CHAPTER II.
BETWEEN TWO FIRES.
The boys were aroused in the early morning by the shrill neighing ofhorses in the courtyard underneath the windows of their sleepingquarters, and other sounds indicating the incoming of a cavalry troop,created sufficient inducement, at least, for an after-waking peek at thenight-riders who had cut off a good hour of slumber.
Billy, the first at the window, drew back with a sharp note of alarm.
"The fancy Cossacks!" he exclaimed.
"Quit your jollying," cried Henri, unbelieving, bouncing out of his cotand barefooting it to the lookout point. "Jumping jimminy," he excitedlyadmitted, when he saw one of the red horsemen in the act of dismounting,"you are right, sure enough."
"But what are they doing here?" questioned Billy. "This is nostableyard."
"Looking for us," slyly insinuated Henri.
"Maybe there is more truth than poetry in that proposition."
The boy from Bangor was taking the matter seriously.
In the interval several Cossacks, trailing their lances, crossed thecourtyard to the main entrance of the building where the aviators werehoused, and vigorously thumped for admission. These knights of the plainevidently held themselves to be privileged characters.
Billy and Henri, getting into their clothes as quickly as possible,poked their heads over the stair railing, from which location they couldsee and hear all that was happening in the spacious hall below.
By what they heard, however, they were not enlightened, for it was inthe speech unknown to them, but enough and plenty in the sight of noother than the Cossack who had given them the evil eye in Petrograd.
The aviation chief seemed to be strenuously saying "no" to some questionput by the giant in scarlet, shaking his head and handsweeping over hisshoulder in directing manner.
The insistent intruder finally accepted the advices given, and with hiscompanions again took to saddle, spurring their horses into a clatteringgallop out of the paved enclosure.
Just as if they had not been watching and listening, the boys descendedthe stairs, giving their usual good morning salutations to their fellowaviators, who had all been attracted to the hall by the discussion justconcluded.
To give the lads an understanding with the rest as to what it had allbeen about, the chief mingled French and English in his explanation.
"That big fellow is Nikita, who has been attached to the imperialservice on account of his skill and daring as a scout. I heard a storyabout him only the other day. Along with ten comrades, he was capturedthrough falling into an ambuscade. Three days later he turned up at thecamp of his command with two bullets, one through his clothes, and onethrough his thigh. He was horseless, but carried his long lance. Withouthorse or weapons, he had crept during darkness from the tent in which heslept, got safely past the German sentries, and then reflected that itwas a shame for a Cossack to lose his horse and lance. So, as the storygoes, he crept back, recovered both horse and lance and galloped away.The horse was killed by a shot from an outpost, but I see that Nikitastill has his lance. I tell you that this is a breed that never letsgo."
This last comment had a jarring effect upon both Billy and Henri. Thelatter, however, did not restrain a desire for some direct information:
"That's a fine story, lieutenant, but it doesn't tell what thiswonderful warrior wanted here this morning."
"He demanded an interview with the dispatch bearers who aeroplaned intoPetrograd on a certain date--the same date, by the way, upon which youwere detailed as pilots for Marovitch and Salisky. I had difficulty inconvincing the Cossack that the men he was seeking were at presentscouting along the Vistula south of Warsaw."
"Where I wish we were this very minute."
Billy had edged close to Henri to say it.
The aviation chief further advised that the Cossacks had gone to thegeneral's quarters, and would probably remain in Warsaw until they hadcompleted a mission, of which he (the chief) knew nothing about, butwhich apparently had to do with some recent happening in Petrograd.
Right there the boys made up their minds that they had all the rest theyneeded, and Billy, as spokesman, so informed the lieutenant.
"If there are any air scouts going out to-day," said the boy, "we wantto be on the job."
"All right, my birds," agreed the lieutenant, "you will be marked firston the list."
When at last the aerial assignment of the boys for the day was made theywere greatly interested to learn that the flight was to be directlyacross the river, in which direction they had never traveled since theday they came into the city by the written directions of Roque.
The observers they were to pilot were immediately identified with thegeneral's staff, and the young aviators were duly advised of the rank oftheir passengers.
"They all look alike to me," remarked Henri, as he and his chum waitedat the hangars for the order to start--"all except Colonel Malinkoff,and he's my pick every time."
Nevertheless, the pilots showed proper deference when the officersboarded the aircraft, after briefly outlining the plan of journey. Theboys did not take the time nor assume the trouble of telling that theyneeded no guide notes for this particular voyage!
The same old entrenchments skirted the mud-colored river, but thinlypopulated now, for the main body of German soldiery there had joined inthe new move upon Warsaw from the northwest.
