Chapter X: The Carrier Pigeons

Billy and Henri, with much less weight to carry than their stalwart fellow fugitives, and much spryer as sprinters, easily led in the race to the flying machines.

Schneider stopped more than once in his tracks to fire from the hip at the pursuing cavalrymen, but he failed to score a hit until the leader of the troopers had almost ridden him down. One of the long-barreled revolvers emptied the saddle of the rearing charger. Schneider had thrown his rifle away at the last moment, finding his pistol more effective in close quarters.

By this time, the boys, assisted by Roque, who was doing some shooting himself, until all of the cartridges in the revolvers he carried were exploded, had pushed and dragged the biplanes into the road, and ready for the getaway.

Schneider, with a yell, hurled the empty revolvers in the direction of the next comer, then bounded across the first ditch in his way, jammed a shoulder against the now humming machine in which Henri was seated, to give it starting impetus, and at the same instant leaped within the machine.

Both machines were off in a jiffy, and when the cavalrymen in force galloped to the spot, their carbines fell short of range. That they had been chasing airmen was something of a surprise for if they had not been so sure of a capture, the troopers would probably have pumped lead much earlier in the chase.

"Guess he didn't get his man for keeps," remarked Billy to Roque, as a side turn of the aircraft enabled him to look down on the field, where a dismounted rider was getting a helping hand up from a comrade.

"Schneider gave him something to remember, anyhow," grimly replied Roque.

In the other machine the red-topped and red-tempered aviator in the observer's seat was deeply deploring, in no uncertain terms, the loss of a crack-a-jack rifle and two up-to-date revolvers, borrowed for the occasion.

"Hume may toss earth when I tell him his pet irons are gone, but it was a shindy for quick action, and no saving grace."

Schneider evidently intended to tell the aviation lieutenant about the fight before he mentioned the missing weapons.

The next flight planned by Roque was one of long distance--starting twenty-four hours later, and leaving France.

"Good-bye, my young friends, and good luck to you; if you ever see Colonel McCready again tell him 'here's looking at him.'"

These were the parting words of Colonel Muller, accompanied by a warm hand-grip.

When the flying party finally reached Strassburg, the big German city of the Alsace-Lorraine region, it was a glad day of halting.

They had floated in over a country literally shot to pieces by the concentrated fire of the French and German guns--that is, in French Lorraine--and in the distance viewed the great fortress of Metz. To the aviators it appeared as though the land hereabouts had been devastated by a gigantic earthquake, which had shaken down all the towns and villages into a mass of shapeless, smoke-blackened ruins.

The boys wondered that they did not see more soldiers in the open, and Henri expressed this wonder to his companion in the biplane.

"Oh, but the woods are full of them," assured Schneider, pointing to the small columns of smoke rising here and there from the snow-clad forests.

True it was that these same woods contained thousands and thousands of armed warriors, ever on the lookout, who were gazing across the frontier at the other woods, which concealed countless thousands of soldiers of the Kaiser.

In Strassburg, Roque was again in touch with the invisible strands of the far-spreading web he maintained. Among his first advices was the most disturbing one that Ardelle had returned and had been making some ten-strikes within the borders of the empire.

The boys shrewdly guessed that something of the sort had happened from the renewal of the German agent's habit of charging almost every sort of disaster to the secret work of his French rival.

Roque realized, as one of the profession, what an important factor is the under-cover man who works within the enemy's lines in the service of his country. And with a keen blade like Ardelle, big things were possible, as past performances indicated.

But even Henri, as a self-claimed prophet, had no idea that the man he knew as Anglin would bob up in Strassburg, though the city was as likely a point as any in the war zone for secret service activity.

When Billy jokingly asked his chum if he had any predictions to fit this occasion, Henri admitted that his second-sight "was off the job."

It soon developed that the secret service experts of both sides were matching wits in this quarter. Reported in Roque's calendar of the week was the giving away by one of his workers in hostile territory of a French attack on the Germans during a fog, with the result that the intended surprise resulted in a rout, and the assailing force mowed down almost to a man. The mute testimony was in a low-lying valley out in the Lorraine field--700 graves in a space 200 yards wide and about 50 broad.

Then a counter-move, wherein the French had advices from some source unknown of the coming flight of a Zeppelin out of the Black Forest, and three French aëroplanes were ready to charge at the big dirigible, which, after a continuous exchange of fire lasting forty minutes, made narrow escape to the north, just when the lighter craft had succeeded in getting above it for a finishing stroke.

As it came about, and in a queer way, too, the boys were the first to blunder upon a cunning ruse being resorted to by a smooth worker in getting away information under the very nose of the astute Roque.

Billy and Henri, indulging their liking for high places, and having a little leisure to look around, found a favorite perch in one of the famous towers of Strassburg. They were interested, as airmen, in watching the daily flying exhibit of the pigeons 'round about.

"Have you noticed, Henri, the streak of feathers every once in a while that don't stop to associate with this housekeeping bunch? I've seen two of these birds already this morning; they act just like an aëroplane, circle about, and then break away like a bullet. There's one now. Look!"

Henri followed the aim of Billy's finger, and, sure enough, a long-tailed flyer was cutting the air like greased lightning in a straight line west, without the slightest notice of the many of its kind pluming themselves on neighboring towers and housetops.

"They make long visits," commented Billy; "I've watched, but never see any of these air hustlers come back."

