THE WINGED MESSENGER
"What do you call this, Tom? A queer sort of crow, I'd say. Looks more
to me like the blue-rock pigeons Sam Becker used to raise at home," and
so saying Jack held up the still quivering bunch of feathers.
Tom took one quick look, and then a startled expression flitted across
his face.
"Just what it is, Jack!" he hastened to say. "A homing pigeon in the
bargain! You can tell that from the bill and the ring around the eyes."
Jack in turn became aroused.
"A homing pigeon, is it?" he ejaculated. "Why, birds like that are used
for carrying messages across the lines! Some of our airplane pilots have
told me that sometimes they take a French spy far back of the German
front. When he had made an important discovery he would write a message
in cipher, enclose it in a tiny waterproof capsule attached to a ring
about the pigeon's leg, and set the bird free. Inside of half an hour it
would be safe back in its loft, and the message on the way to French
headquarters."
He lifted one limp leg, and then the other.
"Look here, it's got a message, as sure as anything!" Jack exclaimed.
Tom leaned forward and took the bird in his hand, dropping the gun
meanwhile. He carefully took off the gelatine capsule, and from it
extracted a delicate piece of tough paper, which he spread open. There
were a series of strange marks on the paper, of which neither of the air
service boys could make anything.
"Looks like hieroglyphics, such as you'd expect to find on an Egyptian
tomb or in the burial places under the pyramids," complained Jack, after
he had stared at the lines in disgust for a brief period of time.
"It's a cipher of some kind," explained Tom, seriously. "With the key
all this would resolve itself into some sort of communication, I
suppose, connected with valuable information concerning the French
armies here at Verdun."
"Then it was made by a spy!"
"No question about that part of it," came the ready reply.
"This carrier pigeon with this message, was on its way across to some
point in the rear of the enemy line when you fired, and brought the poor
little thing down in a quivering heap, I'm sure that's it," continued
the other.
"Yes. And so after all it's turned out to be a lucky thing you chanced
to see the bird coming along, Jack, and begged me to knock it down so we
could show some sort of game when we got back to camp."
"What ought we do with this message?" asked Jack, accustomed to
depending on his more energetic chum in many cases; though when left to
his own resources he could think for himself, as had frequently been
proved.
"I shall see that it gets to French headquarters, with an account of the
singular way we ran across it," Tom told him.
"Do you think it would be possible for any one there to translate this
cipher of the German secret code?"
"Why not?" Tom demanded. "They are clever people, these wideawake
French, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if they turned this incident
to some good use."
"How?"
"Oh, it could be done in many ways. Suppose they found the key to the
code. Don't you see how a fictitious message could be sent on in some
way, if they could bag another pigeon from the same coop? They might
even coax the Germans to deliver a furious attack at a supposed weak
place in the line, which would of course be heavily guarded."
"That would be something worth while!" exclaimed the other with glowing
eyes. "Lead them into a trap, where they would be mowed down like ripe
grain, terrible as that sounds!"
"Yes, that's the idea I had in mind. But it would depend on several
things. First of all would come the successful solving of this cipher
code."
"Yes, and then the finding of another homing pigeon," added Jack. "I
wonder if the fellow who released that bird could have a lot more of the
same kind hidden away somewhere around back here."
"I was just going to suggest that we take a turn toward the south, and
look around a bit before going back to camp. Do you feel equal to it,
Jack?"
"What, me! Tom? Why, I'm as fresh as a daisy! This business has made me
forget there's such a thing as getting tired walking."
"Let's see, we stood here when I fired," continued Tom reflectively,
"and you walked straight to where the bird dropped. That would make the
direction due northwest by southeast. How about that, Jack?"
The other took a survey, and then pointed with his hand.
"When I saw the bird coming first of all, Tom," he finally remarked, "it
was just showing up over that clump of trees killed by gunfire. And it
was heading as straight as can be for us."
"Yes," Tom went on to say, "because a homing pigeon on being released
will rise to a certain height and take its bearings. Then it starts in a
bee-line for its loft, whether that is five miles away or hundreds of
miles. Some peculiar instinct tells it in which way home lies. It seldom
if ever goes astray. Sometimes birds have made a thousand miles, and
shown up at their home coop days after being set free."
