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Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: FREEMAN GAVE A WARNING SHOUT: “DOWN WITH YOU, SHE’S
TRAILING HER ANCHOR!” _Page 15._ _The Aeroplane Scouts In France and
Belgium._]




Our Young Aeroplane Scouts In France and Belgium OR Saving the Fortunes
of the Trouvilles


  By HORACE PORTER

  AUTHOR OF
  “Our Young Aeroplane Scouts In Germany.” “Our Young
  Aeroplane Scouts In Russia.” “Our Young
  Aeroplane Scouts In Turkey.”

  [Illustration]

  A.L. BURT COMPANY
  NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

Copyright, 1915 BY A. L. BURT COMPANY

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM.




CHAPTER I. THRILLING VOYAGE IN A SEA-PLANE.


It was a muggy night in Dover--not an unusual thing in Dover--but
nevertheless the wind had an extra whip in it and was lashing the
outside Channel into a state of wild waves. An acetylene flare revealed
several muffled figures flitting here and there on the harbor brink.
There was a glint from polished surface, a flash-like, downward rush
of a long, tapering hull, and a splash in the dark waters below. A
sea-plane had been deftly launched. Motors hummed, a wide wake streamed
away to the rear of the wonder craft, which, suddenly, as if by magic
drawn upward from the tide, joined the winds that sported aloft.

Captain Leonidas Johnson, noted as an airman in the four quarters of
the globe, sat tight behind the rudder wheel, and back in the band-box
engine room was Josiah Freeman, one time of Boston, U. S. A.

Two aboard were not of the regular crew. Behind the wind-screen were
Billy Barry and Henri Trouville, our Aviator Boys, bound for the coast
of France, and bound to get there.

Ever higher and higher, the intrepid navigators sailed into a clearing
atmosphere, where the clouds were being gathered into a moonlight bath.
The 120’s were forcing a speed of something like a mile to the minute,
and doing it at 2000 feet above the sea level.

Through Dover Straits the swift trend of the great mechanical bird was
toward the North Sea, the blurring high lights of Dover fading in the
distance rearward and Calais showing a glimmer on the distant right.

Captain Johnson switched on the ghost light to get his bearings
from the facing dials, and speaking to the shadowy figures in the
observation seat indulged in a bit of humor by asking:

“You young daredevils, how does this strike you?”

An answering high note from Billy:

“You’re doing bully, Captain, but mind your eye and don’t knock a hole
in Dunkirk by flying too low.”

“Well, of all the nerve,” chuckled the veteran wheelman, “‘flying too
low,’ and the sky almost close enough to touch.”

A pressure forward on the elevating lever shot the sea-plane downward,
and the turn again to level keel was made a scant five hundred feet
above the choppy surface of the Channel.

“We’ll take to boating again at Dunkirk,” observed the captain, but the
observation was heard only by himself, for now the wind and the waves
and the motors and the straining of the aircraft combined to drown even
a voice like the captain’s.

There was destined to be no landing that night at Dunkirk. An offshore
gale, not to be denied, suddenly swept the Channel with howling force.
Rising, dipping, twisting, the sea-plane dashed on in uncertain course,
and when at last it had outridden the storm, Ostend was in sight--the
Atlantic City of the Belgians.

The stanch aircraft, with engines silenced, rocked now upon the heaving
tide. Its tanks were empty. Not a drop of petrol in them. Retreat was
impossible, and in the broad light of the new day there was no place of
concealment.

While four shivering shapes shifted cramped positions and gratefully
welcomed the warming sun-rays, they were under survey of powerful
field-glasses in the hands of a gray-garbed sentry.




CHAPTER II. A LOOK BACKWARD.


After following Billy and Henri in their perilous and thrilling night
ride, it has occurred that they should have first been properly
introduced and their mission in the great war zone duly explained.
Only a few weeks preceding their first adventure, as described in the
initial chapter, they were giving flying exhibitions in Texas, U. S. A.

“That’s a pair for you!” proudly remarked Colonel McCready to a little
group of soldiers and civilians intently looking skyward, marking the
swift and graceful approach through the sunlit air of a wide-winged
biplane, the very queen of the Flying Squadron.

With whirring motor stilled, the great bird for a moment hovered over
the parade ground, then glided to the earth, ran for a short distance
along the ground and stopped a few feet from the admiring circle.

“That’s a pair for you!” repeated Colonel McCready, as he reached for
the shoulders of the youth whose master hand had set the planes for the
exquisitely exact landing and gave a kindly nod to the young companion
of the pilot.

“I’ll wager,” continued the colonel delightedly, “that it was a
painless cutting of Texas air, this flight; too fast to stick anywhere.
Fifty-five miles in sixty minutes, or better, I think, and just a
couple of kids--size them up, gentlemen--Mr. William Thomas Barry and
Mr. Henri Armond Trouville.”

Billy Barry adroitly climbed out of the little cockpit behind the
rudder wheel and patiently submitted to the colonel’s hearty slaps on
the back. Billy never suffered from nerves--he never had any nerves,
only “nerve,” as his Uncle Jacob up in the land where the spruce
comes from used to say. Billy’s uncle furnished the seasoned wood for
aëroplane building, and Billy’s brother Joe was boss of the factory
where the flyers are made. Billy knew the business from the ground up,
and down, too, it might be added.

And let it be known that Henri Trouville is also a boy of some parts
in the game of flying. He loved mechanics, trained right in the shops,
and even aspired to radiotelegraphy, map making aloft, and other fine
arts of the flying profession. Henri has nerves and also nerve. He
weighs fifty pounds less than Billy, but could put the latter to his
best scuffle in a wrestling match. Both of them hustled every waking
minute--the only difference being that pay days meant more to Billy
than they did to Henri.

No brothers were ever more firmly knit than they--this hardy knot of
spruce from Maine, U. S. A., and this good young sprout from the lilies
of France.

       *       *       *       *       *

There’s a pair for you!

“Say, Colonel,” said Billy, with a fine attempt at salute, “if I didn’t
know the timber in those paddles I wouldn’t have felt so gay when we
hit the cross-currents back yonder. I----”

“Yes, yes,” laughed the colonel, “you are always ready to offer a trade
argument when I want to show you off. Now you come out of your shell,
Henri, and tell us what you think of the new engine.”

“There is sure some high power in that make, sir,” replied Henri.
“Never stops, either, until you make it.”

“All you boys need,” broke in Major Packard, “is a polishing bit of
instruction in military reconnaissance, and you would be a handy aid
for the service.”

“While I am only factory broke, Major,” modestly asserted Billy, “Henri
there can draw a pretty good map on the wing, if that counts for
anything, and do the radio reporting as good as the next. What a fellow
he is, too, with an engine; he can tell by the cough in three seconds
just where the trouble is. If I was going into the scout business,
believe me, I might be able to make a hit by dropping information slips
through the card chute.”

The dark-eyed, slender Henri shook a finger at his talkative comrade.

“Spare me, old boy, if you please,” he pleaded. “Gentlemen,” turning
to the others, who were watching the housing of the aëroplane, “this
bluffer wouldn’t even speak to me when the altitude meter, a little
while ago, registered 3,000 feet. Then he had a wheel in his hands;
down here he has it in his head!”

“Bully for you, comrade,” cried Billy. “I couldn’t have come back that
neatly if I tried. But then, you know, I have to work to live, and you
only live to work.”

With this happy exchange the boys moved double quick in the direction
of quarters and the mess table.

Colonel McCready, with the others proceeding to leisurely follow the
eager food seekers, in his own peculiar style went on to say:

“There’s a couple of youngsters who have been riding a buckboard
through some fifty miles of space, several thousand feet from nowhere,
at a clip that would razzle-dazzle an eagle, and, by my soul, they act
like they had just returned from a croquet tournament!”

Our Aviator Boys had grown fearless as air riders. They had learned
just what to do in cases of emergency, in fact were trained to the
hour in cross-country flying. Rare opportunity, however, was soon to
present itself to give them a supreme test of courage and skill.

Little they reckoned, this June evening down by the Alamo, what the
near future held in store for them.




CHAPTER III. FAREWELL TO THE FACTORY.


An archduke had been killed on Servian soil, and war had raised its
dreadful shadow over stricken Liège. The gray legions of the Kaiser
were worrying the throat of France. From the far-off valley of the
Meuse came a call of distress for Henri Trouville.

Billy Barry was very busy that day with the work of constructing hollow
wooden beams and struts, and had just completed an inspection of a
brand-new monoplane which the factory had sold to a rich young fellow
who had taken a fancy to the flying sport. Coming out of the factory,
he met his chum and flying partner. Henri did not wear his usual smile.
With downcast head and his hands clasped behind him he was a picture of
gloom.

“Hello, Henri, what’s hurting you?” was Billy’s anxious question.

“Billy boy,” Henri sadly replied, “it’s good night to you and the
factory for me. I’m going home.”

“Say, Buddy,” cried Billy, holding up his arm as though to ward off a
shock, “where did you get your fever? Must have been overwarm in your
shop to-day.”

“It’s straight goods,” persisted Henri. “The world has fallen down on
Trouville and I’ve got to go back and find what is under it.”

Billy with a sob in his voice: “Old pal, if it’s you--then it’s you and
me for it. I don’t care whether it’s mahogany, ash, spruce, lance-wood,
black walnut or hickory in the frame, we’ll ride it together.”

“Oh, Billy!” tearfully argued Henri; “it’s a flame into which you’d
jump--and--and--it wouldn’t do at all. So, be a good fellow and say
good-by right here and get it over.”

“You can’t shake me.” Billy was very positive in this. “We made ’em
look up at Atlantic City. We can just as well cause an eye-strain at
Ostend or any other old point over the water. The long way to Tipperary
or the near watch on the Rhine--it’s all one to me. I’m going, going
with you, Buddy. Here’s a hand on it!”

The boys passed together through the factory gate, looking neither to
the right nor to the left, nor backward--on their way to great endeavor
and to perils they knew not of.

Out to sea in a mighty Cunarder, the “flying kids,” as everybody
aboard called them, chiefly interested themselves in the ship’s
collection of maps. As they did not intend to become soldiers they were
too shrewd to go hunting ’round war zone cities asking questions as to
how to get to this place or that. They had no desire to be taken for
spies.

“Right here, Billy,” said Henri, indicating with pencil point, “is
where we would be to-night if I could borrow the wings of a gull.”

Billy, leaning over the map, remarked that a crow’s wings would suit
him better, adding:

“For we would certainly have to do some tall dodging in that part of
the country just now.”

“Do you know,” questioned Henri earnestly, “that I haven’t told you yet
of the big driving reason for this dangerous journey?”

“Well,” admitted Billy, “you didn’t exactly furnish a diagram, but that
didn’t make much difference. The main point to me was that you tried to
say good-by to your twin.”

“Billy,” continued Henri, drawing closer, and in voice only reaching
the ear at his lips, “behind a panel in the Château Trouville are
gold and jewels to the value of over a million francs. It is all that
remains of a once far greater fortune. My mother, when all hope of
turning back the invading armies had gone, fled to Paris in such haste
that she took with her little more of worth than the rings on her
hands. She may be in want even now--and she never wanted before in
her life. I am her free man--my brothers are in the trenches with the
Allies somewhere, I don’t know where. It’s up to me to save her fortune
and pour it into her lap.”

“It’s the finest thing I know,” said Billy. “Show me the panel!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Planning their first movement abroad, the boys that night decided to
make for Dover after landing. It was a most convenient point from
which to proceed to the French coast, and there they expected to find
two tried and true friends, airmen, too, Captain Leonidas Johnson and
Josiah Freeman, formerly employed as experts in the factory at home,
and both of whom owed much to Billy’s uncle in the way of personal as
well as business favors.

What happened at Dover has already been told, and now to return to
them, stranded in the water off the Belgian coast.




CHAPTER IV. DRAGGED BY A ZEPPELIN.


For hours Billy had been stationed as lookout on the stranded
hydroplane. He was taking cat-naps, for it had been quite a while since
he last enjoyed a bed. While an expected round-shot from the shore
did not come to disturb the tired airmen, something else happened just
about as startling. In a waking moment Billy happened to look up, and
there he saw a great dirigible circling above the harbor. The boy’s
eyes were wide open now.

“Henri,” he loudly whispered, prodding his sleeping chum with a ready
foot. “Look alive, boy! They’re coming after us from the top side!”

Henri, alive in a jiffy, passed a friendly kick to Captain Johnson, and
he in turn bestowed a rib jab upon Freeman. Then all eyes were glued on
the hovering Zeppelin.

A mile seaward, from the armored side of a gunboat, burst a red flash
wreathed by smoke; then a dull boom. The Zeppelin majestically swerved
to southwest course, all the time signaling to masked batteries along
the shore.

“There is bigger game around here than us,” said Captain Johnson. “If
only those tanks were chockfull of petrol again we’d show them all a
clean pair of heels.”

“If we don’t move somehow and soon,” gloomily put in Freeman, “we’ll be
dead wood between two fires.”

The Zeppelin was now pushing skyward, buzzing like a million bees. Just
then a Taube aëroplane, armored, swooped toward the gunboat, evidently
British, which had endeavored to pot the Zeppelin. The scout-ship below
turned its anti-aircraft cannon and rifles against the latest invader,
cutting its wings so close that the Taube hunted a higher and safer
level. The Zeppelin had again lowered its huge hulk for the evident
purpose of dropping on the gunboat some of the bombs stored in its
special armored compartment.

Another sputtering jet of flame from the gunboat and one of the
forward propellers of the airship collapsed and a second shot planted
a gash in her side. Sagging and wabbling, the dirigible headed for the
Belgian coast. When the black mass loomed directly above the stranded
sea-plane, Freeman gave a warning shout:

“Down with you! She’s trailing her anchor!”

By quick thought, in that thrilling, fleeting moment, Billy grabbed the
swinging anchor as it was dragged along near to him and deftly hooked
one of its prongs under the gun carriage at the sea-plane’s bow.

With jerks that made every strut and wire crackle under the strain, the
hydroplane, on its polished floats, skipped over the waves, pulled this
way and that, now with elevated nose, now half under water, but holding
firmly to the trailing cable.

Henri, with head over the wind-screen, keenly watched the shore for a
likely landing-place. The men in the cars of the disabled Zeppelin did
not seem to notice the extra weight on the anchor--they had troubles
of their own in getting the damaged dirigible to safe landing.

Billy crouched in the bow-seat, his eyes fixed on the straining cable.
In his right hand he clutched a keen-edged hatchet, passed forward by
Freeman. Half drowned by the spray tossed in his face he awaited the
word from Henri.

“Say when, old pard,” he cried, slightly turning his head.

“If she pulls straight up and down,” remarked Captain Johnson in
Freeman’s ear, “it’s good night.”

The coast line seemed rushing toward the incoming sea-plane, bouncing
about in the wide wash.

Henri sighted a friendly looking cove, and excitedly sang out the word
for which his chum was waiting:

“Now!”

With the signal Billy laid the hatchet with sounding blows upon the
cable--and none too soon the tough strands parted.

The sea-plane with the final snap of the hacked cable dashed into the
drift and plowed half its length in the sandy soil. The Zeppelin bobbed
away into the gathering dusk.

Following the bump, Captain Johnson set the first foot on the sand.
Stretching himself, he fixed a glance of concern on the sea-plane.

“I wonder if there is a joint in that craft that isn’t loose?” he
questioned. “But,” he added, with a note of sorrow, “it’s not likely
she will ever see her station again, and so what’s the difference?”

“It was some voyage, though,” suggested Freeman in the way of comfort.

“It was bully,” maintained Billy. “If we had traveled any other way,
Henri there would no doubt by this time have been wearing red trousers
and serving the big guns around Paris, and I might have been starving
while trying to get change for a ten-dollar bill in that big town.”

“Do you think you will like it better,” asked Freeman, “to stand up
before a firing squad with a handkerchief tied ’round your eyes?”

“I should worry,” laughed Billy.

“There’s no scare in you, boy,” said Captain Johnson, giving Billy an
affectionate tap on the back. “Now,” he continued seriously, “it’s hard
to tell just what sort of reception we are going to get hereabouts. Old
Zip and I” (turning to Freeman) “certainly made the people on the paved
‘boardwalk’ stare with some of our flying stunts. But that was last
year.”

“That reminds me,” broke in Billy, “that I have given the high ride to
several of the big ‘noises’ on all sides of the war, and they one and
all promised me the glad hand if I ever came to see them.”

“That, too,” said Freeman, with a grin, “was a year or more ago.”

“Speaking of time,” put in Henri, “it also seems to me a matter of a
year or two since I had anything to eat. I’m as hungry as a wolf.”

