CAPTURED BY COSSACKS.
"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, an aëroplane 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 steering lever. 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," called Billy, 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, it being 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 of ferocious 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.