early move after the meal-bag, which the first named had decided to keep within reach, and save further wading to the shelf. The flood on the floor showed no sign of receding—indeed, the trio had twice been compelled within the hour to climb a little higher to escape the splash at their feet.
Schneider, anything for diversion, pounded on the trapdoor until his knuckles were a bleeding mass, shouting until he was hoarse.
"What's the use?" he dully questioned, settling again into an attitude of sullen indifference.
The boys set up a duet, but with discord so apparent, even to themselves, that they quit the singing attempt as a matter of self-defense.
This noise had hardly ceased, when Schneider poked his head around the ladder support on the side of the light, with a hand hollowed behind his ear.
"Jumping jingo; listen!"
They all heard at once the snuffing of a dog, and with the sight of its black head stuck into the bull's-eye window, Billy dropped into the flood, breast deep, and struck out for the wall, up which he swarmed, regardless of scrape or strain.
He had seen the ambulance dogs in camp, andknew of the breed and their doings. Holding onto the narrow ledge like grim death with one hand, he used the other and his teeth in tearing out the scarlet lining from his cap, which he twisted around the dog's collar band. Blitz—for Blitz it was—whined his receipt for the red token, backed from the aperture, and padded away like the wind.
Two hours later the trap was lifted, and the exhausted survivors of this desperate adventure were hauled into daylight, joyfully greeted by a goodly company, including Roque. Stanislaws, sanitary officers, pioneers, and last, but not least, Blitz, tugging at the line by which he led the rescue party to the scene of his original discovery.
Schneiderwas a very walking furnace, with his burning desire to meet again, on equal footing, any individual of the Cossack band that had thrust him, lamblike, into the stone tomb under the farmhouse, and, particularly, the fake peasant for whose wiles he had so foolishly fallen.
"Give us a biplane hunt for that gang," he importuned Roque, "or I will never get the red out of my eyes. Filimonoff himself might have been in the crowd, for all I know, and you ought to be doing some tall bidding for his headdress. It was just like one of his tricks."
The firebrand felt that he had hit the mark with the last part of his heated argument. Roque would have counted full reward for the chase in the bagging alone of the wily chieftain of the strange horsemen.
He turned to Stanislaws, remarking: "You men for awhile will have to resume the use of your own machines in the carrying service. I have concluded to give Schneider a chance to retrieve his blunder and return a lesson that will stick into savage hides."
"We won't stand in the way for a minute," quickly and earnestly stated the Austrian flyer, "and more power to you, sir. What's more," he added, "we can spare an aëroplane or two, and I know several full-blooded lads who would be mighty willing to join such an excursion."
"Meaning that you are one of the volunteers," rejoined Roque. "How about it, Schneider?"
"It is hitting the nail on the head," heartily approved the brick-top warrior, "Stanislaws, Breckens, Bishoff, and Mendell—there's two crews that would help some."
"What's the matter with us?"
The Aëroplane Scouts had edged into the circle. The idea of a biplane hunt especially appealed to them.
"Sure you're going," proclaimed Schneider, glancing first at Roque for sign of assent, which was given by a nod.
Four military biplanes twelve hours hence lay in readiness to start for the Cossack roundup. The Austrians in the party carried a supply of bombs for emergency work, but the most elaborately armed of all was Schneider, in the rôle of chief challenger. He bristled with revolvers, a shoulder-hung carbine and a heavy cavalry saber.
"If you should have a fall, old fellow," laughed Stanislaws, "it would sound like a barrel of tinware rolling down a mountain."
"Never you mind," said the one-man arsenal, "I have a job of making sieves on hand."
The plan was to hover for a time in the vicinity of the farm where Schneider and the boys had been held up, or, rather, down, and if no sight of the Cossack company, to reconnoiter still further north.
The flyers were given a great send-off by the soldiers at headquarters.
"Just like a balloon ascension at a county fair," observed Billy, as he took his place as pilot in front of Roque.