“I’m with you on the eat proposition,” Billy promptly cast his vote.
“Where’s the turkey hid, Captain?”

“It’s a lot of turkey you’ll get this night,” grimly replied the
captain. “There’s a little snack of sandwiches in the hold, cold roast,
I believe, but that’s all. We didn’t equip for a sail like this.”

Billy and Henri lost no time rummaging for the sandwiches, and while
the meat and bread were being consumed to the last crumb by the hungry
four, Billy furnished an idea in place of dessert:

“We don’t want to lose ten thousand dollars’ worth of flying machine on
this barren shore. Henri and I are going to do a bit of scouting while
the soldier crowd are busy among themselves up the coast. If there is
any petrol to be had we are going to have it.”

Fitting action to the words, the two boys moved with stealthy tread,
Indian fashion, toward the ridge that shadowed and concealed the
temporary camp of the airmen. Captain Johnson did not wholly approve of
this venture on the part of the boys, but they did not give him time to
argue against it, and were soon beyond recall.




CHAPTER V. RAN AWAY WITH AN AUTOMOBILE.


Night had come and in front of one of the handsome hotels that had
escaped splintering when Ostend, the famous seaside resort, under
fire of big guns, was swept by shot and shell, Gun-Lieutenant Mertz
had just stepped out of a big gray automobile that looked like a high
speeder--the kind that has plenty of power. The driver of the car did
not wait for a second order to leave the lieutenant and speed away in
the direction of the mess quarters, where he knew that there was a
fragrant stew being prepared for duty men coming in late.

The fighting of the day had mostly taken place far up the coast, and
the chance had arrived for a loosening of belts in Ostend.

With a final chug the big gray car came to a standstill in a quiet
corner off the main street, while the hungry chauffeur joined his
comrades in what they called pot-luck. The movements of this man had
been watched with a large amount of interest by a pair of visitors, who
had chosen the darkest places they could find while approaching the
dining hall of the soldiers.

“Gee!” whispered one of the watchers to the other. “I can almost feel a
bullet in my back.”

From the companion shadow: “Take your foot out of my face, can’t you?”

Two heads uplifted at the sight of the rear lights of the car.

Again an excited whisper:

“Now for it, Billy!”

The soldiers were laughing and talking loudly in the dining hall.

The boys crawled along, carefully avoiding the light that streamed from
the windows of the hall. A moment later they nimbly climbed into the
car. Henri took the wheel and gently eased the big machine away into
the shadowy background. Then he stopped the car and intently listened
for any sound of alarm. The soldiers were singing some war song in the
dining hall, keeping time with knives and forks.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a good time for the boys to make a start in earnest, and they
started with no intention of stopping this side of the ridge, behind
which their friends were anxiously watching and waiting for them.

Henri drove cautiously until he felt sure that they were out of the
principal avenues of travel, and then he made things hum. He guided
straight toward a clump of trees showing black against the moon just
appearing above the crest of the hill. The riding grew rough, but the
speed never slackened. At last the goal was reached. The car bumped
and bounced up, and bounced and bumped down the hill.

Leaping from the machine, Billy fairly rolled to the feet of the
startled crew of the sea-plane.

“So help me,” exclaimed Captain Johnson, “if I didn’t think it was a
section of the Fourth Corps after our scalps!”

“Hurry!” gasped Billy. “Get anything that will hold oil, and get it
quick!”

For the moment confused, Johnson and Freeman seemed tied fast to the
ground.

Henri rolled into the circle and added his gasp:

“We’ve a touring car up there and its tanks are loaded!”

Then the boss mechanic, Freeman, came to the front. From the depths of
the engine room in the motor end of the sea-plane he pulled a heavy
coil of rubber tubing and in a few minutes made attachments that tapped
the automobile’s plentiful supply of petrol and sent it gurgling into
the empty tanks of the sea-plane.

Across the sandy plain came the sound, faintly, of shouting. Maybe
somebody had discovered that the officer’s car was missing.

As Billy suggested with a laugh:

“Perhaps they think some joy riders took it.”

“I’m not going to stay to find out what they think,” very promptly
asserted Captain Johnson. “Heave her out, boys!”

The sea-plane took the water like a duck. Obedient to Johnson’s touch
it leaped upward, the motors were humming, and with a cheery cackle
Freeman announced:

“We’re off again.”

“And they are showing us the way,” cried Billy, as a great searchlight
inland sent a silver shaft directly overhead.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Riflemen on the ridge were popping at the sea-plane.

“There’s a salute for good measure,” observed Henri.

“Lucky we’re out of range of those snipers, but I’m thinking the
batteries might attempt to take a whack at us.”

With these words Captain Johnson set the planes for another jump
skyward.

“There’s the good old moon to bluff the searchlight,” sang out Billy
from the lookout seat. “And, see, there’s a row of smokestacks sticking
out of the water. Sheer off, Captain; don’t let those cruisers pump a
shot at us. They’d wreck this flyer in a minute!”

The sea-plane was taking the back-track at fine speed when valve
trouble developed in the engine room. The cylinders were missing fire,
and all of Freeman’s expert tinkering failed to prevent the necessity
of rapid descent. The hum of the motors died away, and Captain Johnson
dived the craft seaward with almost vertical plunge. The sea-plane
hit the water with a dipping movement that raised a fountain over the
lookout, and it was Billy that cried “Ugh!” when he was drenched from
head to foot by the downfall of several gallons of cold water.

The aircraft had alighted only a few rods from land, in a shallow,
marshy bay. The place was as silent as the grave, save for the calling
of the night birds and the gentle lapping of the waves. Freeman with
the aid of an extra propeller fitting, paddled the craft into shore,
and was soon busy trying to find out what was the matter with the
machinery. Captain Johnson held the acetylene flare over Freeman’s
shoulder to enable the engineer to see where repair was needed.

Billy and Henri, out of a job for the time being, concluded that they
would do some exploring. After wading through the mud, weeds and matted
grass for a hundred yards or so they reached firm footing on higher
ground.




CHAPTER VI. DEATH RIDE OF AN AVIATOR.


The moon was shining brightly, and over the plain that stretched out
before them on the left the boys could see quite a distance, but no
sign of human life presented itself. On the right, however, a half mile
away, was a sharp rise of ground and tall trees. Toward this point they
decided to proceed. Then it was that they first realized the experience
of standing on a battlefield.

Crossing the field they saw the ravages of artillery projectiles--deep,
conical holes, five or six feet in diameter. Here, too, they found
shrapnel cases, splinters of shells, skeletons of horses, fragments of
bloodstained clothing and cartridge pouches. The moonlight made the
path as open as day, and each object reminding of terrible conflict
was apparently magnified by the white shine of the moon. The boys
walked as in a dream, and were first awakened by the flapping wings of
a huge bird, frightened by their approach from its perch on a broken
gun-carriage.

“Let’s get out of this,” mumbled Henri; “it gives me shivery shakes;
it’s a graveyard, and it seems like ghosts of dead soldiers are
tracking us.”

Billy was short on nerves, but if he had been called on for a
confession just then he might have pleaded guilty to a tremble or two.

He managed to put on a bold front, however, and was about to give Henri
a brace by telling him they would have to get used to the ways of war,
when there was a sound like the roll of distant thunder far to the
south.

“What’s that?”

Billy’s sudden question drove the ghosts away from Henri’s mind, and
both boys ran like deer up the hill to the line of trees.

“There’s no storm over there,” panted Henri. “You can’t see a cloud as
big as a man’s hand.”

“That isn’t thunder!” exclaimed Billy. “That’s cannon! They’re shooting
at something!”

“There,” cried Henri, “that sounds like fire-crackers now.”

“Rifles,” observed Billy.

“Look!” Billy was pointing to what appeared, at the distance, to be a
speck on the face of the moon.

The sound of gunfire increased, report after report--crack, crack,
boom, boom, boom.

Across and far above the moonlit plain, arrow-like, sped a winged
shadow, growing in size as it swiftly approached.

“An aëroplane!” The boys well knew that kind of a bird. They called its
name in one voice.

“That’s what has been drawing the fire of those guns.”

Billy had found the problem easy to solve when he noted the getaway
tactics of the coming airman.

The boys could now hear the whirring of the motor. Fifty yards away the
aëroplane began to descend. Gracefully it volplaned to the earth under
perfect control. It landed safely, rolled a little way, and stopped.

The boys, without a second thought, raced down the slope to greet the
aviator, like one of their own kind should be greeted, but as quickly
halted as they drew nearer.

The airman was dead.

He had been fatally wounded at the very start of his last flight, but
just before death, at its finish, had set his planes for a descent.
With his dead hands gripping the controllers, the craft had sailed
to the earth. He wore the yellowish, dirt-colored khaki uniform of a
British soldier.

Billy and Henri removed their caps in reverence to valor and to honor
the memory of a gallant comrade who had been game to the last.

Releasing the dead aviator from his death grip on the controllers, the
boys tenderly lifted the corpse from the driver’s seat in the machine
and covered the upturned face and glazed eyes with the muffler the
airman had worn about his neck. The body was that of a youth of slight
build, but well muscled. In the pockets of his blouse the boys found a
pencil, a memorandum book and a photograph, reduced to small size by
cutting round the face--a motherly type, dear to all hearts.

The usual mark of identity of soldiers in the field was missing, but
on the third finger of the left hand was a magnificent seal ring, on
which was engraved an eagle holding a scroll in its beak and clutching
a sheaf of arrows in its talons.

Billy took possession of these effects with silent determination to
some day deliver them to the pictured mother, if she could be found.

“The ring shows that he came of a noble house,” said Henri, who had
some knowledge of heraldry.

“He was a brave lad, for all that, and noble in himself,” remarked
Billy, who had the American idea that every man is measured by his own
pattern.

So they gave the dead youth the best burial they could, at the foot of
one of the giant trees, and sadly turned away to inspect the aëroplane
that had been so strangely guided.

It was a beautiful machine, all the fine points visible to their
practiced eyes--a full-rigged military biplane, armor plates and all.
The tanks of extra capacity were nearly full of petrol.

“It must have been a short journey, as well as a fatal one,” said
Billy. “Very likely the launching was from a British ship, not far
out at sea, and the purpose was to make a lookover of the German land
forces around here.”

“I’d like to take a little jaunt in that machine,” sighed Henri, who
could not tear himself away from the superb flyer.

“It may turn out that you will--stranger things have happened.”

Billy proved to be a prophet, but it was not a “little jaunt,” but a
long ride that the boys took in that aëroplane.

An unpleasant surprise was in immediate store for them.

They decided that it was about time that they should return to their
friends and the sea-plane, and were full of and eager to tell Johnson
and Freeman of the results of their scouting.

“Guess the captain won’t wonder at anything we do since we brought that
automobile into camp,” declared Billy. “You know he said that he hadn’t
any breath to save for our next harum-scarum performance.”

“I can just see Freeman grin when I tell him that we have found a
flying-machine that can beat his sea-sailer a mile. That’s my part of
the story, you know,” added Henri.

“I can’t help thinking of the poor fellow who rode her last,” was
Billy’s sober response.

The boys were nearing the point where the heavy walking began.
Otherwise they would have broken into a run, so eager were they to tell
about their adventures.

Coming out of the weeds and ooze, they stood looking blankly at the
spot where the sea-plane had rested.

The sea-plane and their friends were gone!




CHAPTER VII. ALONE ON A STRANGE COAST.


When the boys made the startling discovery that the sea-plane had
disappeared and that they were alone on the strange coast, they plumped
down on the sand without a single idea in the world except that they
were utterly tired out and weak from hunger.

They could not account in any way for the mysterious happening that had
deprived them of their tried and true friends.

Not for a moment did they imagine that they had been deserted by
intent. They knew full well that even in the face of great danger
Captain Johnson and Josiah Freeman were not the kind of men who would
fly away, without sign or signal, and leave a comrade in distress, let
alone these boys for whom either of the men would have spilled his last
drop of blood.

“The coast patrol nabbed them,” was the opinion of Billy.

“They were held up at the point of a bayonet, I’ll bet,” argued Henri,
“for there is no sign of a struggle, and we would have heard it if
there had been any shooting.”

“However it was,” figured Billy, “they never quit of their own accord;
they would never have left us unless they had been hauled away by
force. Now it is up to us to skirmish for ourselves, which, anyhow, I
expected to do sooner or later. There’s no use staying here, for they
will be coming after us next.”

Wearily the boys plodded through the slush, backtracking to the foot
of the hill where they had left the aëroplane. The fading moon was
lost behind a wall of slowly rising mist, and the dawn was breaking in
the east when the boys finally stumbled upon the place that held their
prize. Wholly exhausted, they threw themselves full length upon the
ground and slept like logs.

The sun was broadly shining when Billy reached out a lazy arm to
poke his chum, who was snuggled up in the grass and breathing like a
porpoise.

“Get up and hear the birds sing,” yawned Billy.

“I’d a good sight rather hear a kettle or a coffee-pot sing,” yawned
Henri.

“Right O,” agreed Billy.

The boys rolled over alongside of the aëroplane. A twin thought came to
them that the late aviator surely must have carried something to eat
with him.

It proved a glorious truth. There was a knapsack behind the driver’s
seat and a canteen swinging under the upper plane.

“A meat pie!” Billy made the first find.

“Crackers and cheese!” Heard from Henri.

How good these rations tasted--even the lukewarm water in the canteen
was like nectar. With new life the boys took up the problem presented
by the next move.

Henri climbed into the aëroplane and very carefully inspected the
delicate machinery, making free use of the oil can. Billy otherwise
attended to the tuning of the craft, and everything was as right as a
trivet in less than a half hour.

“Let me see”--Billy was thumbing a well-worn notebook--“as we fixed it
on the steamer, Dunkirk was the starting place. But that storm entirely
changed the route--a longer way round, I guess. No more Ostend for
me, though I do wish I knew for sure whether or not they had Captain
Johnson and Freeman locked up there. Let’s try for Bruges; that’s only
a short distance from here, and we can follow the line of the canal so
we won’t get lost.”

“And we can fly high,” suggested Henri, “high enough to keep from
getting plugged.”

“I am not bothering so much about the ‘high’ part of it as I am about
where we’ll land,” said Billy. “We may fall into a hornet’s nest.”

“Let’s make it Bruges, for luck,” suggested Henri.

“Here goes, then,” exclaimed Billy, getting into steering position,
Henri playing passenger.

Off they skimmed on the second stage of their journey to the valley of
the Meuse, in France.

They had entered the zone where five nations were at each other’s
throats.

So swift was their travel that our Aviator Boys very soon looked down
upon the famous old belfry of Bruges, the old gabled houses, with
bright red tiled roofs, mirrored in the broad canal crossed by many
stone bridges. That is what Bruges means, “bridges.” To the young
airmen, what the town meant just now was a good dinner, if they did not
have to trade their lives or their liberty for a chance to get it.

“Nothing doing here,” lamented Henri, who did the looking down while
Billy looked ahead. “I see that there are too many gray-coats visiting
in West Flanders. And I heard that the Belgians have not been giving
‘days at home’ since the army came. Now I see that it is true.”

“Having fun with yourself?” queried Billy, in the sharp tone necessary
to make himself heard in a buzzing aircraft.

Henri ignored the question, snapping: “The book says it’s thirty-five
miles from here to Ypres, straight; keep your eyes on the waterways,
and you can’t miss it.”

“Another thing the book says,” snapped Billy, in response, “is that
that old town is in a district as flat as a floor, and, if nothing
else, we are sure of a landing.”

“I wish we were as sure of a dinner.” Henri never lost sight of the
dinner question.

The flight was continued in silence. It was a strain to keep up
conversation, and the boys quit talking to rest their throats. Besides,
there was not a drop of water left in the canteen.

It was late afternoon when the boys saw Ypres beneath them. It was just
about the time that the Allies were advancing in the region between
Ypres and Roulers, the town where the best Flemish lace comes from. But
the Allies had not yet reached Ypres.

Henri glimpsed the remains of some ancient fortifications, and urged
Billy to make a landing right there.

“A good place to hide in case of emergency,” he advised.

Billy agreed, set the planes for a drop, and came down neatly in the
open.

“We ought to be able to get a change of linen here, for that’s the
big business in this town.” Henri was pretty well posted, for in his
cradle he had slept on Ypres linen.

There was no work going on in the fertile fields around the town. The
Belgian peasants thereabouts were either under arms or under cover.

“When King Louis set up these old ramparts he probably did not
look forward to the day when they would provide a hangar for a
flying-machine.” This from Billy, who was pushing the aëroplane to the
shelter of a crumbling fortalice.

“If we had dropped in on the fourteenth century, as we did to-day,”
observed Henri, “I’ll warrant that we would have scared everybody out
of Flanders.”