"Well, then, the man who threw it into the air, after fastening this
cipher message to it, must be over to the southeast of us," affirmed
Jack.
"The bird was released within five minutes or so of the time I fired,"
Tom told his chum. "It's even possible the spy may have heard the report
of my gun."
"Tom, why not try to capture that spy?" asked Jack, eagerly, ready for
any sort of excitement.
The young aviators started off, walking briskly. They kept their eyes
alertly open as they proceeded. At the same time, on Tom's suggestion,
they continued to act as though still looking for game, even
investigating at a burrow that certainly was used by rabbits, as the
tracks plainly indicated.
Tom never deviated from a direct line due southeast. He knew that their
best chance of making a valuable discovery lay in finding the place
where the carrier pigeon had been released, to fly across the lines to
its home loft. This might be many miles to the rear of the fighting
front, even on Lorraine territory, in the neighborhood of the fortified
city of Metz itself.
The two passed over a mile without making any sort of discovery, Jack,
who did not possess quite as determined a nature as his comrade, was
already commencing to make certain sounds akin to complainings, as
though he felt keenly disgruntled because of their lack of success.
"Guess we'll have to give it up, Tom," he finally remarked.
"Wait," said Tom. "Before doing that let's investigate that old
shattered farmhouse over yonder."
"Hello!" exclaimed Jack, plucking up some fresh interest, "have you
located one of those remains of a building, then? I was coming to
believe there wasn't so much as a broken wall left standing for a space
of five square miles, so complete has been the destruction. But I see
what you mean, Tom."
They walked ahead again, and approached the ruined farmhouse. It had
been riddled through and through by shot and shell. Three-fourths of the
original building lay in piles, the stones heaped up as they had fallen.
"Queer, isn't it, that the kitchen part escaped the smashing fire, and
still stands," observed Jack. "I warrant you this is the only part of a
building left around here. Tom, would our spy be likely to take up his
headquarters in such a place as this, do you think?"
"I don't know," came the answer. "We can soon find out."
"He might feel desperate enough to open fire on us," suggested Jack,
though he did not shrink or hold back when Tom advanced; for Jack Parmly
did not have a drop of cowardly blood in his veins.
Tom turned and waved his hand as though beckoning to others who might be
coming after them. He even called out in his best French, as if there
were a dozen back of him, that there was a possibility of securing at
least a drink of cold water at the old-fashioned well with a sweep that
stood near the kitchen of the ruined farmhouse.
"Good idea, Tom!" commented the other, chuckling with amusement. "If he
gets the notion in his head that we are legion he won't be so apt to
blaze away at us, knowing it would mean a short shrift for him. He may
prefer to play the poor French peasant part, and try to pull the wool
over our eyes."
Presently they arrived at the door. It was hanging from one hinge, and
the entire place presented a vivid picture of the utter desolation cruel
war always brings in its train.
Tom's first act before entering was to look down at the ground just
before the door. Some intuition told him that if the place had been
recently occupied they would possibly find some evidences of the fact in
the earth.
"See there, Jack!" he suddenly exclaimed, as he pointed down close to
his feet. "Fresh tracks, and made by a man's shoes in the bargain!"
"Some one has been in here for a fact, Tom, and I wouldn't be afraid to
wager he saw us coming and cleared out in a hurry. He could have skirted
those bushes, and got clear easy enough. Do you think it could have been
the same chap who freed that pigeon?"
"No doubt about it," and Tom, stooping, picked up some small object.
"See, here's a feather that was sticking to that dead weed. It's from a
bird of the same color as the pigeon, perhaps from the very one I've got
in my pocket."
"That settles it," snapped the pleased Jack. "I must say you're a clever
hand at finding these things out. I'd have never dreamed of looking down
at my feet, but blundered right into the shack to see if----Oh! What do
you think of the luck we're in this day, Tom? See what stands there on
that poor old three-legged table!"
Jack's excitement was natural, as Tom readily understood when he looked;
for there was a small basket or cage made from oziers or willow wands;
and inside this they could see two blue gray homing pigeons, mates to
the one Tom had shot only a short time before!