Chapter XIII: 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.