“It doesn’t appear, as it is, that there is a person around here bold
enough to approach us.”

Billy seemed surprised that they had not run into trouble at the very
start.

“‘Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you,’” quoted Henri. “It
goes something like that, I think.”

“Listen!” Billy raised a hand to warn Henri not to move nor speak
aloud. The sound that had put Billy on the alert was a long, low
whistle. It was repeated, now and again. Curious, and also impressed
that the whistler was trying to attract their attention, they began a
search among the ruins. Over the top of a huge slab of stone suddenly
popped a red cap, covering a regular Tom Thumb among Belgians--about
four feet from tow head to short boots.

Henri said “Howdy” to him in French, at the same time extending a
friendly hand. The youngster, evidently about fifteen, shyly gave Henri
two fingers in greeting. He bobbed his head to Billy. Then he removed
his red cap and took out of it a soiled and crumpled slip of paper. On
the slip, apparently torn from a notebook, was scribbled:

  “This boy saw you fly in, told us how you looked, and, if it is
  you, this will let you know that the Germans brought us here for
  safe-keeping yesterday. CAP.”

“Glory be!” Billy could hardly contain himself, and the little Belgian
took his first lesson in tangoing from an American instructor. “As
soon as it is dark we will move on the outer works,” was his joyous
declaration.

“Say, my young friend,” he added, “do you know where we can get a
bite to eat while we’re waiting?” Henri translated, and the little
Belgian was off like a shot. About dusk he returned with some bread
and bologna, looped up in a fancy colored handkerchief. And there was
plenty of water in the Yperlee river.

Along about 11 o’clock that night Leon, the little Belgian, whispered,
“_Venez_” (Come).




CHAPTER VIII. ONE DARK NIGHT IN YPRES.


The sky had turned dark over Ypres, rain had commenced to fall in
streets so remarkably clean that they really did not need this bath
from above. It was just the kind of a night, though, for the risky
venture undertaken by our Aviator Boys. They were going to see their
old friends, and nothing but a broken leg would check their willing
steps on the way to the prison house that contained Captain Johnson and
Josiah Freeman.

Leon knew the best way to get there. The darkest ways were light to
him, and he was not afraid that rain would spoil his clothes. To guide
these wonderful flying boys was the happiest thing that had happened to
him in all his days, and, too, he had a strong dislike for the Germans
who had invaded the homeland. His father was even now fighting in the
ranks of the Allies at Nieuport, and his mother was wearing her heart
out in the fields as the only breadwinner for her little brood.

There were comparatively few of the gray troops then in the town. The
main columns were moving north to the Dixmude region, where the horizon
was red with burning homes. To guard prisoners, garrison the town and
care for the wounded not many soldiers were then needed in Ypres, and
non-commissioned officers mostly were in command.

The streets were empty and silent, and lights only occasionally seen.
At midnight Billy, Henri and Leon paused in the deep shadow of a tall
elm, the branches of which swept the front of the dingy red brick
dwelling, two stories in height and heavily hung with vines. Leon knew
the place like a book, for he had been serving as an errand boy for the
guards quartered there.

He whispered to Henri that the men who had sent the note were in the
front room on the second floor.

Behind the brick wall at the side of the house was a garden. Billy and
Henri, on Leon’s advice, decided to try the deep-set door in the garden
wall as the only way to get in without stirring up the sentry in the
front hall. With the first push on the door the rusty hinges creaked
loudly.

The front door of the house was thrown open, and a shaft of light
pierced the darkness. The boys backed up against the wall, scarcely
daring to breathe. The soldier looked up at the clouds, knocked the
ashes out of his pipe, muttered something to himself, turned back and
slammed the door with a bang. At this the boys gave a backward heave,
and were through the door and into the garden.

This interior was blacker than the mouth of an inkwell. Billy
cautiously forced the door back in place.

“Got any matches?” Billy had failed to find any in his own pockets.

Henri was better supplied. In the military aëroplane he had not
only found matches, but also a box of tapers, and he had taken the
precaution of putting them in his pockets when they left the machine.

With a little flame, carefully shaded, the boys discovered a
shaky-looking ladder in a grape-arbor at the back of the garden.

By degrees, foot by foot, they edged the ladder alongside of the house,
and gently hoisted it to the window of the upper room, which Leon had
assured them was the right one.

“Let’s shy some pebbles against the window to let them know we are
here,” was the whispered suggestion of Henri.

“Nothing doing.” Billy was going to have a look in first. He was
already crawling up the ladder. Henri laid hold of the lower rungs, to
keep the rickety frame steady, and Leon stationed himself at the garden
door, ready and alert to give warning whistle if anything happened in
front.

Billy tapped softly on the window pane. The sash was silently raised,
and Billy crept in.

Not a word had been spoken, and no signal from the room above.

Standing in the dark and the rain in the dismal garden, Henri was of
half a mind to follow his comrade without further delay. It was an
anxious moment.

A bird-like trill from Leon. With this call Henri left the ladder and
tiptoed to the garden door to join the little Belgian and find out what
was the matter.

From far up the silent street, coming with measured tread, a regiment
was marching. The watchers at the door of the garden now plainly heard
gruff commands and the other usual sounds of military movement.

“I must let Billy know; the soldiers are headed this way and might be
coming to move the prisoners somewhere else.”

Henri had started back toward the house, when suddenly the window was
thrown up, and, with a sound like the tearing of oil-cloth, Billy came
down the ladder and landed with a bump on the graveled walk.

Henri and Leon, in the space of a second, rushed to the side of their
fallen comrade.

In the street outside there was a crash that shook the silence as
though the silence was solid. A regiment had grounded arms directly in
front of the house.

Billy, who for a moment had been stunned by the force of his bump into
the walk, at the end of a twenty-foot slide, jumped to his feet, and
in a breath urged his companions to run.

“Let’s get out of this; over the wall with you!”

The boys bolted for the back wall of the garden, dragging the ladder,
and speedily mingled on all fours on the coping, the top of which was
strewn with broken glass.

Hanging by their hands on the outer side of the wall they chanced the
long drop. As luck would have it, they landed in soft places--on a pile
of ashes and garbage.

Lights sprang up in the windows of the house behind them. It was
evident that a change of base was to be made.

“Did you see our fellows?” was Henri’s first eager question, as he
shook off his coat of ashes.

“You bet I did,” coughed Billy, whose face had plowed a furrow in the
ash heap. “A bunch of the gray men in a motor boat pounced on them
while they were tinkering with the sea-plane and took them and the
plane in tow to Ostend. They were brought down here so that General So
and So, I don’t remember who, could look them over, but the general and
his brigade have gone off somewhere to the north to try and stop the
advance of the Allies. The captain and Freeman both say they are in no
special danger and are very kindly treated. They have their papers as
American citizens and agents abroad for our factory. Then there is the
storm story as their reason for being blown into the war zone without
fighting clothes.

“How did I come to quit that house yonder like a skyrocket? Well, just
as the captain and I had finished exchanging experiences, and old Josh
Freeman had nearly broken my ribs with a bear hug, one of the rounders
in the house concluded to pay a visit to the room where we were. We
didn’t hear him until he reached the top of the stairs, where he
stopped to sneeze. With that sneeze I did my leaping act. That soldier
never saw me; I’ll wager on that.”

“What’ll we do now?” That was more what Henri wanted to know.

“Get back to the machine before daylight.” Billy’s main idea was that
the safest place was a couple of thousand feet in the air.

Daylight was not far away. Henri and Leon held a committee meeting
to determine the best route back to the fortifications. The little
Belgian was sure of his ground, and before sunrise, by countless twists
and turns, the trio were back to the stone hangar where the aëroplane
rested.

The first faint streaks of dawn gave light enough for Billy to do his
tuning work about the machine. Henri was bending over, in the act of
testing the fuel supply, when there was a thud of horses’ hoofs on all
sides of the enclosure, followed by a shrill cry from Leon:

“_Sauvez vous! Vite! Vite!_” (Save yourself! Quick! Quick!)

With that the little Belgian frantically tugged at the aëroplane, and
not until our Aviator Boys had swung the machine into the open and
leaped to their places in the frame did the brave youngster quit his
post. Then he ran like a rabbit, waving quick farewell, and disappeared
in the wilderness of stone.

Lickety clip the aëroplane moved over the ground. Then up and away!

A pistol shot rang out. A cavalryman nearest to the point of flight was
behind the weapon.

Barely a hundred feet in the air and Henri leaned heavily against Billy.

“I’m hit!” he gasped, “but don’t let go. Keep her going!”




CHAPTER IX. TESTING BILLY’S NERVE.


It was indeed a severe test of Billy Barry’s nerve that was put
upon him in this trying moment. To let go of the controllers of the
aëroplane would mean the finish; to neglect for an instant his comrade,
whom he believed to be bleeding to death, was agony. Almost blindly
he set the planes for a nearly vertical descent from a dizzy height
of three thousand feet which the machine had attained before Billy
had fully realized that he was holding across his knees the inert body
of his beloved chum. Like a plummet the aircraft dropped eastward.
With rare presence of mind Billy shifted for a rise when close to the
ground, and managed to land without wrecking the machine. A scant ten
feet, though, to the right, and the aëroplane would have crashed into a
cow-shed and all would have been over.

An old woman, digging potatoes nearby, was so frightened when this
winged bolt came down from the sky that she gave a squawk and fell
backward into the big basket behind her.

When Billy had tenderly lifted out and laid Henri upon the turf, he ran
to the well in front of the neat farmhouse, filled his leather cap with
water, and hastened back to bathe the deathly pale face and throbbing
temples of his wounded chum. With the cooling application Henri opened
his eyes and smiled at the wild-eyed lad working with all his soul to
win him back to life.

“I am not done for yet, old scout,” he faintly murmured.

Billy gulped down a sob.

“You’re coming around all right, Buddy, cried Billy, holding a wet and
loving hand upon Henri’s forehead.

“The pain is in my right shoulder,” advised Henri; “I have just begun
to feel it. Guess that is where the bullet went in.”

“Let me see it.” Billy assumed a severe professional manner. The
attempt, however, to remove the jacket sleeve from the injured arm
brought forth such a cry of pain from Henri that Billy drew back in
alarm.

“Ask the woman for a pair of shears,” suggested Henri, “and cut away
the sleeve.”

“Hi, there!” called Billy to the old woman, who had risen from the
basket seat, but still all of a tremble.

“Get her here,” urged Henri. “I can make her understand.”

Billy, bowing and beckoning, induced the woman to approach.

Henri, politely:

“_Madame, j’ai ete blesse. Est-ce que nous restons ici?_” (Madam, I
have been wounded. Can we rest here?)

“_Je n’ecoute pas bien. J’appelerai, Marie._” (I do not hear good. I
will call Marie.)

With that the old woman hobbled away, and quickly reappeared with
“Marie,” a kindly-eyed, fine type of a girl, of quite superior manner.

Henri questioned: “_Vous parlez le Français?_” (You speak French?)

“_Oui, monsieur; j’ai demeure en le sud-est._” (Yes, monsieur; I have
lived in the southeast.)

The girl quickly added, with a smiling display of a fine row of teeth:
“And I speak the English, too. I have nursed the sick in London.”

“Glory be!” Billy using his favorite expression. “Get busy!”

Marie “got busy” with little pocket scissors, cut the jacket and shirt
free of the wound, washed away the clotted blood and soon brightly
announced:

“No bullet here; it went right through the flesh, high up; much blood,
but no harm to last.”

Cutting up a linen hand-towel, Marie skillfully bandaged the wound,
and, later, as neatly mended the slashes she had made in Henri’s jacket
and shirt.

For ten days the boys rested at the farmhouse, Henri rapidly recovering
strength.

They learned much about Belgium from Marie. She laughingly told Henri
that his French talk was good to carry him anywhere among the Walloons
in the southeastern half of Belgium, but in the northwestern half he
would not meet many of the Flemings who could understand him. “You
would have one hard time to speak Flemish,” she assured him.

Henri confided to Marie that they were bound for the valley of the
Meuse.

“La la,” cried the girl, “but you are taking the long way. Yet,” she
continued, “you missed some fighting by coming the way you did from
Bruges.”

On the eleventh morning Henri told Billy at breakfast that he (Henri)
was again as “fit as a fiddle.” “Let’s be moving,” he urged.

“All right.” Billy himself was getting restless. They had been
absolutely without adventure for ten long days.

But, when Henri returned from a visit to the aëroplane, he wore a long
face.

“There’s no more ‘ammunition’ in the tanks,” he wailed. “There isn’t as
much as two miles left.”

“That means some hiking on the ground.” With this remark Billy made a
critical survey of his shoes. “Guess they’ll hold out if the walking is
good.” Henri, however, was not in a humor to be amused.

“I say, Billy, what’s the matter with making a try for Roulers? Trouble
or no trouble, we’ll not be standing around like we were hitched. It
would be mighty easy if we could take the air. No use crying, though,
about spilt milk.”

Marie, who had been an attentive listener, putting on an air of
mystery, called the attention of the boys to a certain spot on the
cleanly scrubbed floor, over which was laid a small rug of home
weaving. The girl pushed aside the rug and underneath was shown the
lines of a trap-door, into which Marie inserted a chisel point. The
opening below disclosed a short flight of steps leading down to an
underground room, where candle light further revealed, among other
household treasures, such as a collection of antique silver and the
like, two modern bicycles.

“The boys who rode those,” said Marie, pointing to the cycles, “may
never use them again. They were at Liège when it fell, and never a word
from them since. On good roads and in a flat country you can travel far
on these wheels. Take them, and welcome, if you have to go.”

In an hour the boys were on the road. They left two gold-pieces under
the tablecloth and a first-class aëroplane as evidence of good faith.




CHAPTER X. ON THE ROAD TO ROULERS.


Our Aviator Boys had not for a long time been accustomed to use their
legs as vigorously and so continuously as required to make an endurance
record on a bicycle. They had no great use for legs when flying. But
they were light-hearted, and had been well fed, had enough in their
knapsacks to stave off hunger for several days, and, barring the fact
that Henri was still nursing a sore shoulder, ready to meet the best
or the worst. Billy carried a compass, also a mind full of directions
from Marie, and firmly believed that he could not miss the good old
town in the fertile meadow on the little river Mander. At least Henri
and himself could live or die trying.

They had already observed indications that, even with the strenuous
call to the colors of the Belgian men, the little kingdom was thickly
populated, and about every square inch of farm land was under close
cultivation.

“Suppose people lived this close together in Texas,” remarked Billy,
as they pedaled along; “why, a man as tall across the front as Colonel
McCready wouldn’t have room enough to turn around.”

“Yes, and from what we have heard of the war crowd working this way
we’ll have to have more room than this to keep from running into them.”
Henri was not in the same mood that he was when he found the aëroplane
tanks empty.

“Nothing like a scare-mark so far,” was Billy’s comment. “I have seen
only women in the fields.”

“Even the dogs have work to do here.”

Henri went on to explain that the small farmers, as a rule, cannot
afford to keep horses, and just now could not keep them if they had
them.

The boys had been fortunate in their first day’s travel as cyclists, in
that they had not even fallen in with the stragglers of the contending
armies reported in terrible conflict inside the Dixmude-Nieuport line.

In the afternoon of the second day, however, they took the wrong road,
one leading to Bixchoote.

In the distance they heard heavy and continuous artillery fire, and
decided to turn back. “Out of the frying-pan into what next?” as Billy
put it, when they found the woods north of Ypres were aflame with
bursting shells. Fighting in front and fighting in the rear.

“The sides are still open,” declared Henri, “even if both ends are
plugged.”

“But which side shall it be?” asked Billy.

The situation was one of great peril to the boys.

To get a better idea of the lay of the land, they rolled their bicycles
into the woods alongside the road and climbed into the low hanging
branches of a huge tree, then ascended to the very top of this monarch
of the forest.

From their lofty perch they could see quite a distance in all
directions, but they had no eyes for any part of the panorama after the
first glance to the south. The firing line stretched out before their
vision, presenting an awe-inspiring scene.

The shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian
soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their
dugouts and sent scattering to cover. The distant town was invisible
except for flames and smoke clouds rising above it.

The tide of battle streamed nearer to the wood where the boys had taken
shelter. From their high point of vantage they were soon forced to
witness one of the most horrible sights imaginable.

A heavy howitzer shell fell and burst in the midst of a Belgian
battery, which was making its way to the front, causing awful
destruction--mangled men and horses going down in heaps.

Henri was in a chill of horror, and Billy so shaken that it was
with difficulty that they resisted a wild desire to jump into
space--anything to shut out the appalling picture.