"Something new here, I see," Henri calling the attention of his aviation companion Schneider, to the fact that Stanislaws had provided telephone helmets for each of the crews, whereby pilot and observer could communicate with one another without yelling their heads off, receivers over the ears and a transmitter close to the mouth.
"This will save my voice for singing," jollied Henri.
Schneider, remembering the vocal effort in the cellar, came back with the expression of hope that the telephone invention would not serve to that extent.
"Oh, but you are a jealous cuss," declared the boy, as he guided the machine upward, in compliance with the signal given to all by Roque.
"We have all the advantage this time,"'phoned Billy to Roque, when the flight was well under way;"if the outfit below is too heavy for us we can stay out of reach; if we feel that we can lick them, a dive will settle the question—our choice both ways."
For the first few miles all the creeping figures below were of the friendly forces, but with the onrush of the aëroplanes all traces of the camp were obliterated and only a trackless waste presented itself to the view of the lofty travelers.
Directly, Schneider reported to his pilot that the farm enclosure was just ahead, with its yellow ribbon border, which the river wound around it.
The observers on the four biplanes gave the premises a thorough looking over with their glasses, but had no announcement to make of any human movement below.
Separating the machines, each distant from the other several hundred yards, the pilots guided northward, at reduced speed, and within a few hundred feet from the ground.
Some twenty miles forward, the little fleet encountered a snowstorm, and the earth was already covered with a dazzling white carpet.
A range of hills forced a higher flying altitude, and in an atmosphere growing decidedly chilly. The aviators were quickly compelled to close their coats at the throat, and to huddle down in the protecting folds of their service blankets.
On a high level, Roque instructed Billy to make a stop, so that the long sitting airmen might workthe cramp out of their joints by a brisk runabout. The snow had little depth on the wind-swept plateau, and landing could be made with smooth certainty.
A spot of blackened surface showed bare through the powdery snow covering, indicating a recent campfire there.
"Trot out the coffee pot," Henri called to Schneider, "here are the makings of a blaze."
The recent heavy rains had filled with water the rocky basins near at hand, and the thin skim of ice now forming thereover was easily broken.
The Austrians elected tea as their special inspiration on the occasion, and the rival fumes soon ascended from the spouts of coffee and teapots.
As the sky above was now clearing, from the elevation the aviators could see the brown and white summits of other hills, divided by valley cuttings, as far as the eye could reach.
Schneider was just about to light his beloved briar pipe, when all of a sudden he dropped the ember he was lifting to the bowl, and pointed toward the high ground edging the opposite side of an intervening gulch to the right of their bivouac.
A solitary horseman had ridden into view, and both rider and steed posed, statue-like, on the verge of the steeply descending slope.
Roque like a flash covered the smouldering fire with a blanket, checking tell-tale spirals of smoke.
Fixing a glass on the equestrian, Stanislaws uttered the one word—"Cossack."
"He's our meat," snapped Schneider.
"It's your first go this time," reluctantly conceded Stanislaws, who was himself aching to draw first blood.
Schneider, taking general consent for granted, gave Henri a nod sidewise, and both moved as quickly as they could on all fours to their biplane. While the boy was getting the motors in play, the fighting observer shifted his carbine from shoulder to knee.
The buzzing of the aëroplane had evidently caught the ear of the wild cavalryman across the gulch, for the horse was rearing, lifted by an unexpected wrench of the bit.
Nothing, however, on four legs or two, would have a ghost of a chance to outdistance a racing aëroplane.
Spur as he would, the horseman was overhauled in the space of three minutes.
The aëroplane, skimming the earth, mixed its scattering of snow particles with those raised by the pounding hoofs of the wildly galloping horse.
So close together were pursuer and pursued, that the Cossack's first lance thrust came within a hairline of reaching the ribs of Schneider, leaning forward in preparation to make a flying leap from the aircraft when it should lessen speed sufficiently toenable him to keep his feet when alighting on the stony soil.
Why the observer did not immediately use carbine or revolver in return for the lance attack, queerly impressed the young pilot ahead, who, naturally, would expect such action on the part of his armed companion, gravely menaced by a wicked weapon too lengthy to be successfully resisted by counter strokes of a saber.