Billy and Henri had each an eye for their former earthy lodging, andmarked in memory the very spot in the battlefield where the French boyhad landed the firebrand Schneider for his desperate dash in rescue ofthe grounded colors.
Of the fate of the secret agent and his fighting attendant, however, notidings came up from the mottled plain.
Somebody might know in the clean, white lodge-keeper's kitchen, wherethe canary sang, but there was no available excuse to turn downward theswiftly sailing biplanes when they swept over the one bright spot in allthat forbidding surface.
"I can recommend your license as master pilots," jovially observed oneof the officers when the machines again rested in the aviation field,just at sunset.
The other observer nodded approval of the compliment to the youngsters,and both found it not beneath their dignity to give Billy and Henri ahearty handshake.
The young aviators had hardly completed the housing of the biplanes whenthey were accosted by a loutish lad attired in a smock-frock and leatherleggins.
With a pull at his forelock, the boy handed Billy a fold of notepaper,and then shuffled away.
"Some more shady business," muttered Billy, opening the message.
One line, that was all:
"To-morrow noon. Sign of thumb."
"Why can't that fellow let us alone?"
With the petulant words Billy tore the note to shreds and cast them tothe wind.
"Between the Cossack and this alleged silversmith," complained Henri,"we will have more than enough practice as artful dodgers."
"Got us both going and coming," gloomily added Billy, "and no show forargument."
"We don't have to respond to that message, anyhow."
"I don't know about that, Henri; we might be able to convince the crankat the shop that we haven't any hold on underground wires, and so getrid of him."
"And then prove an alibi when we meet that Cossack."
Henri wore a grin as he put this extra spoke in the wheel of hope thathis chum was turning.
Humor, however, was not catching to Billy this evening. The boys sat insilence at the mess table, and as silently stole away to bed.
The young aviators had no call for their services the next day, andBilly insisted that they play a quitting visit to the little shop in thesquare. Besides, he had urged, they were less likely to encounter theCossack out in the big city than if they idled about headquarters. Hismotion prevailed, and shortly before the tower clocks sounded the twelvestrokes, the chums were rounding the tall column and nearing the symbolof the silversmith
.
Ricker had an assistant on duty in front this day, a wild-eyedindividual literally overgrown with hair on head and face. When the boysentered the shop the queer-looking clerk spoke not a word, but simplypounded with his knuckles on the counter.
The proprietor of the place quickly appeared from a curtained recess atthe rear of the shop, and crooked a finger in beckoning invitation tothe visitors to come back and join him.
The hairy assistant went to the street door, and after peering up anddown the avenue, nodded clearance to his chief.
The boys perched themselves on a couple of high stools in the work room,while Ricker leaned against a low and broad shelf covered with equipmentof the clockmaker's trade.
Billy was determined to settle matters there and then and get clear ofan annoying and dangerous complication.
"This is the last time," he bluntly stated, "that we will stand for acall here. Just as I told you before, there was a limit to our knowledgeof Mr. Roque's affairs, and as he did not choose to take us all the way,we have no desire to be dragged along by any stranger. Runningaeroplanes is our business, and we are not seeking to acquire any otherprofession. So it's farewell on the spot."
Ricker showed a red flush of anger rising to his cheekbones, but hetempered his reply to the boy's declaration. "Stick to your flyingtrade, young man, as you will, but on your service the Cause has aclaim, and the penalty for ignoring that claim will be exacted to thelast farthing, be it blood or bones."
The implied threat put a tingle in Billy's spirited makeup, and, jumpingfrom the stool, he impetuously took up the challenge of the silversmithwith wordy proclamation:
"When we leave this place, understand me, we don't return, and, again,not the slightest bit of attention do we pay to any furthercommunication from you. You get me?"
Ricker put another curb on his temper, and his tone was even andsubdued, slightly tinged with mockery as he replied to Billy's forcefulspeech:
"You bluff beautifully, my young friend, but for one who was hand andglove with the great Herr Georges you wear your chains too lightly."
"Herr Georges? Is he another growth in your mind?" Billy happened tothink at the instant that "Georges" and "Roque" were one and the sameperson--as the secret agent changed his name as many times and as easilyas he changed his clothes. But he let the question go as put, for afeeler, if nothing else.
"Oh, you know the one I mean, though you and I are seemingly at odds innaming him," confidently asserted Ricker.
"But what of that?" argued Billy. "For all we know, Roque or Georges isbeyond interest in the doings of earth, and, what's more, we have paidour score and have been acquitted of the service."
The silversmith turned thoughtful for the moment, hesitating as to hisnext word. Then, deliberately, he questioned:
"Do you mean to tell me that you knew nothing of the plot to blow up thewar depot?"
The boys stared at the questioner in affright!