The next instant they were staring down upon a hand-to-hand conflict
in the woods, within two hundred yards of the tree in which they were
perched. British and Germans were engaged in a bayonet duel, in which
the former force triumphed, leaving the ground literally covered with
German wounded and dead, hardly a man in gray escaping the massacre.

“I can see nothing but red!” Henri was shaking like a leaf.

Billy gave his chum a sharp tap on the cheek with the palm of his hand,
hoping thus to divert Henri’s mind and restore his courage.

Billy himself had about all he could do to keep his teeth together,
but, by the unselfish devotion he gave to his comrade, he overcame his
fear.

“Come, Buddy,” he pleaded; “take a brace! Easy, now; there’s a way to
get out of this, I know there is. Put your foot here; your hand there;
steady; we’ll be off in a minute.”

By the time the boys had descended to the lower branches of the tree,
Henri was once more on “even keel,” in the language of the aviator.

A long limb of the tree extended out over the road. On this the boys
wormed their way to the very tip, intending to drop into the highway,
recover their bicycles, and make a dash for safety across the country
to the west, following the well defined trail worn smooth by the
passage of ammunition wagons.

As they clung to the limb, intently listening and alert for any
movement that would indicate a returning tide of battle in the
immediate neighborhood, a riderless horse, a magnificent coal-black
animal, carrying full cavalry equipment, came galloping down the road,
urged to ever increasing speed by the whipping against its flanks of
swinging holsters.

“Here’s the one chance in the world!”

Billy swung himself around and leaned forward like a trapeze performer
in a circus, preparing for a high dive into a net.

The horse’s high-flung head just grazed the leaves of the big branch,
bent down under the weight of the boys.

Billy dropped astride of the racing charger, saved from a heavy fall
in the road by getting a quick neck hold, seized the loose bridle
reins with convulsive grip and brought the foam-flecked animal to a
standstill within fifty yards. This boy had tamed more than one frisky
broncho down in Texas, U. S. A., and for a horse wearing the kind of a
curb bit in his mouth that this one did, Billy had a sure brake-setting
pull.

Henri made a cat-fall into the dusty road and right speedily got the
hand-up from his mounted comrade.

Off they went on the trail to the open west, with clatter of hoofs, and
the wind blowing free in the set, white faces of the gallant riders.




CHAPTER XI. THEY MEET A GENERAL.


“I don’t know where we are going, but we’re on the way,” sang Billy,
whose spirits now ranged to a high pitch. “This beats anything we’ve
rung up yet in our target practice over here,” he gloated. “Isn’t he
a jolly old roadster?” Billy had checked the horse to a slow canter,
after a run of two miles.

“Let’s have a bit of a rest.” Henri’s sore shoulder was troubling him.
He still had his knapsack with some jumbled food in it. Billy had lost
his food supply when he made his leap on the horse.

While the animal was cropping the short grass along the trail the
riders took their ease by lounging on the turf and feeding on their
crumbled lunch.

“This is a thirsty picnic,” asserted Billy. “My throat is as dry as
powder. Let’s see if there isn’t a spring ’round here.”

Hooking the bridle reins over his arm, Billy led the way on a search
for water. At the bottom of a wooded hill the boys found themselves in
a marsh, and though bitter and brackish the water was a grateful relief
to their parched tongues. The horse acted as though he had not had a
drink for a week.

A little further on, in a meadow, the boys made a singular discovery.
They were amazed to see an important looking personage in a gorgeous
uniform, covered with decorations, wandering about the meadow like a
strayed sheep.

“What the dickens is that?” exclaimed Henri.

“Give it up.” Billy couldn’t even make a guess. “He shows gay but
harmless. I think I’ll look him over.”

On approaching the richly attired wanderer the boys with wonder noticed
that he carried a gold-tipped baton and from a shiny knapsack on his
shoulders rolls of music protruded.

The strange being kept proclaiming that he was going to direct the
German military music on a triumphal parade through the streets of
Paris. Henri could understand that much of the disconnected talk, and
also that the speaker was the head musician of the German army in
Belgium. He had been cut off from his command and become possessed by
a fit of melancholy from which the boys found it impossible to rouse
him. They divided with him what remained of the contents of Henri’s
knapsack, but could not induce him to proceed with them.

“It’s a pity that a man like that should lose his reason. But this
dreadful war strikes in most any kind of way, and if it isn’t one way
it’s another.”

Henri was still thinking of the horrible happening when the Belgian
battery was literally blown to pieces under his very eyes.

“There’s a peaceful sleeper here, anyhow,” said Billy, pausing, as they
trudged along, leading the horse toward the trail. He pointed to a
little mound above which had been set a rude wooden cross. It was the
grave of a French soldier, for on the cross had been placed his cap,
showing the name of his regiment. On the mound, too, had been scattered
a few wild flowers.

“Somebody who had a heart for the cause or the fighter must have passed
this way,” observed Henri. “The burial of a soldier near the battle
lines hasn’t much ceremony, I am told, and surely doesn’t include
flowers.”

The boys slept that night in the open, with the saddle for a pillow.
They were awakened just before dawn by the restless antics of Bon Ami
(“Good Friend”)--for so Henri had named the horse. The animal snorted
and tugged at the tether as if scenting some invisible approach through
the woods, at the edge of which the three had been passing the night.

Billy and Henri were on their feet in an instant, rubbing their eyes
and trying to locate by sight or sound among the trees or elsewhere in
the shadowy landscape the cause of Bon Ami’s disturbed action.

Even if the boys had suddenly made up their minds to run to cover, they
would not have had time to go very far, for in the instant a scout
troop rode out of the woods and straight at them.

The cavalrymen spread in fan shape, and in a moment Billy, Henri and
Bon Ami were completely surrounded.

In good but gruff English the ranking officer of the troop commanded:
“Come here and give an account of yourselves.”

Billy and Henri made haste to obey, and looking up at the officer
on horseback offered their smartest imitation of a military salute.
Peering down at them the cavalryman exclaimed:

“So help me, they’re mere boys. Who let you out, my fine kiddies, at
this top of the morning? Here, Ned,” calling to one of the nearest
troopers, “bring the hot milk and the porridge.”

Billy was becoming slightly nettled at this banter. He had no desire to
be taken seriously, but yet not quite so lightly.

“I am an American citizen, sir, traveling, with my friend, on personal
business.”

“Will you listen at that now?” laughed the cavalryman whom the first
officer had called “Ned.”

“Do you know or have you thought that ‘personal business’ is just now
rather a drug on the market in these parts?”

The chief was again addressing the boys, or, rather, Billy, who had
elected himself spokesman.

“It does appear that the soldiers have the right of way here,” admitted
Billy, “but we came in such a hurry that we couldn’t stop to inquire in
particular about the rules.”

“That’s a pretty good horse you have.” It was light enough now for the
officer to take in the fine points of Bon Ami. “Where did you get him?”

Billy explained the circumstances.

“Well, you are plucky ones,” commented the officer. “Now,” he
continued, assuming again the tone of command, “saddle your steed and
fall in.”

The troop wheeled back toward the north and the boys rode stirrup to
stirrup with the bluff captain.

At the noon hour the riders reached the field working quarters of the
British commander. A small headquarters guard lounged on the grass
around the farmhouse that sheltered the general and his staff, a dozen
automobiles and motorcycles were at hand and grooms were leading about
the chargers of the officers.

The scout troop halted at a respectful distance and dismounted.

“Put on your best manners,” suggested the troop captain as he preceded
the boys in quickstep to headquarters.

After a brief conference with an orderly, the boys were ushered into
the presence of several officers in fatigue uniform seated at a table
littered with papers. At the head of the table was a ruddy-faced man,
clean-shaven, with iron-gray hair, to whom all heads bent in deference.

“We have visitors, I see.” The general’s tone and manner were kindly.

The boys stood speechless, their eyes fixed upon the little Maltese
badge of honor suspended from the left breast of the general’s coat by
a crimson ribbon. It was the Victoria Cross!




CHAPTER XII. WITH THE BRITISH ARMY.


“Now, my young men,” said the general, speaking briskly and to the
point, “what are you doing here, where are you going, and is there
anything else you wish to say?”

As Billy had not as yet opened his mouth, he thought the general was
rather ahead of his questions in the last quoted particular.

“Allow me, general, to introduce Mr. Trouville, a native of France, who
only lacks the years to vote in America. He has the desire, I assure
you. As for myself, I am William Thomas Barry of Maine, United States
of America, known as Billy--and together we are known as the Aviator
Boys. We are in the flying trade, and with your kind permission we
would like to fly now.”

The officers observed the boys with new interest. The London _Times_
had some months ago printed the experiences of a prominent English
visitor to America, who had seen these young aërialists in some of
their sky-scraping exhibits, and had even taken a short flight with
Billy.

“We military fellows are all great for aviation--it’s a big card in
this war game”--this observation from the member of staff seated
nearest the general--a thoroughbred sort of man who also wore the
badge of valor. “And more than that,” he added, “I have a boy of my own
in the flying corps of the army.”

It occurred to Billy that this officer might care to hear the sad story
of the death flight of the British youth that they had witnessed on the
shores of the North Sea.

Billy, in real dramatic style, described the thrilling incident. There
was no lack of attention on the part of his listeners; especially did
the man who looked like a thoroughbred seem lost to everything else but
the tale the boy was so earnestly telling. When Billy produced from the
inside pocket of his blouse the photograph and ring that he had taken
from the heart pocket and finger of the dead aviator there was strained
silence, first broken by the man who had been most intent as a listener.

“It was my boy, my own son!”

This man who had faced shot and shell with never a tremor on many a
blackened battlefield, and had won the magic initials “V. C.” after his
name, bowed his head in grief and not ashamed of the sob in his throat.

“Some day, God willing,” he softly said to Billy, “you shall guide his
mother and me to that resting place.”

A bugle call outside aroused the officers to the grim business of the
hour. The roar of another battle would soon be on.

The general turned the boys over to the care of a veteran soldier, a
sergeant, with strict orders that they should not be allowed to leave
the rear of the brigade about to advance.

Billy and Henri, however, had the opportunity of observing during
their first actual army experience, even though of the rear guard, the
striking device of a French officer in order to steady his men, in an
infantry regiment, called upon for the first time to face the discharge
of German shells. For a moment the men hesitated, and even made a
slight movement of withdrawal. Instantly the officer seemed to have
taken in the situation. The boys heard him shout:

“Halt! Order arms!”

Then, quite coolly, he turned his back upon the enemy--for the first
and last time--whipped out his camera, called upon his men not to move,
and proceeded to take a leisurely snapshot of his company while shells
were falling all around.

The men were astonished, but the officer’s purpose was served. The
company was steadied, and the boys, from the top of a supply wagon,
watched them go gallantly to work. Sad to relate, the watchers also
saw the gallant officer fall soon afterward, struck on the head by a
fragment of shell.

“I tell you, General Sherman was right in what he said about war.”
Billy was very positive in this expression of opinion.

On that day of fearful fighting the boys saw an entire German regiment
perish in the rush of water which swept through the trenches after the
Allies had destroyed the dikes; they saw hundreds of men and horses
electrocuted on the heavily charged wire entanglements before the
trenches.

At nightfall Billy and Henri, heartsick with the horror of it all,
crawled under the wagon cover and fought nightmares through the long
hours before another day.

It was raining in torrents when the boys peeped through the tear in the
wagon shelter early the next morning, and it had turned sharply cold.
The roar of the batteries had slackened for the time being, and it was
a welcome moment for Billy and Henri, who on the day previous had heard
more gunpowder racket than ever they did on all the Fourths of July
they had ever known rolled into one.

Stepping out gingerly into the mud, the boys looked around for their
friendly guardian, Sergeant Scott. He was nowhere to be seen among the
few soldiers in khaki uniforms and woolen caps moving about among the
wagons. They soon learned that the sergeant had made a capture during
the night of one of the enemy’s secret agents who had penetrated the
lines for the purpose of cutting telephone wires. The spy or sniper
carried cutters and a rifle. From behind the lines with the rifle he
had been shooting at men passing to and fro, but when he ventured
inside with the cutters the sergeant nabbed him, though the invader
was cleverly disguised in British outfit. Both captor and captive were
up-field at an “interview,” from which only the sergeant returned.

When he observed the boys shivering in their tracks, Sergeant Scott
called to a teamster to fetch a blanket from one of the wagons.
Borrowing a knife from the teamster, the sergeant slashed the big army
blanket in two in the middle, doubled each fold and made two slits in
the top.

“Jump into these, my Jackies,” he ordered; “shove your arms through.
Now you won’t catch a frog in your lungs, and you’re swell enough
to make a bet on the races. Come along and tighten your belts with
something in the way of rations.”

The boys needed no second bidding, and their belts were very snug when
they had finished.

“By the way,” confided the sergeant, “Colonel Bainbridge has taken a
heap of interest in you youngsters. His son, I heard, lost his life in
one of those flying machines.”

“Yes, we were the ones that told him about it. He’s sure a grand man,”
added Billy.

“Well,” continued the sergeant, “there are some of us going to work
around toward Lille and the River Lys region to assist in extension of
the Allies’ line there. If Colonel Bainbridge commands the movement,
between ‘you and I and the gate-post,’ yours truly wants to go ’long.”

“So do we!” The boys spoke as one.




CHAPTER XIII. THE BOYS UNDER FIRE.


Colonel Bainbridge did command, and Sergeant Scott, Billy Barry and
Henri Trouville went along.

“I wish they would let us ride Bon Ami.”

Billy had noted the handsome horse they had captured prancing along
carrying a heavyweight cavalryman, while Henri and himself were perched
beside a teamster on the front seat of a supply wagon.

“Maybe they were afraid that you would run away,” drawled the teamster.
“Sergeant Scott says you’re too skittish to turn loose.”

“The sergeant will be putting handcuffs on us next,” laughed Billy.

The teamster set his teeth in a plug of tobacco, snapped the whiplash
over the big bay team and with a twinkle in his eye started the verse
of some soldier ditty:

  “‘Said Colonel Malone to the sergeant bold,
  These are the traps I give you to hold,
      If they are gone when I come back
      You’re just the boy I’ll put on the rack.’”

“That’s just it,” added the teamster, changing from song to the usual
drawl, “if the sergeant lets you come to harm the colonel would cut the
stripes from his coat. And what’s more the sergeant is kind of struck
on you himself. Git-ap,”--to the horses.

It was at the crossing of the Lys at Warneton that the boys had another
baptism of fire.

The crossing was strongly held by the Germans with a barricade
loopholed at the bottom to enable the men to fire while lying down. The
Allies’ cavalry, with the artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and
scattered the defenders.

In the square of the town the boys saw the greatest display of
fireworks that ever dazzled their young eyes.

One of the buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a
shower of star shells at the same time made the place as light as day.

Out of the surrounding houses the Germans poured a terrific fire from
rifles and machine guns.

The Allies’ cavalry got away with a loss of eight or nine men, and
Sergeant Scott headed volunteers that went back and carried away
wounded comrades from this dreadful place.

Billy and Henri rushed at the sergeant when he returned from this
daring performance and joined hands in a sort of war dance around their
hero.

“The Victoria Cross for yours, old top!” cried Billy.

“You ought to have it this minute!” echoed Henri.

“Quit your jabber, you chatterboxes,” said the big sergeant playfully,
shaking his fist at his admirers, but it could be plainly seen that he
was mightily pleased with the demonstration.

“You and I will have to do something to keep up with this man,”
remarked Billy to Henri, with a mock bow to the sergeant.

“None of that,” growled the sergeant, “your skylarking doesn’t go on
the ground, and not on this ground, anyhow.”

But the boys had grown tired of being just in the picture and not in
its making.

“The sergeant doesn’t seem to think that we have ever crossed a danger
line the way he coddles us.” Billy was ready for argument on this point.

“Wish we had him up in the air a little while,” said Henri, “he
wouldn’t be so quick to dictate.”

It was in this mood, during the advance and on the night of the next
day, that the boys eluded the vigilant eye of the sergeant long enough
to attempt a look around on their own account.

In the dark they stumbled on the German trenches.

Billy grasped Henri’s arm and they turned and made for the British
lines, as fast as their legs could carry them, but the fire directed at
them was so heavy that they had to throw themselves on the ground and
crawl.

There was no cover at hand, and the chances looked mighty desperate for
the pair, when Billy saw, close by, an enormous hole in the ground,
made by the explosion of a “black maria,” the name given by the
soldiers to the projectiles of the big German howitzers.

Into this the boys scrambled, panting and scared to the limit.

“Wouldn’t this jar you?”

Henri had no answer to Billy’s quickfire query. He didn’t think it
required any just then. He was “jarred,” in the way the word was used.

“It’s a pretty pickle we’re in,” Henri managed to say when a shell
screamed over the hole.

“It sure is,” admitted Billy, as a round-shot scattered dust particles
and showered them into the hiding place.