"That's funny," observed Henri, "let's borrow a glass this afternoon and find out, if we can, where they start from. Why, this is good sport; we'll be wearing badges next as pigeon detectives."

The boys had small notion then that they were butting into a real business proposition, but one that did not advertise!

They were just curious to find out from where came the busy birds that would not take time to visit with their brothers and sisters.

The most that the tower observers could discover, even with the field glasses, borrowed without leave from Roque's traveling outfit, was that the next bird comer took its bearings over a red-roofed building, rising out of a circle of tall trees, a full mile to the east.

Had it so happened that Roque was in a social mood, and the boys making him a confidant of their bird study diversion, there would, without doubt, have been no delay in striking at the heart of the problem--and everything else under that red roof.

Carrier pigeons were not beneath the notice of the big man with the delicate touch!

But Roque was not inclined at the time to indulge in fireside fancies. He was hooked up to a procession of events that needed constant attention, and as it was all ground work for the present, he had no use for aviators.

So he missed the first bang at the very musser-up of his plans whom he was, day and night, seeking to locate.

"We'll amble out that way to-morrow and learn how to break pigeons of the loafing habit."

Billy had once had a loft full of pouters in Bangor, that, he claimed, ate their breakfast in bed!

"We'll shake Schneider and start early."

Schneider had been detailed by Roque to keep an eye on the boys, but Henri felt sure that this firebrand would not be interested in pigeons, save in a potpie, so he suggested the "shaking" process.

Trained in the sense of location by their aviation experience, the boys proceeded without difficulty to the sparsely settled neighborhood of the red-roof, which they found to be in the center of a neglected garden, overgrown with weeds.

"Don't see any pigeon loft yet?"

Having been a fancier himself, Billy knew how the birds were housed.

"You might also say that you don't see any pigeons," added Henri. "We've surely run by the station."

"Not on a little excursion like this," maintained Billy. "This is no ghost story."

With the words he led the way up the long gravel walk extending from the rusty iron gate to the front of the house.

"What will we tell them?" he asked, reaching for the brass knocker on the dingy door of the dwelling.

"How will it do to say we are from the gas office?"

"A fool answer fits a fool's errand," agreed Billy as he gave the knocker a sounding rap.

The pounding awakened no sign of life.

"Come on, Billy," urged Henri, "let's go. It's all a crazy move, anyhow, and it was just because we were idle that we ever thought of it."

"I'm going to try the back door," insisted Billy, "and then we'll quit."

There they got a response, probably after an advance inspection. The door was partly opened by a bent, palsy-shaken old man, who in quavering, high-pitched voice inquired their business. The question was in French, and Henri responded:

"We just came out to look at your pigeons, and"--the age fell from the figure in the doorway in the twinkling of an eye, two long arms shot out, and in steely grip the astonished visitors were jerked inside, the door closing with a slam behind them.

"What's the matter with you?" gasped Billy, whose collar had been given a tight twist by quick-grasping, sinewy fingers.

Another violent wrench of the neck-joint was the rude form of answer. Billy's fighting blood took fire, and he launched a kick at his tormentor which sent the latter spinning, doubled-up, clear across the entrance hall.

The jarred one, recovering his breath, leaped like a panther at the Bangor boy, but Henri gave him the tripping foot, and he measured his length on the dusty floor.

The boys were making a break for the door, when a new figure blocked the way, suddenly emerging from a room nearby--a resolute fellow, with a cold, gray stare, backing up a steadily leveled revolver.

"Been stirring up the monkeys, have you, Fred?"

The fallen man raised himself on his elbow and made the air blue for a moment with his wrathful expressions.

"I'll fix you, you whelps," glaring at the sturdy youngsters who had bested him.

"Stow the threats, Fred," advised the cool-head, who had restored the pistol to his hip-pocket when he sized up the invaders as unarmed.

"What the devil brought you here?"

The newcomer put a snap in the question, but with no change of icy eye.

"What devil sent them here, you'd better ask?"

This suggestion from the battered Fred, who had again regained his feet.

"That will all come out under pressure," intimated the cool one. "As long as you chose to honor us with a visit," he added with quiet irony, "we must get properly acquainted. Show the young gentlemen into the parlor, Fred."

Billy would have started a debate there and then had he not been, as usual, stumped by the French language, which he only understood by fits and starts. He knew for sure, though, that he was in Queer Street, with this sudden shift from the regulation German talk he had been hearing since landing in the empire. It was up to Henri to set matters straight.

Henri, however, had come to the conclusion that the pigeon story was not popular here, considering its effect on the man who had first met them at the door. So he wore a thinking cap on the way to the "parlor."

This apartment was the only one that had a living look, all the others, noted in the passing, cheerless and empty. It was a "sky parlor," being reached by narrow stairway, only a garret between it and the roof.

An old table, rickety chairs, portable cots and a rusty oil stove were in evidence. There was a wide fireplace with no fire in it. It occurred to Henri that the present occupants of the house did not approve of smoking chimneys.

To get a line on what might be expected, he mildly inquired, with a pale smile:

"Now that we are here, for what are we here?"

He was certain that he himself could not win a prize with the correct answer.

The cold-eyed man could not restrain a short laugh in his throat.

"You are the fellow on the witness stand," he said, "but we must wait for the prosecuting attorney to help us along."

In the waiting time the boys could hear through an open trap-door above them the fluttering and cooing of a score or more slate-colored doves, and it had just dawned upon Billy that there was some particular use for the sheets of oiled tissue and skeins of pack-thread that littered the table.