DUEL TO THE DEATH.
SCHNEIDER was 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 work the 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 to enable 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 the guise 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
for a 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 stung if 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.