“‘We won’t go home till morning,’” this warble by Henri, a rather
feeble attempt to be gay.

“Maybe you won’t go home at all,” was the gloomy expression of opinion
by Billy.

“I wonder if the sergeant has missed us yet?” Henri was wondering.

The ground was shaking and then a sound as though the earth was being
hammered with ten thousand clubs in as many giant hands.

In the early dawn the Allies were charging the German entrenchments.

The howitzers thundered; battle cries and commands resounded.

The Allies’ forces whirled by and on both sides of the underground
shelter where the boys were crouching.

With the clash of arms behind them Billy and Henri clambered out of the
hole and spurted for dear life and safety.

When the troopers came back from the fight, the sergeant, with heavy
stride, came to the wagon into which the boys had crawled.

“Come out of there,” he commanded.

The boys instantly obeyed and in sheepish manner presented themselves
to the severely erect soldier.

“You’ll be buried without the benefit of a preacher if you try another
trick like that.” This was all the sergeant said, but he looked
daggers.




CHAPTER XIV. IN AN ARMORED MOTOR CAR.


On the way to Arras the boys had their first experience aboard an
armored motor car, equipped with machine guns. Quite a promotion from
the teamster’s seat of a supply wagon!

How the sergeant ever consented to let his charges join the crew of
Belgians operating the war machine is not known. Perhaps he was not
told until it was too late to object.

But there they were, Billy and Henri, as large as life, out “Uhlan
hunting,” as the soldiers put it. The boys knew that a Uhlan was a kind
of light cavalry, or lancer, in the German army, and they had heard
that he was “game,” but never before in the sense of game to be hunted.

As for that, hardly a day passed but the boys learned something new
from the soldiers.

But a short time before at La Bassee they had seen one of these armored
cars return from a dash ahead of the main body loaded with spoils in
the shape of lancer caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other
trophies, which the crew distributed as souvenirs to a crowd in the
market place.

The next day one of the cars that went out never came back. The Uhlans
probably took it for a trophy.

Whenever you see a splendid piece of tapestry or hangings displayed
in a window, museum, or house, you may think of Arras, the little old
town on the right bank of the narrow little river Scarpe, right in the
center of the line of battle between Lille and Amiens, and remember
that our boys were now following that line in France.

From the armored car the boys in the distance saw that famous old
belfry, said to be 240 feet high, rising gracefully above the town
hall, and on top of which was a huge crown. A day later this tower was
wrecked by a shell in furious bombardment.

During this journey in the armored car the boys were filled with
admiration of the dash and skill displayed by the Belgian crew. They
were also greatly interested in the hardy cyclists, who apparently
without effort kept up with the pace of the big machine. In some of the
villages through which they passed, the inhabitants met the cyclists
with kisses, in some of the roads the cyclists met barricades and
machine guns.

“If a doctor told you that you needed change to help your health,
Henri, you can write him that you’re getting it.”

Billy was finding this new war game very much to his liking.

“You’ll have word from the doctor without writing,” retorted Henri, “if
you don’t quit standing up in the car.”

Even then bullets were whizzing past them. The car had suddenly come
upon a small party of the German mounted troops, firing with short-arms
from the saddle.

The Belgian gunners instantly responded from the car and swept the road.

“On to Arras!”

Billy made the grim soldiers smile with his enthusiasm.

When the car rolled into the quaint old town of Arras, the boys
confessed that they had never seen quite the like of it before.

“There’s a building that I’d like to move to Bangor,” said Billy,
pointing to the Hotel de Ville, one of the finest in France, with its
Gothic façade rising upon seven arches of different sizes.

“There’s a lot of rare old houses here, I tell you,” asserted Henri,
“but I never saw them until now, except on postcards. By the way,
Billy, take a look at those and think of the days of Christopher
Columbus.”

Henri referred to the Petite place and the Grande place, curious relics
of the long gone days of Spanish rule, with their queer gables and old
arcades resting on curiously shaped sand-stone columns.

“This is the town, you know,” advised Henri, “where Robespierre was
born.”

“Humph! This war has kicked up a bigger muss in France than ‘Roby’ ever
did.”

Billy was not inclined to concede that anything had ever created a stir
ahead of that in which he was mixing.

The stir of the next day was, indeed, something to be remembered. Some
of the biggest of the German guns were brought into action.

Billy and Henri had been napping, and never were naps more rudely
disturbed.

Shells from the great guns used by the bombarding forces had a way of
starting on their course with a minute-long shriek, which seemed to
come from the shell itself. When the boys’ eyes had been cleared from
sleep they could not only plainly see the projectiles in the beginning
of their flight, but also distinctly observe the bellowing air rushing
back to fill the vacancy left by the discharge and bounding and
rebounding in a disturbed sea of gas.

“What a sight!” cried Billy when the first period of nervous strain had
passed.

“Something fierce.” Henri’s comment was boy-like.

The boys were pacing in one of the antique streets with fragments of
wood and chips of stone falling about them when they heard a shout,
followed down the avenue by the shouter. It was the sergeant rattling
like a milk wagon with his military fixings.

“Hustle, you young bearcats; get to cover!”

With that the sergeant yanked each boy by the shoulder into a hospital
building nearby.

“Here’s help for you,” said the sergeant to one of the Red Cross
nurses. “Keep them busy, and,” he added with especial emphasis,
“inside.”

That gentle nurse, a young English girl, the boys learned afterward,
was struck by a shell and carried dying on a litter from a battlefield
where she had been attending the wounded. Her name was Winnie Bell,
and she rests in the cemetery at Le Mans, with the bodies of French
and German soldiers around her, in whose service she gave up her noble
young life.

The boys moved about with the nurse among the wounded, constantly
growing in number.

“Oh! the pity of it all,” she murmured, putting a cup of water to the
quivering lips of a sufferer, a mere lad, wearing the brilliant uniform
of a French trooper, with a gaping wound in his shoulder.

Henri, leaning forward to give the nurse a bandage from the packet he
was carrying, caught sight of the soldier’s upturned face.

“My brother Francois!” he moaned, dropping on his knees beside the
litter.

The wounded soldier opened his eyes, and the agony of his hurt did not
keep him from smiling.




CHAPTER XV. FAREWELL TO FRANCOIS.


“You’re feeling better now; I know you are; really, you must say that,
Francois. I can’t bear to see you lying there so still and so white.”

Henri hovered about the cot of his wounded brother after the surgeon
had dressed and bandaged the injured shoulder.

He had forgotten the war storm that raged outside, and even for the
moment ceased to remember that his dearest chum, Billy, was ever at his
elbow with ready sympathy.

“Tell me, Francois,” Henri pleaded, “that you are going to get well.”

“Of course he is,” assured a mild voice from the foot of the cot, “but
you must come away and give him a chance to sleep.”

“Sleep! With all that roar outside?”

“Perhaps, my boy, the surgeon gave him something that would tend to
quiet him. You must calm yourself, and remember that you have your duty
with me. He did his duty without fear or question. Are you less a man
than your brother?”

The nurse well knew how to manage in a case of this kind. She had
tested the metal of a proud young spirit, in the full belief that it
would ring true.

“Come along now,” she gently urged. “Let me show you that thought of
self does not fit here.”

They stood at the cot side of a mortally wounded Belgian soldier.

“We found a letter in his pocket,” softly voiced the nurse, “saying
that he was enclosing a pair of shoes for his three-year-old baby with
the money he had earned as a scout in King Albert’s army. Here are the
little shoes,” lying on the covering sheet.

Billy felt like he was choking, and Henri simply lifted the border of
the nurse’s apron to his lips.

It was several days before Henri obtained permission to talk with his
brother. There was so much to talk about that the few minutes allowed
were as so many seconds.

“But I’ve news from mother!” confided Henri to Billy--“she was all
right when Francois last saw her in Paris, and she got the word I sent
her about my going to the château, and why I was going. It was Francois
who wrote me about the gold and jewels being left behind. Mother tried
to get word to me not to take the risk; she said that more than all
else she wanted me to come straight to her if I could. It makes me
ashamed to see Jules and Francois under the colors and I without, but
I’ve made up my mind to do this thing I have set out to do, and I’ll
stick until it is finished.”

“You can count me in to the finish, Buddy. You stick to the job and you
can safely bet that I’ll stick to you.”

“Don’t I know that, my truest of friends?”

Henri gave Billy a hand-squeeze that made that husky youngster wince.

Francois was rapidly regaining strength, his wound nicely healing, and,
with the progress, his interest in Henri’s mission to the Meuse was
first in mind.

“In my letter,” he said to Henri, “I feared to give details that might
be read by other eyes than yours. You only would know even the name
and location of our house by that letter. But I got it all right from
mother about the secret hiding place of the fortune.

“Neither Jules, you, nor I had ever learned of the more than
a century-old plan of the Château Trouville, handed down by a
great-grandfather, which included an underground way from the hills
through the valley and ending in the north wing of the château.

“Mother herself had almost forgotten that such a place was in existence
until she recalled that some thirty years ago our father gave her what
he jokingly called a honeymoon trip through the tunnel, and she also
recalled that it was a journey which she never repeated. She spoiled a
new dress going through.

“Of course, you and I know that the old house itself is full of queer
corners, walks between the walls, panel openings and all that; we
played hide-and-seek there enough, but the outside passage we never
struck. Father might have told us about it if he had lived.”

“I suppose the tunnel came in handy when old times were squally,”
suggested Henri.

“Never handier, I think, than it may be to you if you ever get within
a mile of what you are going after,” replied Francois; “you will never
get in by the front door the way things are now.”

“Wish you would go along with Billy and me.”

“Not I. I travel only under orders. I am a soldier. You are still your
own master. Now, while you are here, ask nurse to hand you my coat, if
there is anything left of it.”

“Ah, thank you, nurse.”

“Feel in the lining back of the breast pocket, Henri. That’s it. Cut
the seam, brother. There you are.”

Henri held in his hand a thin roll of paper.

“Open it.”

Henri did as directed and saw that it was a miniature map, lined with
red ink.

With their heads together the brothers studied the outlines, Francois
explaining that he made this copy from a section of the original
parchment.

“Jules has a copy, too,” continued Francois, “but he is in the same
boat with me--he can’t quit his post. As I said before, it’s up to you
and your friend to get the family treasure out of the château. If you
can get near enough, this paper will show you the way to get in and out
unseen, even if the house be full of soldiers.”

Henri borrowed needle and thread from the nurse and sewed the paper
inside the collar of his blouse.

A week later the sergeant informed the boys that marching orders had
been given, and they were to move with a detachment to the southwest.

“Going our way, hurrah!”

Henri then remembered that this meant parting from his brother, and was
less inclined to rejoice when this sad thought came to his mind.

Francois was seated near one of the low windows of the hospital
building, enjoying the bright sunlight that shone through the open
casement.

He had a smile in his eyes when he saw Henri, with knapsack on his
back, approaching.

“I know it’s good-by, brother,” he said. “But take it easy, old boy.
We’ll have a grand reunion some day.”

Henri lovingly clasped the free hand of the young soldier, in silent
farewell, bravely squared his shoulders and marched away to join Billy
and the sergeant, waiting at the door.

A bugle sounded and the soldier column swung away from war-torn Arras.




CHAPTER XVI. THE VALLEY OF THE MEUSE.


From a hillside the boys looked upon and over the great battlefield
where the German army was then trying to break through the line of
barrier forts between Verdun and Toul and the opposing French forces.

In front lay the level valley of the Meuse, with the towns of St.
Mihiel and Bannoncour nestling upon the green landscape.

Beyond and behind the valley rose a tier of hills on which the French
were then striving with all their might to hold an intrenched position.

Bursting shells were throwing up columns of white or black fog, and
cloudlets of white smoke here and there showed where a position was
under shrapnel fire.

The sergeant had presented the boys with a high-powered field glass,
and to their delight they picked out an occasional aëroplane hovering
over the lines.

“Look at that little snapper,” cried Billy; “that’s a French wasp;
it’s smaller and lighter than our kind; they call it the ‘peasant’s
terror.’ Gee! Seventy-five miles an hour is nothing to that plane.”

“The aviator is giving signals!”

Henri had his eyes glued to the glass.

“Looks like a hawk circling around a chick.”

Billy was again taking his turn.

“He’d better climb quick.”

Henri noted that some of the big mortars were trying for the airman,
and he had learned that these mortars could throw a shell a mile or
more in the air.

The aviator evidently was aware of the fact, too, for he went higher
and higher, until the machine looked like a mere scratch in the sky.

The boys returned to the trenches with Rene Granger, a lad of eighteen,
who had enlisted, he said, at Lorraine, and who had already won the
rank of corporal in a French regiment.

The three were together when the colonel of Rene’s regiment called
for a volunteer to carry the orders of the staff to the different
companies. The colonel did not conceal the fact that the mission was
one of great danger. The young corporal stepped forward, and offered
his service. He listened attentively to the colonel’s instructions.
Then with a quiet _c’est bien_ (it is well), he started.

The boys saw him reach the first trench in safety and deliver his
message.

The next stage of his journey was a dangerous one, for he had to pass
over an open space of 300 yards, swept by the enemy’s fire. He went
down on his hands and knees and crawled, only lifting his head in order
to see his way.

Within a few yards of the trenches a bullet struck him in the thigh. He
crept behind a tree, hastily dressed the wound, then dragged himself to
the trench, where he delivered his message to the commander.

They tried to stop him there, but the boy refused.

“I have given my word,” he said.

There remained still two companies to visit. One of them was quite
near, but the other was 600 yards away, far advanced in the zone of
fire.

Rene began his terrible journey. At every few yards he was compelled to
stop, so fierce was the suffering caused by his wound. Bullets whistled
around him, and one pierced his kepi.

He was within twenty yards of safety when a shell burst in front of
him and fragments struck him, inflicting a terrible wound. He lay
unconscious, but he had been seen from the trenches and two ambulance
men ran out, placed him on a stretcher, and carried him to their
company.

Rene became conscious once more, called for the commanding officer, and
almost with his last breath whispered the orders he had been given.

“Oh, that he could have lived!”

Henri could scarcely realize that their new-found friend, their cheery
companion of the past few days, was cold in death. But they brought him
back to his regiment, in scarred body, for honor.

“He kept his word,” said the colonel, who turned away that none might
see what a soldier must hide.

“There’s a boy that was all gold; I am grateful for having known him,
and better for it, too; he knew how to live and how to die.”

This was Billy’s brief but heartfelt tribute to the memory of their
fallen comrade.

But our boys must push on to their goal, and though their story must be
seamed and crossed by these woes of war, yet it is their story.

“Château Chantillon still stands, and there is Château Chambley, and
there, yes, there, is Château Trouville--my home.”

Henri was drawing the distance close with the powerful field glass, and
talking over his shoulder to Billy.

“With a wall of steel around them,” commented Billy.

“But we are going to get through it,” was Henri’s determined reply.

“Speed the day!”

Billy was ready for the effort. Besides, he had been thinking a good
deal about Bangor in the last few days.

“If those old guns over there,” said Henri, “would only let us alone
until we found the mouth of that tunnel it’s a sure thing that we could
be under the roof of the Trouvilles in less than two hours.”

“Maybe the old map’s no good.”

Billy never had been much of a hand for ancient history.

“If it’s all the same to you, we’ll give it a test to-morrow night.”

Henri did not take kindly to Billy’s unbelief.

“If we can get away from the sergeant, I will be at your heels,”
announced Billy, and he meant every word of it.




CHAPTER XVII. THE POINT OF ROCKS.


The French and allied forces were located in a range of wooded hills
running north and south along the east bank of the Meuse. They had
fortified steeply terraced slopes with successive rows of trenches,
permitting line above line of infantry to fire against an advancing
enemy.

At the foot of the hillside is the village of Vignueilles, a little
stone-built town that had been shot into ruins by artillery. A boy
from this village, who had taken refuge with the soldiers on the high
ground, found a former playmate when he met Henri. This boy’s father
had once been employed as a gardener by the Trouvilles.

As Billy said, “they jabbered French until they made him tired.”

The new friend had the given name of Joseph, but Henri called him
“Reddy.” Billy called him a “muff,” because he could not understand
half that the new boy said.

But Joseph, or Reddy, by any name was just now a tower of strength,
even if the tower was only five feet three inches up from the ground.

As Leon, the little Belgian, served at Ypres, so Reddy was going to
prove a big help in the adventure at hand.

He had chased rabbits into almost every hole in these hills, and in
the woods he could travel even beyond the German frontier by as many
different routes as he counted fingers on his hands.

Billy, Henri and Reddy were in close conference all day, so quiet,
and so cautious, for the once, in their movements, that the sergeant
wavered between suspicion and anxiety, the first because he thought his
charges must be up to something, and the second for the reason that he
feared they were going to be ill.