Henri's second thought was that Schneider had been touched in a vital spot by the steel point, and that he, too, would next get into the deal of death. To send the machine aloft was a third thought, following in a flash, but the execution of this purpose was as quickly delayed by a motion indicating a lift of weight behind. Schneider had jumped from the biplane, now wheeling the ground, and within two lengths of a precipice, hitherto unobserved.
The Cossack, on the very brink of this dizzy declivity, had jerked his horse to its haunches, at the same moment when Henri checked further movement of the biplane by a skillful side turn.
"It's you and me for it now," roared Schneider, "and the devil take the quitter!"
Turning in his saddle, the Cossack, desperately at bay, accepted the challenge with ferocious alacrity, backing the fiery animal he bestrode and taking to foot with drawn sword.
Henri saw that it was the same man who in theguise of a peasant had played them such a scurvy trick—the same, but yet seeming hardly possible, viewing this upstanding, powerful specimen of a hardy, unconquerable race.
Schneider, never forgetting a face, had known the impersonator at the first glance, which added to the incentive of wiping out the score created by the Cossack company at the farmhouse down on the plain.
Noting that his adversary was armed only with sword and dagger, having blunted his lance against the armored side of the biplane, the aviation firebrand discarded his carbine and pistol, tossing them one by one onto the snow carpet. He had the notion of settling this affair in a manner that would completely retrieve certain prestige of which he conceived himself to be the loser.
In the meantime, the balance of the aviation party swooped down upon this level, and leaving their biplanes, advanced to the scene of the impending duel.
"Keep back, all of you," shouted Schneider, the bloodlust gleaming from his eyes; "it is one to one here, and though he put twenty to one against me, I will give him his chance, and take mine."
"Better humor him," suggested Stanislaws in an aside to Roque, "he will never rest easy if he does not get rid of the black mark he has rubbed on his own nose."
"He may get a red mark or two in this combat," grimly observed Roque, "but let them fight it out. Schneider ought to be able to take care of himself."
Billy and Henri followed with fascinated gaze the movements of their champion, who, though he sized up almost half a head shorter than his extremely tall antagonist, was all wire and a swordsman without equal in the estimation of the Heidelberg student body.
The duelists indulged in no time-saving tactics. Schneider rushed his man from the outset, but every rapid lunge of his heavy saber found clashing counter from the curved and guardless steel in the practiced hand of the wily Cossack.
Forward and back, ever fiercely fencing, the sworn foes panted defiance at one another, and each with blasting words renewed efforts to strike a death blow.
"Oh!" Billy had seen blood dripping from Schneider's left sleeve, and leaving a tiny trail of carmine splotches in the trampled snow. In agony of apprehension, the boy again fairly shouted: "Don't let him down you, Schneider; look out for the next!"
Roque gave the excited lad a muttered order to hold his tongue.
"Ha!" This from Stanislaws. A scarlet seam crossed the forehead of the Cossack, and he wavered for a second, as if partially blinded. Only fora second, though, did his sword arm hesitate. Schneider received another wound, this time close to the throat.
"He's done for," tremulously whispered Henri, wondering why the soldier onlookers did not interfere, and eager to make a saving move himself.
Then, as though a whole row of wine glasses had been riven by a knife stroke, the Cossack's blade, cleft near the haft by a biting downward cut of the saber, fell tinkling at his feet.
This was the last flare of Schneider's waning strength, of which, however, the Cossack was apparently unaware. He did not wait to meet an expected heart thrust from the victor.
With a piercing yell, he turned, waved the sword stump about his head, and leaped far out into the void before him.
Schneider, on hand and knee, game, but all in, as the saying is, mournfully shook his head, and faintly murmured: "He would have had another chance to finish."
Stanislaws, something of a surgeon, stanched the blood welling from the wounds of his comrade, applied bandages, and soon had the fallen fighter on his feet.
