Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in Russia; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes

by Horace Porter

  CHAPTER IX.

  AN UNEXPECTED ORDER.

  Within the fortress enclosure the boys took their bearings from memoryand soon stood in the shadow of the west wall, in the location describedby Stanislaws. They could see a sentry moving with measured tread on thenarrow walk above them, and waited until he passed beyond the turret inthe first turn of the circular parapet.

  Billy led the way in setting foot on the elevation, with Henri close athis heels. In quick step they were within the angles of the bastion, andBilly took a peep along the wall to see if the sentinel had commencedhis backward beat. But the guard was taking it leisurely, for no armedfoe was known to be lurking without, and the duty of patrol this eveningwas a matter of military form.

  Henri in the meantime had been casting about for the loose stone markedby the cross-shaped powder burn.

  He had evidently found it, for Billy heard a whispered request for theloan of his knife.

  Inserting the blade in the thin line where the mortar had crumbled,Henri dexterously twisted the stone out of its socket.

  "It is here all right," he said, holding up the belt for the inspectionof his chum.

  Billy, as a matter of precaution, replaced the stone and smoothed awaywith his foot the earth particles which had fallen with the knifechiseling.

  When the guard finally approached, the belt was safely tucked away inHenri's blouse, and both of the innocents were idly leaning over theparapet, apparently viewing the activity in the Russ encampment, acrossthe San river.

  The Slav soldier challenged the intruders in his own language, but inanswer the boys simply shook their heads, indicating lack ofunderstanding.

  Looking downward, the guard hailed a number of Cossacks engaged in somelance-tilting game in the stone square.

  The Dons surrounded the boys the minute they descended to the level, andfailing to get satisfaction in their jerky string of questions, began topull and haul the captives in a roughly sportive way.

  The boys vigorously protested, but to no avail, and Billy even resortedto a real kick or two at savage shins. In the scuffle it so happenedthat the amulet which Nikita had given Henri fell out of the torn frontof his blouse and under the feet of the tormentors.

  The sight of the thonged lance-point had magic effect. The Cossacksceased their badgering as one man quitting. The Don in authority hadlifted a hand high above his head.

  As Henri stooped to recover the flint talisman, the chief anticipatedhim, presenting it with a grave salutation to the bewildered lad.

  It dawned then upon the aviators that they had been recognized as"brothers of the blood."

  Henri turned an "I told you so" glance at his chum. That "useful in apinch" prediction had been verified in most opportune manner.

  Salisky and Marovitch had no honor as a rescue party when they laterarrived in the enclosure, completing a hurried search for their pilots,who had failed to report for the evening distribution of rations.

  But the scouts could have exacted the credit of being a surprise, or,rather, surprised party when they plumped upon the seated group ofCossacks dividing the contents of their knapsacks with two youthfulrecruits occupying the center space at the feast.

  "By my sainted ancestors," exclaimed Salisky, "look at the lion tamers!"

  He was careful, however, to say it in other than the native tongue.

  "Been looking for us?" asked Billy in the most innocent way imaginable.

  "No, we are just trotting about for our health," ironically repliedMarovitch.

  "Better come along, however," advised Salisky, suppressing aninclination to laugh, owing to the presence of the seriously gazingtribesmen.

  "All ready," cheerfully announced Billy, after Henri and himself hadmade a handshaking round of the circle.

  Marching away with the scouts, it had been made up between the chumsthat the details of their adventure were strictly private business.

  While particularly anxious to get Stanislaws' belt to Fritz that verynight, Henri concluded that the early morning would do, especially inview of the fact that Salisky had made no mention of any moveimmediately contemplated.

  It developed, however, that the boy missed his reckoning, and provingthe old saying that "delays are dangerous." Hardly an hour of sleep, itseemed to the boys, had been granted them when the hand of Saliskydragged the pilots out of slumberland. In reality, it was cold, graydawn which accompanied the awakening process.

  "Orders to backtrack," was the brief statement of the scout, himselfalready attired for flight, and with dispatch case swung over hisshoulder.

  "You don't mean right away?" Henri sat up in his cot to put thequestion.

  "Just as soon as you can get outside of some rations," replied Salisky,"so there is no time for napping. It is a long ways to Warsaw and onlytwo stations for food and fuel in between."

  "But you didn't say a thing to us about it last night," argued Henri,greatly disturbed by the prospect of failure to fulfill their pledge toStanislaws.

  "Come out of your dream, boys; it is not like you to question orders."

  The scout stood by while the boys prepared for the journey, and theywere never alone again in this last hour in Przemysl.

  Stanislaws' belt weighed like a chunk of lead against the heart ofHenri.

  As Salisky had stated, the aviators had but two brief rest periods inthe flight to Warsaw, and they traveled at lightning speed.

  At the end of this air voyage, the aviation chief peremptorily orderedthem off duty for at least two weeks. "No use of killing these birds,"he said to Salisky, with a chuckle, "when you have taken all the fat offtheir bones."

  In their old quarters that first night of their return to Warsaw fromthe Galician fortress, Henri looked about for a safe place to hideStanislaws' belt, which not only produced worry of mind but a positiveirritation in the several days' wearing. The chums lay awake long afterthe other aviators in the dormitory were deep in slumber, and cudgeledtheir brains to invent a way of shifting their new responsibility tosome likely cache for the time being.

  Billy happened to think of the rusty, dusty portrait of some longdeparted inmate of the house, hanging just outside the door which openedon the stair landing.

  He transferred the thought into Henri's ear, and the pair cautiouslytiptoed across the room, taking advantage of the intermittent shafts oflight sifting through the tall windows nearest the lamppost at thestreet corner.

  "Gee whiz!" muttered Billy, halting in momentary anguish, after stubbinghis toe against a chair leg.

  "Ssh!" sibilantly warned Henri; "you'll wake the dead with yourclatter."

  Noiselessly drawing back the door, the boys stood under the iron-framedlikeness of the early day representative of the household, Henri holdingthe moleskin girdle in the crook of his arm.

  Billy did the squirrel act in mounting the newel post, and could easilyreach behind the picture. His chum passed up the belt, and the climberhooked the brass buckle over the wooden peg from which the portrait wassuspended.

  "Safe enough now," he whispered, sliding down from his perch, getting ahelping arm from Henri.

  Five minutes later the young aviators were sleeping the sleep of thesatisfied.