He might have imagined relief from anxiety by thinking the boys were
tremendously hungry had he seen their frequent trips during the day to
the places where provisions were stored.

Had he seen them, however, taking several small safety lanterns from
the ammunition department, suspicion would have stood first in his mind.

“The tunnel begins at a point 500 yards directly west of Fort Les
Paroches, and it is called ‘point of rocks,’” Henri reading the notes
and following with a pin point the lines of the little map that
Francois had given him.

The mentioned fort had been silenced only the day before by German
mortars, and its location was now marked by a huge mound of black,
plowed up earth.

“That’s only three miles from here.”

Reddy was eager to show his knowledge of the neighborhood.

Henri passed Reddy’s statements on to Billy in English.

“‘Bowlders laid in the form of a cross show the place of entrance,’”
Henri continuing to read.

“‘Stone slab at foot of cross. Remove stone and find iron ring in oak
cover. Lift cover and find stone steps.’”

“Seems simple enough if we had a derrick.”

Billy was still doubtful.

“The only thing I fear,” said Henri, paying no attention to Billy’s
pert remark, “is that with time the markings may be wiped out by
changes of earth formation, forest growth or the like.”

“No,” quickly advised Reddy, “if it’s the place that I’ve seen there
are still a lot of rocks there.”

“I suppose you could find the place for us, couldn’t you, Reddy?” asked
Henri.

“Yes! Yes!”

Reddy was on his feet to furnish proof without further delay.

“We can get there through the ravine,” he was in a hurry to add.

“When the sergeant goes to inspect the outposts, then, let’s make the
break.”

Billy was catching the spirit of the occasion.

So it was while good Sergeant Scott was performing a military duty the
boys shouldered their well filled knapsacks, and, with Reddy leading,
in the dusk succeeded in eluding the sentry first in the way.

The cunning of Reddy as a woodsman was wonderfully shown by the manner
in which he took to the brush and the way he avoided notice. It seemed
hardly any time at all before the boys were silently picking their way,
shadow-like, in the depths of the pitch-dark ravine.

They had heard no challenge until Billy planted his foot on a fallen
twig, which cracked like a pistol shot.

“Who goes there?”

Sharp question, in French, from above.

Down went the boys flat on the ground, concealed by overhanging bushes.

The sentry repeated the challenge.

All as silent as the grave.

The boys scarcely breathed. They knew the guard was one of the allied
forces, but yet they had no desire to take issue with him. Even if he
only turned them back to quarters their chances of getting away again
would be few and far between. The sergeant would see to that.

Some ten minutes passed. It seemed longer to the truants in the ravine.

Then, as if satisfied that the noise was without menace, the sentry
resumed his pace, and the boys flitted on as if shod with velvet.

The path took an upward turn, and Reddy nudged his companions to a halt.

“We’re there,” he whispered.




CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE MOUTH OF THE TUNNEL.


“We’re on some good old fighting ground,” remarked Henri, who was well
versed in history relating to the country around Château Trouville.
“The Roman legions held forth here centuries ago.”

“They would not have ‘held forth’ any great while under that German
fire the other day.”

Billy was not far wrong on that proposition.

The boys were doing this talking while Reddy was lighting the lanterns.
These lanterns were bull’s-eyes, and could be turned dark in an instant.

There was no shelling of this spot that night, for there was not enough
of the fort left to make a target, and the trenches were attracting all
the fire.

The boys could proceed with their work with some degree of safety.

Reddy painfully located the rocky point by falling over a big stone in
the dark, the boys having decided to go it blind until they actually
had to use the lights.

“You haven’t broken a leg, have you, Reddy?” Henri anxiously inquired.

“No, I guess not,” was Reddy’s reply, “but I think I’ve kicked a toe
loose, anyhow.”

The boys switched the masks off their lanterns and three slender bars
of light danced among the stones.

“Don’t see any cross.”

“Be patient, Billy,” urged Henri, “we haven’t been here five minutes
yet.”

For the next hour the boys circled around the place without finding a
trace of the markings described in the map.

Billy and Henri sat down to rest, but Reddy, who seemed never to tire,
continued to explore on his own account. He walked over to the ruins of
the fort, and began to measure, by taking long steps, on a line some
distance from the point where the boys had been searching for the cross.

Suddenly Reddy stopped. Billy and Henri could see that the ball of
light in his lantern had quit moving.

“Wonder if he has found anything?” Henri jumped at the prospect.

“Nothing like going to see,” and Billy with the words was off like a
shot.

Sure enough, Reddy had struck a warm trail. All of the cross was not
under his feet, but there was sufficient outline to show sections of
the original design. Some of the stones had shifted away, but there,
beyond doubt, was that for which the boys were looking.

The lantern rays were all directed to the foot of the outline, that is,
the end of the longest row of bowlders.

The directions had read: “Stone slab at foot of cross.”

The boys bent to their knees and with faces close to the earth.

“There’s a corner of it!”

Reddy was making all the discoveries.

Billy and Henri commenced clawing the dirt like hungry chickens. Reddy
stood up and used his feet to better advantage. This combined effort
was rewarded by a clear view of the slab.

It was there, and Billy could not now deny it.

“Remove stone and find iron ring in oak cover.”

But how were the boys to “remove” that stone? Reddy had a lightning
thought. All his thoughts came that way.

Away he went, chasing the lantern ray ahead of him. In that heap of
crumpled earth and stone, lately Fort Les Paroches, there was surely
something in the way of iron or steel out of which to make a stone
lifter.

Reddy was back in a few minutes dragging not only one but two steel
bars which had been knocked like nine-pins from their fastenings.

“Here’s levers for you,” he announced gleefully.

Billy saw what he had, even if he did not understand what he said.

Henri and Billy with the bar-points punched holes at the side of the
slab and got a purchase. Then they pried with all their strength. At
first the slab did not budge an inch.

Reddy added his weight to one of the bars and the slab was loosened in
its setting.

“Now another heave!” panted Billy.

“Up she comes!” said Henri.

The slab was lifted high enough to give a chance for shoulder pressure,
and the rest was easy, for when once out of its setting the stone had
no great weight.

The lanterns revealed the fact that the workers had been rightly
directed up to the minute.

The oak cover was there, and also the iron ring. Through this ring the
boys shoved the bars and pulled the cover away from the opening.

The stone steps were there; somewhat crumbly, but there. The directions
were verified to the finish.

“Don’t rush in there until you give the fresh air a chance to go first.”

Reddy knew a lot of things that he had never learned from books.

But now it was Henri who was getting impatient.

“It ought not to take long for the tunnel to clear, and, what’s more,
we are going to get out of sight before daylight.”

Daylight was rapidly approaching.




CHAPTER XIX. THROUGH THE SECRET PASSAGE.


“It’s me first this time,” declared Henri. “I’m on the way home,
and it’s the duty of this son of my mother to open the door for our
guests.”

“You bluffer, you,” said Billy, “what you want is to take the first
risk of going into that hole. I know you.”

Henri did not stop to argue. He cat-footed it down the stone steps,
holding his lantern in front of him at arm’s length.

Billy came next, and Reddy last. The last boy, however, was not the
least when it came to thinking. He thought that it would be a good
idea to fix the oak cover so that he could support it with his hands
and let it drop again over the opening when the three should have gone
underground.

It would give a chance prowler no opportunity to find the mouth of the
tunnel, and either follow them or set up an alarm that would result in
the boys being caught like rats in a trap.

So Reddy wisely closed the way behind them, and thus insured that there
would be no disturbance from the rear.

The tunnel route was not an inviting one. The rounded roof in many
places had sagged and closed in to such an extent as to almost choke
the passage, and great care had to be taken by the boys so as not
to bring a mass of stonework and earth down upon their heads. This
dangerous condition was chiefly where the tunnel ran through the low
ground, for when the passageway began to ascend the boys were enabled
to go much faster and in greater safety.

But in the tunnel entire the air was stifling and from the cracks in
the slimy walls came hideous crawling things.

It was fully an hour before the boys had any assurance that the tunnel
really did have an end.

This assurance was a heavily grated door set in solid masonry.

“Now we are done,” was Billy’s despairing prediction.

“Never say quit; that isn’t like you.”

It was seldom that Henri assumed the rôle of bracer-up to Billy. It had
been generally the other way, but Billy was willing to acknowledge that
he was not much of a cave man. He liked the open too well.

There were faint streaks of daylight threading through the grated
spaces of the door. That was something for which to be thankful.

Reddy was giving the rusty grating a lively shake when with a clang
something hit the stone floor of the tunnel.

It was a key of the kind that locksmiths used to make by the pound.

The key had been suspended from a hook at the side of the door, and
Reddy’s vigorous attack on the grating had caused it to fall.

Henri pushed the key into the ponderous lock and with a strong-arm
twist succeeded in making it turn. The rusty bolt screeched as it was
drawn back, but the door could be opened, and it was opened by the
main pulling strength of three husky youngsters.

Just on the other side of the door was the rounded base of a tower,
and, looking upward, the sky could be seen through many openings in the
stonework.

There were four doors in this circular room, the one by which the
boys had just entered, and the other three in a row, close together,
directly opposite the tunnel entrance.

“This,” explained Henri, “is ‘Old Round Tower,’ far more ancient than
the château itself, and one of the landmarks along the Meuse. I never
cared much for it myself as a play place; it was too gloomy, and rats
used to swarm here. I remember of seeing this door to the tunnel, but
always thought it led to some cellar, and cellars are no novelties on
these grounds. I don’t know how many casks of wine are underground
about here, but there used to be a big lot.

“This door,” Henri was pointing to the middle one in the row, “opens
on a passage that runs back of the state dining-hall of the château,
and ends at a panel on the right of the most beautifully decorated
fireplace you ever saw.

“The passages behind the other doors run to the upper floors of the
north and south wings of the house.

“There are side connections to them all in the old part of the château.
Of course, in the east and west wings, added years later, there are no
secret passages nor sliding panels.”

“Which one leads to where the gold and jewels are kept?”

“I’ll show you in a little while, Billy.”

Henri pushed open the middle door of the row, and the boys had a whiff
of musty tapestry and other shut-in odors which indicated that the
passage had not been traveled for many a day.

Through the narrow way between the walls the boys walked, single file,
leaving tracks in the dust and with many a sneeze and gasp.

At a point where the passage widened, Henri stopped and lifted a finger.

On the other side of the walls there was a sound of many voices, an
occasional peal of laughter, the clink of glass against glass, and
every now and then merry snatches of song.

Henri felt along the side of the passage until his fingers touched a
little knob about level with his eyes.

With a slight pressure on the knob a panel on the other side was
controlled and began to slide noiselessly in polished grooves to the
left.

Henri held the movement to an inch.

“Cast your eye in there,” speaking softly to Billy.




CHAPTER XX. BEHIND CHÂTEAU PANELS.


The state dining-hall of the château was serving as the breakfast room
of a French general and his numerous staff. If the uniforms worn had
not indicated to what nation these soldiers belonged, the proof was
surely in the fact that they jested and sang before breakfast. It takes
a gay lot to be jolly before breakfast. After dinner anybody might have
the notion to be merry.

How Château Trouville had escaped destruction by the big guns of the
Germans might be accounted for by the fact that the aforesaid big
guns had been mostly employed, when not turned loose on the trenches,
in silencing French barrier forts. As a German battery lieutenant
remarked, “only forts really counted.”

However it was, this fine French country house had not even been
scratched, as yet.

The chatter in the dining-hall was all Greek to Billy, though Henri
and Reddy appeared to be much interested and amused by the lively
conversation.

Reddy pointed out here and there a chasseur that he knew by name.

“What’s the matter with us having a little breakfast ourselves?”
suggested Henri. There was plenty to eat in the knapsacks.

Billy and Reddy had no protest to make on this proposition, but they
found it thirsty work to swallow camp rations without even a sup of
liquid.

It so happened that a foot soldier serving as waiter passed close to
the wall, carrying a flagon filled with water. At the moment everybody
in the hall stood up in attitude of salute. The general was just coming
in to breakfast. The soldier set the flagon down near the panel; Henri
pressed the knob, making the opening wide enough for Reddy to poke an
arm through, and quick as a flash that expert young gentleman yanked
the prize through the crack, which was instantly closed by Henri.

The boys could not see what the soldier did when he discovered his
loss, but they imagined that he must have been considerably surprised
by the mysterious disappearance of the flagon.

The boys had not had a wink of sleep for more than twenty-four hours,
and with all their walking and the heavy work they had done at “point
of rocks” they were completely fagged.

“Oh, for a good soft place on which to stretch, and some air that is
decent to breathe,” murmured Billy with nodding head.

“The surest thing I know,” was Henri’s encouraging words to the
sleepy-head. “Come on, fellows.”

Further up the passage Henri pressed another knob in the wall, and the
opening immediately created let in a veritable blaze of sunlight.

It was a small, narrow room on the other side of this panel, but
spangled with mullioned or barred windows.

Off this room was another apartment, longer but no wider than the
first. In this latter chamber stood a gilded bedstead under canopy.

“Here,” said Henri, “royalty was once upon a time concealed, when it
was good for his princely health to be hidden.”

Billy was more intent on the project of testing the bed than listening
to legends. He mussed up the rich covering to his liking and rolled
like a log, clothes and all, into the broad expanse under the canopy.
Henri and Reddy with no more ceremony followed suit, and the three went
after the record of the famous Seven Sleepers.

It was early afternoon when a tremendous clatter of iron-shod hoofs in
the stone courtyard far below roused Reddy, who always slept with one
ear open.

With no effort to select a favorite, Reddy applied spanks right and
left to his snoring companions.

“Who hit me?” demanded Billy in a dream voice.

“Where’s the trouble?” Henri was probing the covers in his haste to
reach the inside works of an imaginary aëroplane motor.

Reddy dragged Henri out of bed by the heels, and in watching the
wrestling match that followed Billy lost the desire to turn over for
just one more nap.

“You fellows will insult the memory of his royal nibs if you don’t
quit,” he growled.

“There’s evidently something doing below.”

Henri had shaken off the wiry Reddy and climbed upon one of the window
ledges.

It was a cavalry movement, evidently, from the noise, and movement that
indicated hurry orders.

“Perhaps the general won’t be back for dinner.”

The good sleep had put Billy back in his usual good humor.

“I don’t know what’s up,” admitted Henri, “but whatever it is I’m
thinking that it’s time for us to get into action before the fighters
go to pulling ears in this vicinity.”

“In other words,” said Billy, “it’s time for us to pull up the treasure
and pull out.”

“That’s the ticket.”

Henri adjusted his knapsack, setting example for his comrades to get in
marching order.

Passing out of the royal bed-chamber, the boys hastened again into the
main passageway, going further north than they had yet been in their
flittings through the concealed walks.

Henri finally stopped over a big brass plate set in the floor.

“It is not like moving that slab last night,” he commented, as the
plate dropped with a snap on easy hinges by some combination which
Henri well knew how to work.

A spiral staircase was revealed, and round and round and ever downward
the boys proceeded.

At the foot of the staircase, at the end of a short passage, the trio
were confronted by what was apparently a blank wall.

Henri counted to himself as he passed his hands over the face of the
wall. When satisfied that his calculations were correct he called to
Billy to give him a lift. Billy promptly furnished a pair of square
shoulders, upon which Henri stood, after removing his shoes.

Henri tapped smartly at a selected spot, a hidden spring was released
and a section of the wall fell away.

Once astride of the cross-piece upon which the moving section had
rested, Henri lent Billy a helping hand, and Billy in turn gave Reddy,
the lightweight, a stocky leg on which to climb.

The boys then dropped down on the other side.

They were in the treasure house of the Trouvilles!




CHAPTER XXI. HENRI FINDS THE KEY.


The treasure house was a gloomy den of a place, one small, heavily
grated window, with dusty diamond-shaped panes, set high and deeply
in the wall, like a porthole, being the only means of producing light
from the outside, and even that outside a dark little court enclosed by
frowning walls.

In possession of the safety lanterns, the boys could be considered
lucky, not only to enable them to quickly complete the task before
them, but the three fire-balls helped wonderfully in relieving the
impression of being locked up in a tomb.

In a far corner of this dungeon was an iron-bound, oaken box of
considerable size, fastened by a heavy padlock. The discovery of the
lock presented the first difficulty not described in the paper which
Francois had given Henri.

Billy rattled the lock by a vicious jab with the heel of his shoe, but
the effect on link and staple availed about as much as a feather in
a gale. Nothing short of dynamite, or the right key, could pass that
massive guard.

“Did you think of this?” Billy’s query deserved top line in the useless
question column.

