CHAPTER XVII.
A MIGHTY STONE ROLLER.
CAREFUL examination revealed that Roque's injury was not of brokenbones, but a severe sprain, due to the twisting suspension from thebush which had checked his fall. Schneider had gone down feet foremost,breaking through the growth until he struck the ledge.
"I didn't expect Mr. Roque so soon," he said, with a face-wide grin,"but I knew him by his legs, and gave him an open-arm reception."
"Until Schneider reached for me," related the secret agent, "I thoughtthere was nothing underneath but the bottom of nowhere. It wascertainly a curious accident, all in all, the two of us tumbling as wedid, stopping in the very same place, and both of us alive to tell it."
"There was mighty near a good third on your peculiar track," interposedHenri, "for Billy had set his heels for that very slide which you twotook."
"If it had not been for Henri," asserted Billy, "there is no tellinghow deep I would have gone."
"And if it had not been for both of you, there was hardly more to lookfor than a miserable end for Schneider and me. We could have proceededneither up nor down, for there was nothing to put hand or toe into formany rods either way."
Roque did not propose that the boys should lose any of their dues forgallant achievement by other belief than that two lives had actuallydepended upon their prowess.
When Schneider intimated that he thought it was time for anotherattempt to find material for a fire, there were two young rebelsemphatically against the proposition.
"We'll move where there is wood in sight," was the joint declaration.
Roque agreed that a change of base was desirable, and a flight from themountain top was in immediate order.
As the machines descended and followed a lower course, ghastlyreminders of the struggle that had recently taken place in andalong the pass were easily discernible from the lookout seat of thebiplanes--the melting snow on the slopes revealing many bodies ofAustrians and Russians.
In a clearing at the edge of a considerable forest the aeroplanes againsettled, the observers being first convinced that there was no militaryoccupation, especially hostile, of the wooded tract.
"This beats the mountain roost a mile and a half," declared Billy, theleader in hopping out of the aircraft.
In a big hole in the ground, dug by the impact of a cannon ball,Schneider started a brush fire, and in a few minutes was passing hotcoffee around.
"I must say," observed Roque, between bites at a sandwich of cornedbeef and hardtack, "that I don't seem to be getting anywhere on thistrip except into pitfalls. All this is sheer waste of time. I had hopedto see a relief march to Przemysl begun within a day, but here we aretied in a knot, and not a step forward."
"Well," consoled Schneider, "you gave them the route that could be wonwith the least difficulty."
"But what's the good of that when the opening wedge couldn't bedriven?" impatiently queried Roque.
Schneider scratched his head. He had no answer.
"There is one thing sure," exclaimed the secret agent, "and that is, Imust be on the move, for this isn't the only fish scorching in the pan."
Billy just then edged into the conversation. He had made an alarmingdiscovery. The petrol supply in the biplane tanks was at low mark. Theaviators had expected to replenish long before this, and the disasterat Lupkow had spoiled their last chance.
"Oil nearly out, sir," were the words that brought Roque to his feetlike a jumping-jack.
"The devil you say!"
Here was a quandary that completely upset the chief.
"We ought to have filled day before yesterday," explained Billy, "butyou know why we didn't."
"The only thing to do that I see," advanced Henri, "is to add thesupply of one machine to that of the other, and two of us hunt for thenew camp of the Austrians."
"They could fix us all right," assured Schneider, "for there is quite anumber of aeroplanes with the force which was driven back."
"It was my intent to get in touch once more with this corps, but it wasnot my intent to divide this party in the going. It cannot be helped,though, and it may take but a few hours at most. You are sure" (turningto Billy) "that you cannot raise enough power for both motors to go thedistance?"
"I fear, sir, that both machines would be stranded in less than anhour; and, with all this uncertainty as to how far we would haveto go, there is no telling into what kind of place and under whatcircumstances we would be compelled to drop. There would be much lessodds against the one-machine plan."
"It's up to you to prove it," challenged Roque, "for you and I aregoing to make the trial."
The transfer of the petrol accomplished, Schneider and Henri were leftin sole possession of the camp in the woods, after a last strainedlook at the departing biplane, a little blot on the sky, finallydissolving in the mist of the mountain top.
"Let's knock about a bit," said Schneider, suiting action to the wordsby starting up the nearest slope, where the gloomy pines were fartherapart than in the dense growth below.
"Ah! Here's where the Russians must have gotten a severe jolt. Seehere, my young friend"--Schneider pointing at a scattered ground arrayof discarded rifles, knapsacks, sheepskin coats, and many caissonshells in baskets. "Not so very long ago, either, for you will noticethat all this is on the top of the snow and not under it. You cansafely wager that here, and at this season, it is not very long betweensnows."
Here and there were other objects, stiff and stark, that sent a shudderup Henri's spine.
Picking their way still higher to the apex of the ridge, the man andboy had view of a land depression, bowl shaped, almost cleared of snowby exposure to the sun, being free of shade or shadow.
Something on the far side of the bowl, catching a golden ray fromabove, glittered like a big diamond. Henri called Schneider's attentionto the flashing point.
"Worth a walk across," conceded the soldier-aviator, moving that way.Henri, interest aroused, made it a point to outpace his companion.
Drawing nearer, the investigators saw, in half-sitting posture, backagainst a blanket roll, a soldier--in dark-blue uniform, Austrianinfantry--marked by emblems of rank, including a sparkling decorationon the breast.
A silver flask lay close by, alongside of sword and belt.
Schneider dropped to his knees, seized one of the nerveless handsof the officer, and fingered the pulse of the lifted wrist. The oldcampaigner had noted that the blood curdle in a tunic fold was yetunfrozen.