The Cossack's mount had disappeared, a fact first noticed by the acute Roque. "Mark you," he predicted, "that riderless horse will be sure to stir up a wasps' nest, and somebody here will get stungif we attempt to hold this position. Schneider's punctures are enough for one day."
Roque's prediction was a sure shot, for he had hardly ceased speaking when a score or more of horsemen charged from the cover of a rocky defile and bore down in force upon the aviation party.
"To your places!" thundered Roque.
The pilots of the several aëroplanes were already making ready for hurried flight, and Henri, in addition, had assisted the wounded and weakened Schneider to his seat in their machine.
Breckens, Bishoff and Mendell emptied their carbines and revolvers in the direction of the oncoming lancers, clearing a saddle or two, and swung into the rigging of the waiting biplanes just in time to permit a clean getaway.
Right over the brink of the precipice the start was made—it had to be the quickest way—and a thousand feet of ascent gained without an upturn.
Circling about on high the soldier-observers scattered the horsemen on the plateau with a shower of bombs.
Schneider had had his innings, and returned in full measure all that was owing.
"Well, Mr. Roque, if you did not get Filimonoff this trip, you struck mighty close to him, for I'll warrant the man whom Schneider vanquished was a leader in the Cossack horde."
"And something of a fighter, you might add, Stanislaws," rejoined the secret agent. "But there's another day, and the kingpin and I may yet lock horns."
The aviation party was again at Galician headquarters, and the interesting invalid, Schneider, was already declaring that he was as good as ever.
Roque had a grouch, chafing because of the delay of the Austrian forces in getting through to the relief of Przemysl.
"Just think what might be done if we had enough flying machines, Zeppelins and aëroplanes, to bring over an army corps every week or so." This idea expressed by the ever-enthusiastic Stanislaws.
"You are not talking airship now, Stanny; it's an air castle you have in mind."
This pleasantry on the part of Billy turned the laugh on the Austrian aviator, in which he joined himself.
"There's one thing sure," finally declared Roque, "I know of at least two airships that are soon to sail over the heads of the Russians who are now blocking the way to the fortress."
"I just knew he would be pushing something across before long," said Henri to his chum.
"From the way he looked at us when he spoke, it's safe to believe that we will be somewhere behind the push."
Billy had a hunch that his job was secure whenever Roque had work above ground.
Schneider had heard enough to set him at the task of cleaning and polishing his personal stock of firearms.
The four biplanes returned that very night to the besieged fortress, from which two of the machines were destined to leave in short order on a most important and perilous journey.
Our boys had instructions to give the aircraft a thorough going over, fill the petrol tanks to utmost capacity, and carry all the condensed foodstuff possible.
"Maybe he is figuring on a chance of a lay-up in the mountains," suggested Stanislaws, detailed to assist the younger aviators in the work of preparation.
"'Maybe' is a good word to use in connection with the moves of the chief, for you can't prove anything by us."
The present was all that counted with the busy lads, hustling to complete their immediate assignment.
"Ready and waiting," they soon announced to the chief, who simply nodded approval, and went on with the work in which he was engaged—studying and making field maps.
Henri put in the spare time afforded with continuous instruction of his chum in the German language, Billy having already acquired, by hard knocks, talking knowledge of French. They were thus occupied one morning, when Schneider appeared, in war-like array, with brief order.
"Buckle up."
Roque found everything in shipshape for the getaway, and smiled at the impatience of Schneider, who had been stamping around the hangars since the first glimpse of daylight.
While the young pilots were drawing to the elbows their fleece-lined gauntlets, the secret agent was earnestly assuring the commander of the garrison of his belief that the way would very soon open for the long-expected relieving force.
"I think I can advise them to good effect if we get through in safety," he said, mounting his perch in the biplane, and giving Billy the word to go.
As the biplanes shot through space, only Roque, the directing power, had knowledge of their destination,though Schneider inferred that the finish would be somewhere in the thick of battle.
This inference was not far amiss, for when the aircraft finally slackened speed, and stood still against the blue vault of heaven, still as the condor floating above his native mountains, the aviators looked down upon a thick forest of bayonets, shown on all sides by the square formation of the Austrian forces, then endeavoring to pierce the Russian front near Lupkow and thus relieve Przemysl.
