AGAIN ON THE WING.
Sergeant Strogoff's elation over the solution of the pursuit problem was
manifested by a sounding slap on his knee, forgetting that it was the
leg most bruised by his recent fall, and his beaming face was comically
twisted by a wince of pain.
"Have at them, chief!" he cried. "But we must appeal to the military
authorities for the airships, and the experts to guide them. With your
permission, sir, I will put the emergency to Colonel Malinkoff this very
hour."
The chief, undisturbed, checked this proposition of hasty action with a
gesture of dissent.
"Daylight will do for that, sergeant, and a few hours more or less will
not matter. With sixty or seventy miles an hour as our advantage, there
is no question as to the outcome of the chase."
The cold-gray eye of the chief, lighting upon the boys, standing with
Strogoff's comrades near the door, he imperiously demanded:
"Are these new recruits in your service, sergeant?"
"Bless me, sir," quickly responded the officer addressed; "let me tell
you that if it had not been for them I might have been filling an
uncovered grave to-night."
"Put it all in your report, sergeant. You had better be eating and
sleeping while I prepare a statement that will induce the military
branch to act and aid promptly."
The summons for the chief's secretary was sounding when the sergeant and
his young companions left the office.
"I think a half hour in the chop house around the corner will be good
medicine to start with," remarked the big officer, who was a famous
feeder, and who had missed several meals since his hold-up in the rear
of the silversmith's shop.
In the continuous run of excitement following their discovery of
Strogoff trussed up on the counting house floor in the old warehouse the
policeman had never made a single inquiry as to the boys' identity. If
he had noticed them on the day they were posing as would-be customers in
the shop of the silversmith, and when he served summons on Ricker to
appear as an expert witness, there had been no sign of the fact.
As Billy said, in an aside to his chum, "He thinks, maybe, that we
dropped out of the sky just to help him out of a scrape."
Strogoff, having gorged himself with a mammoth beefsteak flanked by
onions, and the boys fully satisfied with their own prowess at table,
the trio hied themselves back to police headquarters.
"Andreas," said the sergeant to the desk man, "we are going to take a
snooze in the rest room, and if the chief wants me never stop shaking
until you get my eyes open. And, what is more, do not come too soon if
you can help it, but by the powers do not come too late if you know it."
The desk man grinned and nodded understanding. Three hours later he fell
like a fire alarm on the snoring officer, and as the latter rubbed the
sleep out of his eyes, handed him an envelope, sealed with red wax. It
was addressed to Colonel Malinkoff.
It was in the gray dawn that the sergeant and the boys set out for army
headquarters.
Stopped by a sentry, Strogoff displayed his badge and also produced the
letter from the police chief.
They were passed without further question, and found the colonel, ever
an early riser, preparing for breakfast. Such was the bulk of the
policeman that the boys in line behind him were completely hidden from
view.
Opening the envelope, Colonel Malinkoff noted the contents, penciled a
few words on the margin, and instantly remarking:
"Request granted forthwith. Orderly," turning to a soldier in the room,
"go with this officer to aviation quarters."
As Strogoff stepped aside, that the aide might lead, the colonel saw the
boys.
"'Pon my word, young men, you are early visitors. What has gone wrong
with you?"
Much to the astonishment of the policeman, the colonel extended a
welcoming hand to each of the youngsters.
"You know them, colonel?"
"Rather well acquainted," laughed Malinkoff. "Hope you have not arrested
them, officer."
"Not me," stoutly declared the sergeant; "I owe them my life. But may I
tell about that later, colonel? Time presses."
Malinkoff waved consent, and a few minutes later Strogoff handed the
letter and order to the aviation chief, with the presentation, saying:
"If it pleases you, sir, we would ask the services of aviators who can
go the route with the greatest skill and speed."
"There is a pair of them behind you this minute," was the quick answer.
Strogoff simply stared at the youths, who now stepped forward to salute
their chief.
"What next?" The question was in his eyes.
The arrangement was that two biplanes were to go, it being deemed
essential that there be carried one observer vested with the authority
of the military branch.
Captain Walki was assigned to the duty, and to the biplane which Henri
was to pilot.
"I am the boy with the ballast," joked Billy, when he learned that
Strogoff was to ride behind him.
"Don't you think for a second that he is entirely new as an air
passenger," quietly advised the aviation chief, who had heard Billy's
facetious remark; "several times to my knowledge, and for hours at a
time, he has leaned over the side of a speeding aeroplane, watching city
roofs for contraband wireless apparatus."
Within twenty minutes after the order had been presented by Strogoff,
such is the efficiency and expedition of all proceedings with which
trained soldiers have to do, the aviation party were off in swift and
unerring pursuit of the transport, now many miles away churning against
the current of the river Vistula.
In the open country near Gombin, having encountered a fierce gale which
whirled them out of the line of the river course, the aviators decided
to alight, and wait for a lull in the storm.
Though chafing at the delay, Strogoff wholly agreed with Captain Walki
that possible overstraining of the rigging and mechanism of the aircraft
was something that must be avoided.
As it was, Billy and Henri had their hands full in repairing some damage
already done.
"You boys wear a couple of level heads," admiringly commented the big
policeman, when landing was made; "there is more ventilation aloft this
morning than I have ever experienced, but perhaps you are used to it--at
least it did not seem to bother you much."
"If it had, Mr. Strogoff," jollied Billy, "you might have been spread
all over the ground by this time."
Shortly after the noon hour the high wind shifted, and when flight was
resumed the gusty force was behind the biplanes, which served to
increase their speed to a tremendous degree.
Notwithstanding this, however, the long stop had served to vastly
increase the lead of the transport, which had never ceased to plow ahead
by the impulse of its powerful propellers.
The vessel was steaming into Vloclavek harbor when the onrushing
biplanes neared this port.
By the time the aviators could reach the ground, the ship was at anchor,
with many small boats plying about her.
Captain Walki immediately approached one of the ship's officers, who was
standing on the quay, and explained the situation.
"There was quite a number shoveling below as we came up," said the
official addressed, "and the only thing to do is to go on board and look
them over. There's a gig at your service."
Strogoff was the first in the proffered boat, and the rowers that manned
it did not pull any too fast to suit him.
With a file of soldiers the searching party went below, but among all
the smutty-faced, stripped-to-the-waist workers in the furnace room the
men wanted could not be found. No more successful was the further and
thorough search made in every conceivable hiding place on upper and
lower decks.
"Duped again," raged Strogoff. "What is your opinion, captain?" he
appealed to Walki.
Captain Walki, who had been fully advised of the clue which had caused
the pursuit of the transport, reflectively stroked his short beard and
laconically remarked:
"I think the sailor on the collier lied!"