"Hand me that flask."
Henri quickly complied with his comrade's request, first unscrewing themetal top. Schneider tenderly moved the head of the officer to his ownshoulder and poured the contents of the flask through the livid lips.
"He lives!" cried Schneider.
The evidence was a faint flutter of the eyelids, a twitching of fingersand labored breathing.
Henri unrolled the blanket that served as a backrest, made a pillow ofthe wounded soldier's knapsack, and Schneider shifted his burden tothis new resting place.
It was not long until the vigorous first aid rendered by the aviatorsfound a more marked response--the heretofore unconscious officer lookedup at the anxious faces of the workers, and perceptibly smiled throughthe beard that concealed his mouth.
He had comprehended that he did not owe a Russian for the help that hadcome to him in this extremity.
Schneider addressed him in the familiar tongue of the Fatherland, andHenri also added a word of sympathy and encouragement in the sametongue, at the time bending his head in the hope of a word in reply.
That word was spoken, and others in faltering train.
"He says his name is Schwimmer, Johann Schwimmer--captain."
"A captain without a regiment," was Schneider's sad comment, his eyesbending further afield, where corpses in blue, in heaps and singly,marked the path of deadly artillery practice.
"It does look as if we are caring for the only survivor," said Henri,realizing that Schneider's mournful observation was fou
nded upon fact.
That Captain Schwimmer understood what was passing between his rescuerswas manifest, for stoic though he was, he covered his eyes with atrembling hand and his breast heaved convulsively.
At the moment there was a startling diversion--the whip-like crack ofrifles from the opposite edge of the bowl, at the very point where theaviators had stood when first attracted by the shining point on thecaptain's tunic.
Spat, spat--bullets boring the earth close to the right, left, and atthe very feet of the trio on the ridge.
Schneider, again a firebrand without sentiment, coolly unslung thecarbine from his shoulder, and put a shot across that evidentlycounted, for it raised a death-yell.
Without further ado, the soldier-airman plumped down on the ground,with his back to the sufferer on the blanket, and hoisted upon hisbroad shoulders the sorely wounded soldier, who faintly protested, andurged Schneider not to so hamper himself.
But you might as well argue with the wind; the sorrel-top warrior wasup and away, making little of his load, Henri sprinting at his heels.
The firing company of Russians, either stragglers from the rear ofa corps or scouts in advance of one, had evidently no intention ofpermitting the escape of several prospective prisoners, and they tookup the chase as eagerly as the sporting pursuers of a deer, whoopingand shooting as they bounded in a body across the separating hollow.
But for the good start made, Schneider could not have possibly,extra-weighted as he was, maintained speed enough to have gained eventhe base of the mountain for which he was heading. As it resulted, thecarrier and the carried had hardly reached the first level, some fiftyfeet up, when the Muscovite marksmen were in close target range, anda leaden pellet among the many flattening against the rocks clippedthe visor of Henri's cap as he cast a last look at the oncoming crowdbefore climbing like a squirrel into the rocky shelter above.
Schneider had placed Captain Schwimmer out of any possible line of firefrom below, and was doing some return shooting on his own account.Unluckily for this style of defense, all of the surplus ammunition wasin the locker of the biplane back in the woods, and the few rounds inthe aviator's pockets were soon exhausted.
Henri knew that such was the situation by the fervid remarks of hiscompanion.
But such was the angle of the aviators' perch that there could be noattack except from the front, and even that was a climbing approach.
It occurred to Henri, considering the lay of the land, that lead wasnot the only effective substance with which to repel boarders.
The ground was loaded with natural ammunition--loose rocks and rocks,thousands of them, from fist size up to a ton.
"Hey, old scout," hailed the boy, "give them a dose of dornicks."
Schneider took the hint with a burst of approbation.
"Two heads are better than one," he facetiously declared, hauling offhis greatcoat for greater freedom as a heaver.
A dozen or more of the pursuing party were working up the acuteelevation when the first huge stone thundered down the incline. Theboulder made as clean a sweep as a well-placed ball in a bunch ofninepins.
"A ten-strike!" whooped Schneider. "Set 'em up again in the otheralley!"
The Russians back-tracked for a time, finding a better range to fireat the defenders on the mountainside, and such was the fusillade thatSchneider and Henri were compelled to stay in cover to save their skins.
"They can't work that game, though, to support a scaling force," saidSchneider, "for the same fire would catch the scalers. If they come anynearer we can fix them, all right. But what a mercy it is that theyhaven't a field gun with them."
"As it is, we can't stave them off very long," added Henri. "When itgets dark the stone-rolling game won't work."
"Let me tell you, young man, when that hour comes, all they'll findhere will be an empty nest."
The veteran had a moving plan up his sleeve, and the chief reason hehad for making this stand was to give the injured captain a little moretime to mend.
A scalp wound was what had laid the officer low, and since recoveringconsciousness he had rallied remarkably. In the soldier's knapsack,which Henri had thoughtfully carried, notwithstanding the hastyleave-taking, was three days' rations, and the invalid had also beenstrengthened by the food his new friends prevailed upon him to swallow.
During the day Schneider several times checked an effort of their foesto reach the height by starting a little avalanche of rocks at thecritical moment.
In the periods of enforced peace, he cast an eye about for a likely wayfor quick retreat.
The way presented itself in the shape of a fallen pine that bridgeda narrow pass, deeply dividing this isolated level from the mountainchain that widely extended back of the occupied position, and rose inserried crags to the very skyline.
It was a nerve-testing prospect, alluring alone to a professional ropewalker.
"We'll tackle it in short order," resolutely declared Schneider, afterfinal survey.