"We are in the Carpathians," Schneider advised his flying mate.
The fighting in these mountains had then been continuous and intense for weeks, the two armies contending desperately for the ridges, the possession of which would give advantage to the holders. Every concession of a few yards of the rocky slopes had exacted heavy toll of lives.
Behind the Austrian lines at Lupkow the aviators made landing, descending through a sea of smoke, and amid deafening roar of furious conflict.
Roque had hasty conference with the commanding officers, and outlined conditions at the great underground fortress, to save which this day's engagement had been planned.
Schneider and the boys had received orders from their chief to stand by the aëroplanes, and on no account to leave their posts.
"He evidently does not believe there is much ofa show of smashing the Russian barrier to-day," observed the firebrand, who little relished the infliction of standing still in the rear while so much powder was being burned in front.
It was soon apparent, the way the tide of battle was turning, that the rear of the Austrian position would not be such a lonesome place after all. Retreat had begun, and immediately Roque emerged from the ruck.
"This isn't our day," was the news he brought; "get under way or you will get under foot."
It was a stirring scene that spread under the rising biplanes, the massed formation attacks of the Austrians hurled back again and again by the sheer weight of the Russians, pouring men forward in seemingly unending numbers.
"They're thicker than flies in Egypt," growled Schneider, when his soldierly eye perceived that the Austrians could no longer stand the pressure of the numbers arrayed against them, and that the day was lost.
The aviators decided to adopt the manner of the eagle and nest high that night. They found a level on a mountain peak not very far removed from the clouds.
"You could cut the stillness up here with a knife," asserted Billy, and his companions agreed that there was a decided difference between theshell-rent territory from which they had just flown and the awesome silence of this sublime height.
"It might also be mentioned that the cold on this top could be sawed into chunks," put in Henri, taking the precaution of covering the motor tanks with blankets.
Schneider volunteered to skirmish for some material with which to establish a campfire, while the boys busied themselves in opening some of the tins enclosing the food supply.
Roque found consolation in keeping alight a long black cigar.
Presently he concluded to follow in the footsteps of the wood hunter, and hasten the prospect of a cheery blaze by the time night should fall.
With the passing of an hour or more, and no sign of the fuel seekers, Billy and Henri developed an uneasy streak, rendered more acute by the drear surroundings and the oppressive lack of all sound.
"We had better do some scouting; I'll go daffy with this waiting business."
"I'm with you, Billy," joined in Henri, "anything but sitting 'round here doing nothing."
The boys lost no time in picking their way through the rocks in the direction taken by their absent companions.
"Let's give them a shout," suggested Billy, himself acting first on the suggestion.
No answer to the shouters, when they paused at intervals, hoping for the welcome response.
Stumbling along, careless now of bumps and bruises, the lads so often raised their voices to high pitch that they were hoarse from the effort.
Rounding a huge boulder that blocked their path, Billy, who was in the lead, suddenly started back with a cry of alarm, and Henri instinctively threw his arms about the waist of his chum.
Lucky move, this, for the Bangor boy was in the closest kind of way connected with a mass of crumbling earth that swept with a slight rumble into the darksome depths of Uzsok pass.
Henri's strong pull landed both boys on their backs—but on the safe side of the boulder.
"Narrow shave that, old boy," murmured Billy, raising himself on his elbow, and reaching for the hand of his chum, "and it's to you that I owe——"
"No more of that," interrupted Henri, "it's only a rare occasion when you were not doing something for me. I think we can account now for the disappearance of Roque and Schneider. It completely unnerves me, though, to believe that our companions are lost in this abyss."
Billy was on his feet in an instant, alert and resourceful.
"There's a way of finding out whether or not they are down there, and we will never quit searching as long as there's a speck of hope."
Gingerly skirting the boulder, he found solid ground on the higher side, to the right of the treacherous spot on which he had so narrowly escaped a long fall.