“If I had do you suppose I would be standing here like a hungry man
before a baker’s window?”

Henri was completely bowled over, as the saying is, by this hitch in
his plans, at the eleventh hour.

Reddy had just completed an unsuccessful assault on the obstinate
padlock when Henri astonished his friends by doing some tango steps,
setting a lively tune by snapping his fingers.

“Got it, now!” he exclaimed between shuffles. “Keep on your coats,
fellows, I’ll be back in no time.”

With that the son of the Trouvilles jumped for the cross-piece in the
movable wall section, drew himself up with the agility of a monkey and
with equal celerity landed in the passage on the other side of the wall.

The minutes ticked away in Billy’s watch--ten--fifteen--twenty.

No sign of Henri.

“I can’t stand this much longer,” muttered Billy, never taking his eyes
from the hole in the wall through which Henri had disappeared.

Reddy tried to tell Billy in French that he would go and hunt for Henri
if he (Billy) would not mind.

Billy did mind. He understood Reddy’s gestures if he did not fully
comprehend the language.

“When anybody goes it will be a procession, with me in the lead.”

He had hardly got this positive assertion out of his mouth when he
heard something scraping in the passage, followed by the living picture
of Henri framed in the opening above. Then the familiar voice:

“It’s all right, Buddy.”

“Just when I was thinking it was all wrong.”

Billy lifted his hands to ease Henri’s drop from the cross-piece, and
gave him a bear hug when he landed.

Henri rapidly gave the reasons for his delay in getting back.

“You see, a flash of memory brought to my mind that mother kept the
keys to about everything hanging behind a portrait of father in her
bedroom. I had to go on the other side of the panel to get there--it’s
in the new part of the house, you know.

“I did not see anybody about when I went through the fireplace into the
dining-hall. You can wager, though, that I did not lose any time in
dodging through the door to the corridor that would take me quickest to
the place for which I was bound.

“I got there, all right; found the keys”--holding up the jingling bunch
dangling from a wire hoop--“and was making my grand get-away on the
return trip. As a matter of caution I peeped through the door of the
dining-hall before I opened it very far. Lo and behold our friend from
whom Reddy pilfered the flagon had seated himself at a table facing the
door, through the crack of which I was straining my eyes.

“This fellow had a bottle of wine at his elbow, and a glass in his
hand. He had settled for a good time, and I had settled for an uneasy
one.

“Directly he arose and walked slowly toward the fireplace and curiously
inspected it. Still wondering about that missing flagon, I guess. Then
he continued his stroll to the window at the far end of the hall.

“‘This is the chance for me,’ I thought, and I bolted for the panel.
What if it stuck or wouldn’t work? Believe me, it was a scary moment.
Click, and I was through. I don’t know whether ‘red trousers’ saw me
or just heard the click of the panel spring. At any rate, I stopped
to listen a moment, and I heard him tapping here and there on the oak
around the fireplace. That fellow is sure a suspicious customer.

“Well, here I am, and don’t let us waste any more time with this
talkfest. Turn your lantern on the padlock, Reddy.”

Henri knelt before the treasure box, holding the jingling bunch of keys
between his eyes and the blaze of Reddy’s lantern.

“That looks like it would fit,” selecting a short key of heavy turn.

“But it don’t.”

Henri made another selection, with no better success.

“Try that one,” Reddy pointing to a rusty instrument in the bunch.

Reddy had hit the nail on the head.

That key turned, and the padlock tumbled into Henri’s hand.

Then he lifted the lid of the treasure chest!




CHAPTER XXII. THE FORTUNE OF THE TROUVILLES.


As the fire-balls flashed upon many velvet-lined trays displayed by the
lifting of the lid, all the colors of the rainbow seemed to combine in
the dazzling surface--the white glitter of diamonds, the violet-purple
of amethysts, the blue of the sapphire, the crimson of the ruby, the
deep rich green of the emerald, the changing tints of the opal--a very
pool of gems shimmering under the eager gaze of the three boys.

“Carry me out of fairyland,” was Billy’s break of the silence that
followed the first look into the chest.

Reddy was all eyes and no tongue, but Henri had to say something in his
rôle of showman:

“Some rare stones there, eh? Many years’ gathering, too. This,” picking
up a gold-threaded bracelet of diamonds and amethysts, “is said to
have been a later gift to the house from the royal gentleman that beat
us to the bed upstairs. Whole lot of history here,” lifting a handful
of jewels and letting them fall again into their glittering bed, “but
we’ll keep all that for the campfire, if we ever get back to it.

“Here’s some hard cash, by the way,” moving a jewel tray and pulling
out a buckskin bag. “I am afraid,” added Henri regretfully, “that we
can’t carry a whole lot of this in a single trip where we have to
travel light.”

“We can make a noble try at it,” stoutly maintained Billy, who did not
relish the idea of leaving anything in the chest.

Henri jerked loose the cord that closed the mouth of the bag and let
the gold coins fall in a shining heap on the floor--a mixed collection
of franc pieces of various values, of French minting; English
sovereigns and the German mark.

This shower could have been repeated many times, for under the trays
were long rows of the same kind of buckskin bags, with contents alike.

“Wish we had a tray.”

Billy realized that they had found more than they could carry.

“We will load first with the stones from the trays,” proposed Henri.
“And then add all the cash we can.”

The boys proceeded to empty their knapsacks of the remains of the
rations they carried, and by way of proper economy seated themselves
on the stone floor for the purpose of stowing all the food they could
inside them.

“I won’t be hungry again for a week, I’m sure,” asserted Billy, shaking
the crumbs from his blouse.

“Then let’s to business,” briskly remarked Henri, as he engaged in the
pleasing pastime of stuffing diamond ornaments into his knapsack. Billy
and Reddy followed the leader in the jewel harvest, and all three of
the knapsacks were soon filled to capacity and the straps carefully
buckled.

That left only pockets, jacket lining and such space as could be used
between clothing and skin for the coins.

“Remember, fellows,” advised Henri, “that we mustn’t anchor ourselves,
for there is some lively effort ahead of us.”

Billy was compelled to acknowledge that he was loaded to the limit
at that very moment, and Reddy certainly carried more weight in his
clothes than he ever had before or ever did afterward.

Shutting down the lid of the chest with a bang, covering again the
considerable amount of gold that the boys were compelled to leave,
Henri was about to announce departure. An afterthought, however,
induced him to lift the lid a second time. He removed the key of the
padlock from the hoop and tossed the rest of the keys into the chest.
Again closing the lid, he snapped the padlock in place and slipped the
key into the band of his cap.

“Now we’re off.”

“S-sh!”

Billy turned the dark slide in his lantern. Henri and Reddy followed
the cue.

Somebody or something was moving in the passage on the other side of
the wall.

That somebody or something suffered a bump of some sort or other--a
sound like the overturning of a chair.

Then a muttered oath in French. The somebody or something was human,
and French.

The boys backed up into the darkest corner of the treasure house.

The grated window cast only a dim light into the room, but that line
streaked straight across into the opening in the wall directly opposite.

The head and shoulders of a man appeared in the opening!

Even in the half-light Henri recognized the soldier who had lost the
flagon and the suspicious tapper on the oak around the fireplace in
the dining-hall.

From that panel in the dining-hall to the treasure house Henri, in his
haste, had neglected to close the other slides, and even the plate over
the stairway behind him.

He had carried a light chair from one of the upper chambers so that he
could get back into the treasure house without a boost. It was over
this that the trailing chasseur had stumbled, and which also gave the
red-trousered sleuth the very clew he needed as to the whereabouts of
the mysterious party who had taken the flagon from under his very heels.

Here was a pretty howdy-do for the boys. A soldier, and no doubt an
armed soldier, between them and the carrying out of their cherished
project.

There was only one way out of the sealed chamber, and that soldier was
in it.

Could Reddy, the fox of the woods, suggest a trick that would win here?




CHAPTER XXIII. TRAILED BY A CHASSEUR.


The soldier was evidently figuring in his mind as to what would be the
next move on his part. Finding no sign of life in the place where he
expected, no doubt, to lay a hand or an eye on the impertinent party
that had stolen the flagon, the chasseur seemed to hesitate about
dropping down into what must have appeared to him a dungeon, and
risking the chance of a hidden enemy leaping upon him from some shadowy
corner.

It apparently occurred to him that more light would clear the problem,
for he drew himself up to a sitting position on the cross-piece,
produced a match and scratched it across the sole of his shoe.

The tiny flicker did not give much satisfaction. The shadows were
too deep for a little flame like that to penetrate them to any great
distance.

The boys stood like statues, flat against the wall, on the same side,
and some twenty feet from the opening where the soldier was wasting
matches. The darkness hung about them like a pall.

It was one exciting moment when Billy had a sneeze coming on, and did
not know whether or not he could conquer it. A sneeze just then would
have settled the whole business.

But Billy did not sneeze; he nearly suffocated, though, by holding his
cap so closely against his face.

The soldier had apparently exhausted his supply of matches, for the
final scratch was accompanied by a grunt that sounded like _sacres
allumettes_, blasted matches.

With that he swung himself down into the passage on the other side of
the opening.

Billy, after a few minutes’ wait, made a move toward the opening.

Henri laid a restraining hand upon Billy’s arm.

“Wait a bit,” he whispered, “better let Reddy do his shadow act and
find out where our friend in the red trousers has taken himself.”

Reddy instantly shifted his heavily laden knapsack from his shoulders,
removed his gold-filled jacket, kicked off his shoes, and edged his way
along the wall on tiptoes.

Under the opening he stood in listening attitude for several minutes;
then, taking advantage of the rough stonework of the inside wall, he
climbed like a squirrel to the cross-piece.

Cautiously poking his head through the opening, Reddy had another look
and listened for his fellow countryman in uniform.

The soldier was nowhere to be seen--and Reddy could view the short
passage as far as the foot of the spiral staircase, where the light
came down from the open plate above.

Reddy lowered himself into the passage and cat-footed to the staircase,
winding his way upward, every nerve on edge, and he ready for any
emergency.

The soldier was not in evidence yet, but Reddy could now trace the
chasseur by the marks on the dusty floor of the passage, for it was
still light up here, though the sun, it could be seen through the panel
opening in the royal bed chamber, was sinking, and evening was near.

With eyes to the floor and crouched like an Indian trailer, the boy
noted that the chasseur had gone toward the panel opening into the
dining-hall, at least the traces showed that the footmarks reversed
themselves, retracing in the same direction. Reddy could distinguish
the soldier’s tracks from those which he and his companions had made
that morning, because the legging strap under the man’s shoes was
clearly outlined in the dust.

Reddy, seeing that the coast was clear, for the time being, scooted
back to where Henri and Billy were anxiously waiting and called them
by name. Reddy’s knapsack, jacket, and shoes fell about him in the
passage, speedily followed by the two boys. Henri stood on the chair
and closed the wall section, which settled back without leaving a seam
or mark on the wall surface.

“I’ll bet they won’t find that hole unless they batter down the whole
wall,” was Henri’s comment.

The boys lost no time in getting upstairs and into the main passage,
and there paused to give Henri a moment to figure the next move.

It was suddenly made manifest that at least one way was blocked, for
loud voices rang out in the passage in the direction of the dining-hall.

The chasseur had gone for assistance to aid him in solving the puzzle
that he had at first wanted to solve by himself.

Billy and Reddy thought that this time sure they were done for, but
Henri was still in the reckoning. He was at home, and knew every crook
and cranny in the maze of passages.

As the soldiers approached nearer and nearer, arguing in rapid-fire
French as they came, Henri wheeled, slammed the bedroom panel into
place, and hustling his companions into a run retreated up the passage
to the north, stopping an instant to close the plate over the staircase.

“That fellow will have to do some tall explaining when he comes up with
his crowd, for he won’t be able to show all that he may claim to have
seen; that is, for a while, anyway.”

Henri was taking a positive dislike to the soldier who had proved such
a bother at this critical period.

At the very end of the passage they were traversing arose a stained
glass window of most exquisite design. On each side of the window the
wainscoting was inlay work, model of ancient arts and crafts.

Henri used his hands on this surface as he would finger a checker or
chess board. A large square swung open like a cupboard door and Henri
motioned his comrades to pass through, and he, at their heels, closed
the panel.

They stood in a narrow gallery, looking down into a chapel interior,
most beautiful to behold. Hurrying along this gallery, the boys halted
at a door heavily mounted with brass fittings. It was opened without
effort and the boys found themselves at the head of another of those
steep stairways, this one, however, running straight down--and a long
way down.

It led to the crypt, or subterranean vault, under the chapel. Here the
boys lighted their lanterns, at the suggestion of Henri. The latter
shouldered a protruding stone in the wall of the cell and it gave way,
disclosing of all the passages they had encountered in the house the
most dismal and forbidding.

“Push in,” said Henri, “and we’re on the way to ‘Old Round Tower!’”




CHAPTER XXIV. A RACE FOR LIFE.


“Gee! But isn’t this a jolly place, if you don’t care what you say.”

A rat almost as big as a small rabbit had made a dash over Billy’s
feet. He also had just dodged a bat that had flapped straight at his
head.

“You’re a good way underground, my boy,” said Henri, “and I guess it’s
been many a day since anybody hit this trail. It is called ‘Monk’s
Walk.’ Jules, Francois and myself explored this passage one day when we
didn’t have anything else to do, but had no desire to do it more than
once. Our old butler, he was ninety when he died, showed us how to get
in here, and he had a long story to tell about a hair-raising happening
here a century ago. But that’s another thing that will keep for the
campfire.”

The journey through this rat and bat infested passage seemed an age in
the making. The floor was damp and slippery and each of the boys had a
fall, but, happily, without injury.

It was really less than half an hour that was consumed in going from
the crypt of the chapel to the door opening into “Old Round Tower,” but
Billy declared that he was much older when he got there than when he
started.

“‘It’s dead for sleep I am,’ as Mike said,” further declared the boy
from Bangor, “and I’ll bet it’s past midnight this very minute. Twenty
minutes of, anyhow,” looking at his watch. “And hasn’t this been a day
and a half for full measure? Something doing every minute.”

Reddy felt the same way, but there was no use telling Billy so, because
Billy did not take kindly to the French language.

Henri himself, if the truth be known, was fighting to keep his eyes
open.

So on the bottom floor of “Old Round Tower” the boys stretched
themselves, and with knapsack pillows as hard as the floor itself they
dozed into uneasy slumber, which lasted until the dawn of a new day.

The sleepers were startled by the roar of cannon. Not that the roar of
cannon was unusual to these now veterans in the ways of war, but the
booming seemed particularly close this morning, and in a locality that
had, as stated before in this chronicle, heretofore escaped shelling.

“I thought that French general had gone to seek trouble when the whole
push galloped away yesterday,” was Billy’s first after-waking remark.

“Pity they hadn’t taken that dining-hall chasseur with them.”

Henri in this moment of alarm, had a thought for the busybody who had
tracked them from pillar to post a few hours ago.

A shell landed with tremendous explosion in the courtyard of the
château; another, and another, until the whole place was shaken in
every foundation, the air was aflame with the shrieking projectiles,
and crash after crash made a din that was deafening.

“Us for the tunnel!” cried Henri, as a round-shot clipped the side of
the tower above them and sent down a hail of stone chips.

The boys got out from under that tower in a hurry, and fortunate for
them that they did. Two or three minutes later the whole structure
collapsed under the terrific impact of the shelling.

When the trio ran through the tunnel door, it was sealed behind them by
tons of riven stone.

Pale to the lips and trembling as if with acute ague, the boys weakly
stumbled down the tunnel’s descending course.

The earth above and about them quaked and shivered as the storm of
powder and lead raged outside.

The same powerful engines of destruction that had blasted and silenced
the French barrier forts had been turned on the château and its
surroundings. Such buildings were as paper before this cannonading.

The walls of the tunnel were holding as far as the boys had proceeded.
But they had yet to traverse the line in low ground, where they had
noted, in coming, the sagging roof and leaning walls, which even then
had almost choked up the passage.

With these conditions made worse by the artillery shake-up, it would be
a close call if the boys escaped burial alive. There was no way out at
the rear.

A shut off ahead--and that would be the end.

But for the lanterns it is doubtful if the boys could have refrained
from running wild, and dashing into obstructions without care or reason.

They at least did not have the added horror of total darkness with
which to contend.

As the descent grew sharper so grew the nerve strain of the travelers.

They passed the first point of danger on hands and knees. Between the
roof and the floor there was the scant margin of three feet.

At the next the barrier presented an even tighter squeeze.

Then a clearer way for ten or fifteen yards.

Here it was that the lantern shafts of light ahead showed in one
appalling instant a shifting of earth; first dust, then clods and small
stones.

The passage was closing in!