Stretched out full length at the verge of the steep descent, Billy peered into the depths, giving vent to several ear-splitting whoops in rapid succession.
A faint halloo finally came back from the dim recesses of the pass.
"Glory be!" cried the strenuous hailer, "there is somebody below—and that somebody is alive!" Through the hollow of his hands Billy shouted words of encouragement to the unseen owner of the voice answering from the bush-grown wall of the chasm.
"It's a clear drop of twenty feet, and smooth as a billiard ball before the growth begins and the rocks shelve out," Billy advised his chum, the latter to the rear and maintaining a firm grip on the ankles of the venturesome prober of the pass mystery.
"Oh, for an hour more of daylight," lamented Billy, as dusk began to envelop the lonely mountain. "Gee! Why didn't I think of it before?" Imbued with his new idea, he quickly swung around, bounced to his feet, hauled Henri up by the wrists, and triumphantly demanded:
"What's the matter with flying around there in the machine?"
"But it's getting too dark now to see anything in that hole," objected Henri.
"Where's your wits, Buddy? What do we carry searchlights for?"
"I sure am a woodenpate," admitted Henri, using a fist to tap his forehead; "let's go to the biplane as fast as our legs will carry us."
The boys raced like mad for camp.
With every light available from both machines set in one of the biplanes, fore and aft, the young aviators sailed through the shadows, got their bearings from the big rock and fearlessly swooped into the lower strata.
The glittering gondola of the air trailed a line of illumination along the rugged face of the chasm wall, but in the first passing, Henri, as observed, gave no signal of discovery.
The insistent hum of the motors prevented the hearing of any hail that might be given from without, and as effectually drowned any call from within the machine.
"Another round, Billy boy," shouted Henri, "a little lower down."
The next circle and come-back brought results, attested by a gleeful hurrah from the observer.
"There's a man on the ledge over there—there's two, by jingo! Round again, pard. Steady now!"
The aëroplane was dangerously near the ledge, a little above it. Henri was standing, one handgripping a stay for balance, and in the other grasping a ball of whipcord. With a sharp turn the pilot nosed away, the tail lights of the machine gleamed full for an instant upon the dark figures silhouetted on the rock face, and in that precious, fleeting instant, with a round arm swing, Henri sent the cord ball, unwinding as it dropped, straight down upon the ledge.
"Up!" sang out the maker of the successful throw, and as the biplane made almost perpendicular ascent, it tugged, kite like, at a long line of cord, paid out by one of the men left behind on the rocky shelf.
Once out of the canyon, the pilot checked his flight at the first level, and both boys, under the glare of the searchlight, speedily spliced and knotted two coils of fine-fibered rope, part of the flying equipment.
Henri, leaning over the edge, drew the cord connection taut, indicating to the holders below that all was ready at the top. The boy felt sure that Roque would understand—for it was Roque he had seen in the circle of light when the ball was thrown.
Sure enough, the cord was drawn downward, and the rope followed the cord, with, happily, plenty to spare for the making of a safe and secure anchorage.
"Roque is something of a sailor, as we know, and he'll come up all right, with a good purchase for hisfeet against the wall. As for Schneider, the three of us can hoist him, if necessary."
Billy's advance arrangement went somewhat awry, for it was Schneider's red top showing first in the light over the brink, and Roque was the one hauled, almost a dead weight, to solid ground and safety at the end of the swaying rope, looped under his armpits.
The secret agent's right hand rested in an improvised handkerchief sling, and his face was set in the pallor of pain.
But how strangely gentle had grown the piercing fixity of those hard-speaking eyes when turned upon the rescuers who had dared so much in a feat wonderful to record in aviation annals.
"You might have waited until daylight," he chided, his voice freighted with emotion, "and with less risk to yourselves."
"And the morning found a couple of maniacs cavorting around this wilderness. No, sir, the rest cure wouldn't have been the right prescription for us. Eh, Henri?"
"He's as right as a trivet, Mr. Roque; we took the proper tonic," assured Henri.
"A man's size swallow for all that," was Schneider's amen.