The boys stood for a second as if petrified in their tracks.

_Pour vos vies, courez!_ (for your lives, run!)

Reddy’s shrill voice broke the spell, and the three dashed for the fast
closing aperture. Billy, in the lead, essayed to step aside and let
the others get through first, but Henri countered the movement with a
violent push against the back of his friend and a reach for Reddy’s
neck--the one boy he pushed through and the other he dragged, himself
falling, full length, on his face, but safe on the other side of the
death trap!

None too soon, for Henri’s legs were powdered with the dust from the
earth mass that had fallen in a lump just behind him!

“Glory be!”

Billy said it with more fervency than ever before.

“Glory be!”

He said it again with grateful heart.

They were on the gradual ascent, and finally rested under the slab that
would let them out into the free air.

No matter what they might be called upon to face there--it would be in
the open.

Glory be!




CHAPTER XXV. THE SERGEANT TO THE RESCUE.


“There’s nothing to do but lie here until nightfall,” said Henri. “A
try for camp now would be almost a sure shot that we would be gobbled
up. They’re fighting all around us.”

“Held up, you mean, don’t you?”

Billy could see only one fate for walking jewelry shops.

Reddy was in favor of a night move. He favored darkness for this kind
of adventure, except in tunnels. He told Henri that if given half a
chance he (Reddy) could get them back to their friends with the same
ease that he had conducted the excursion to the mouth of the tunnel.

“Billy mustn’t step on any sticks, though,” he added with a twinkle in
his eye.

Billy knew that his name had mixed in the conversation, but he was not
sure just what the little Frenchman was joking about. Besides, he was
too thirsty to care.

“My throat is as dry as a bone,” he complained.

“I’m a little husky myself,” admitted Henri, “and wouldn’t mind
spending a few franc pieces for a pitcher of lemonade”--jingling the
gold in his pockets.

“That reminds me,” he continued, “that I’m thinking that it would be a
good plan to bury this stuff right where we are. There is no telling
what kind of a chase we will have getting back to camp, and it would be
rough luck to chance losing that for which we have risked so much.”

“But that means another trip here,” argued Billy, “and it’s me for one
with no wish to haunt this territory.”

Reddy turned a torrent of French loose on Henri.

“He says,” Henri translating to Billy, “that to-night he will take to
the woods alone, reach Colonel Bainbridge and tell him of our troubles,
and it may be that sufficient force could be sent to pull us lambkins
and the treasure out of the hole.”

“Bet the colonel will do it!”

Billy enthusiastically approved the scheme.

“Come to think of it, though,” he amended, “if it isn’t unfair to Reddy
I think it is a great idea.”

“Don’t you worry about Reddy,” assured Henri, “he is better off around
here without us than we would be without him.”

“Then the only thing on my mind now is one big drink of cold water.”
Billy drew a long breath at the thought.

But thirst and hunger the boys must endure for a while; they dared not
risk all until actually forced to do so.

Billy looked at his watch at least twenty times that afternoon. He was
not quite sure that it was right, for the little silver ticker had been
badly dented during the struggle for life in the tunnel, but the works
were still merrily moving, and so continued worthy of confidence.

The watch, on the twentieth inspection, showed seven o’clock. The time
for Reddy’s departure was drawing nigh.

No longer a rich prize for would-be captors, Reddy put himself in trim
for swift and silent mission. His jewel-laden knapsack he laid aside.
He shed gold, indeed, from every pore, and stood erect and smiling, as
poor in purse as when he fled from his ruined home into the hills.

The watch ticked away another hour. Then Reddy was hoisted aloft on
Billy’s shoulders, and turned the palms of his hands upward against
the slab. A vigorous shove that almost cost Reddy his balance raised
the stone and turned it to one side. Reddy did not fall backward, he
leaped upward, dug his elbows into the earth, and wriggled out upon
solid ground.

Pushing the slab back into place, and without another word, he bounded
away in the darkness toward the familiar path in the ravine.

Nine--ten--eleven--midnight were counted by Billy’s watch.

After that the two comrades ceased to mark time. They were too drowsy
to mark anything.

They would not have attempted to resist a rat had one attacked them.

There was coming from the tier of hills, from the terraced slopes
rising above the valley of the Meuse, armed aid, but of the good
tidings there was yet no sign to the weary, hungry, thirsty boys in the
far-off cave.

Reddy had gone straight as a homing pigeon to the army headquarters,
had pleaded his way through every sentry post, and to the presence of
Colonel Bainbridge.

The mainspring of the military machinery was quick to act, and it was a
gallant array that the little red-headed Frenchman guided to the rescue
of the treasure guards he had left in the tunnel.

There was yet a bayonet charge to be resisted before the slab was
lifted. There had been fierce combat, hand-to-hand, as well as
artillery practice at Château Trouville. A company in gray had fallen
back from the main body in the night in the direction of the ruined
fort. The rescue party came as a surprise out of the ravine, and “point
of rocks” was made the scene of a brief but desperate encounter. The
German force, outnumbered, gave way.

Reddy, who had been viewing the clash from behind a screen of stones,
jumped from the slab when danger had ceased to threaten, and in his
excitement plumped down into the pit like a football.

Billy and Henri, now very much awake, were jointly seized by the hands,
and Reddy, who had alighted flat-footed, pulled his comrades about in a
sort of circular war dance.

This came to a sudden stop when a deep, commanding voice hurled these
words downward:

“You kids come up and report!”

The speaker was Sergeant Scott.




CHAPTER XXVI. ORDERS TO MOVE.


Reddy having resumed his share of the burden of precious stones and
gold pieces, the three boys were given, in turn, the glad hand and a
stout pull out of the pit. The sergeant tried his best to maintain
a severe manner, but the effort proved a rank failure. The delight
of the big trooper over the finding and assured safety of his young
charges would not down. Even the natural and cultivated reserve of the
Englishman was not proof against the affectionate regard he felt for
the boys he had both fathered and mothered for these many days.

As the rescue party marched on either side of the sergeant, striving to
match his long step, walked Billy and Henri, with Reddy close in the
rear.

“You got me in a pretty mess with the colonel, you little rascals.”

“Well, we just had to do it, Sergeant,” answered Henri. “It’s what we
came for, and you can’t blame us for not throwing away our last chance
to win out. It was for sure our last chance, for Château Trouville is
no more.”

There was a note of sadness in the last sentence. It was of great
sorrow to Henri that this beautiful home place had been reduced to a
smoking ruin, with its priceless works of art and all those heirlooms
so dear to the hearts of the race of Trouville.

All that remained of the family fortune had been saved by Henri and his
faithful boy friends at the risk of their lives.

Saved? Many a league to travel, before the treasure reached its fixed
destination, many a slip to be avoided, many a sharp corner to be
bravely turned.

“We thank you with all our hearts, sir.”

The boys were greeting Colonel Bainbridge, and each was favored by that
officer with a warm handshake.

“Away with you now,” ordered the colonel. “Get food and rest. To-morrow
I have new plans for you. Leave your knapsacks in yonder tent, over
which a guard will be mounted.”

The boys thought that no place had ever appeared so attractive as the
field kitchen, with its soup boiler and its oven on wheels. And the
cooks were more than kind. It was well known that the colonel had
favored attention to his young friends.

Relieved of hunger and thirst the boys hunted up their old friend, the
teamster, and he provided them with blankets and a comfortable nest
under cover of a supply wagon.

The next morning the boys expected an after-breakfast summons from the
colonel, but there was no call for them from headquarters. Fierce
fighting was going on in the valley town of St. Mihiel, on the right
bank of the Meuse, and, in viewing the conflict from the hillside
point, the boys were thrilled by a moving picture that would have
commanded a fortune in the films.

The town on which the war plague had fallen is on the site of the
ancient Abbey of St. Mihiel, and the tide of this day’s battle surged
about the noted Church of St. Mihiel, containing that fine statue of
the Madonna, by the great artist, Richier, and also the choir stalls
world-famed for their beauty.

Henri and Reddy took it as a personal grievance that these things
should be threatened with destruction.

“I’ll just tell you what,” suddenly declared Billy, breaking a long
silence on his part, “I’d like to be the aviator who makes the first
flight across the Atlantic, and especially if I could start to-day from
this side!”

“And leave me, Billy?”

Henri had applied the tonic that Billy needed.

“Not this day, or ever, Buddy. It was only this war business that set
me dreaming of better days. On to Paris, old chum, you and I!”

Billy was himself again.

Turning back to camp, the boys were informed that the colonel had given
the word that they were to report to him as soon as they could be
found.

“Something’s up,” predicted Billy, as they hurried to headquarters.

The colonel, when they arrived, was busy poring over an outspread map,
and occasionally conferring with other officers grouped about him.

It was some time before the boys received attention, for evidently some
issue of considerable moment was under discussion.

When the colonel finally expressed himself satisfied with the program
outlined, he turned to his young friends and remarked:

“I presume that you will not object to my making a change of base,
and,” smiling, “I hope you will not deny me the honor of your company
in the movement.”

“Always at your command, colonel,” gallantly responded Henri.

“Then,” concluded the colonel, “you will be advised shortly of the hour
of marching.”

“What’s to become of me?”

This was the anxious question that Reddy addressed to Henri as they
left headquarters.

“You don’t suppose that we’re going to lose you this side of Paris, do
you?” was Henri’s prompt counter question.

“Paris!” joyfully echoed the boy. “Me? Let’s hurry!”

Billy guessed that Reddy was glad.

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on the way,” hummed the boy
from Bangor, as they hastened to tell the teamster the good news.

An hour later the sergeant came down to the wagon. As usual, he spoke
to the point:

“Get your bundles, boys!”




CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOYS GO GUN HUNTING.


The French had been massing their troops by forest paths, from Verdun
and Toul, to throw them against the Germans in desperate endeavors to
break the lines which protected the sites for the German heavy siege
artillery and the Austrian automobile batteries of twelve-inch siege
guns.

To join in this movement the command of Colonel Bainbridge was
preparing.

For days the French aviators had repeatedly scrutinized every acre of
land looking for a concealed battery of growlers, snugly hidden in a
wood on the rolling heights of the Cote Lorraine. These aviators had
failed to mark a find.

The conference that the boys had witnessed at headquarters, when
summoned by Colonel Bainbridge, had to do with this battery problem.
They had then heard mention of the doings and failure of the flying
corps, but further had not been taken into the confidence of the
officers.

When the sergeant directed them to get their bundles, Billy and Henri
began to hope that they might run into an opportunity to once again get
near a flying-machine, if not into one.

“I’d like to get above ground once more, for sure I’ve had enough
underground work lately to last me a lifetime.”

The desire of Billy to do some lofty sailing was twin with the wish
that haunted Henri.

“Let’s volunteer to scout for that battery,” urged the latter, aroused
by his chum’s suggestion.

“No use,” was Billy’s discouraging reply. “The colonel won’t stand for
it.”

“But, maybe he would, after all,” reasoned Henri, “if we put it up to
him the right way. His own son was in that branch of the service.”

“If you can convince the colonel, well and good.”

Billy appeared to think that there was a conspiracy afloat to keep him
tied fast to the ground.

“I’m going to make the try,” said Henri, “as soon as we join the other
force.”

He did make the try next day, and finally persuaded the colonel that
under the constant battery fire Billy and himself would be at least as
safe in the air as on the march.

“Just think, colonel, what a chance for us to do something worth while,
and do it the only way we can. As soldiers we don’t count. As aviators
we’re the lucky number.”

When the French commander heard that one of our Aviator Boys had an
idea that his eyes were better than those of the military flyers, he
amusedly assented to the proposition, but only because of the fact that
there was a shortage just then in the aviation corps--two of them only
the day before having sailed in the way of a shell from one of the big
mortars of the enemy.

“It’s our job!”

This was the joyful announcement of Henri to his flying partner.

The next argument was with the sergeant, but he, too, was compelled to
throw up his hands in surrender.

The French aviator who directed the corps told Henri that their detail
was for “artillery reconnaissance.”

When Henri translated the name of their job to Billy, the latter said
that “gun hunting” would serve just as well, and it could be spoken in
one breath. “I haven’t enlisted on either side, mind you,” added Billy.
“I am just aching to fly--that’s all.”

The French outfit included a machine “built for two,” and of a make
with which the boys were familiar.

The only instructions given the amateur scouts related to the direction
of the mysterious shelling point from which so much damage had been
inflicted upon the Allies without an open chance to retaliate.

For the treasure the colonel had agreed to act as banker, and, as a
balm to Reddy’s wounded feelings, when he rebelled at separation from
his friends, that youngster was assigned to duty as special messenger
within the lines.

Again our Aviator Boys listened to the vibration of the aëroplane, the
rattle, roar and hum of the motor, the music that soothes the nerves of
every practiced airman.

The boys hit the high grade at 8,000 feet, and circled in huge ellipses
between the allied troops and the positions hostile to them.

Henri had been given a powerful field glass, and he was faithfully
using it in acute observation. The roar of the aërial travel was so
loud in the quiet of the upper air that it drowned the occasional
thunder of the big guns, which fire could be marked by sight if not by
hearing.

A few moments of sweeping flight, and the young aviators were looking
down on the wood mapped as suspicious.

They hovered about, while Henri worked the field glasses to the limit,
but to no avail.

“Let her down a bit!” he yelled to Billy.

Billy cut the height a thousand feet or so.

Nothing but tree-tops was in sight.

“More yet!” shouted Henri.

Dangerously near now, if there was a hidden battery below.

Henri bent further over the frame of the machine, with the glasses
aimed at a certain point, which had suddenly become of special interest
to him. He had seen something that was not a tree-top.

The glasses revealed the location of the battery. The guns, two in this
particular position, stood behind a screen of thickly branching trees,
the muzzles pointing toward a round opening in this leafy roof. The
crew as suddenly discovered their visitors, and instantly, as busy as
bees, sprang to their posts.

“Turn her loose!” screamed Henri in Billy’s ear, and Billy did “turn
her loose,” up and away.

The gunners were not quick enough to catch this winged target, but they
burned a couple of large holes in the air in trying.

Billy drove the aëroplane into a protecting cloud that closed white and
moist around them.

Twenty minutes later the excited flyers told their story to the colonel.

“That ride was a bully treat,” declared Billy; “but really I’d like to
have stopped in a chummy way with those fellows on the hill long enough
to see them work the guns. They’re some hustlers with the big irons, I
tell you.”

“Next time you can send in your card,” laughed Henri.




CHAPTER XXVIII. GOOD NEWS FROM DOVER.


The bombardment of Rheims was in full blast, and here it was that the
boys witnessed a strange combination of war and peace. Unaffected
by the terrific shelling of the town, refugees from Northern France
and Belgium were busy in the country picking grapes for the French
champagne yield.

“Can you match that?”

Billy marveled at the scene presented.

Henri and Reddy were intently watching the flight of shells, some of
which struck the cathedral, and a boy bugler, between 14 and 15 years
old, who came out of the heat of the fray, told them that a shell had
fallen on one of the high altars and had considerably damaged it.

This youngster had the grit, for he was as cool as a cucumber under
fire, and with his battalion had been nearly all day where bullets flew
thicker than flies in Egypt.

“That was quite a shake-up,” referring to the shell explosion in the
cathedral, “but,” assuming the easy air of one accustomed to such
things, “it wasn’t a marker to some of the whacks I’ve seen coming from
those howitzers.

“I’m from Dover; name Stetson; came over with the marine brigade; from
where does your ticket read?”

The youthful bugler was looking at Billy.

“From Bangor, Maine, United States of America; Barry is the family
handle, and the front name is Billy.

“Mr. Stetson, I’ll have you know Mr. Henri Trouville and Mr. Joseph
Mouselle, I think that is the way you pronounce it, isn’t it, Reddy?”

“Oh, call me Jimmy,” jovially urged the newcomer; “what’s ‘misters’
between friends?”

“Did you know Capt. Leonidas Johnson and Mr. Josiah Freeman in Dover?”
asked Billy.

“Did I know them?” cried Jimmy. “Did I know the town-clock and the
wharves? They’re the flying machine men, and I have hung around their
hangars so much that I must have worn out my welcome. To tell the
truth, though, I am on the waver between an aëroplane and a submarine.
I’ve have had some training, too, in the underwater boats. Say, coming
back at you, do you know Capt. Johnson, or just heard of him?”

“Rather well acquainted with him, I should imagine,” stated Billy with
a smile; “Henri and I rode up here in the captain’s seaplane.”

“Gee whiz, then, you’re the Aviator Boys I have heard about. I was
in London when that happened, and when I came back to Dover to say
farewell to mother I had no more than time to wave a hand to the
captain before the ship sailed for Ostend.”

“Do you mean to say that Captain Johnson and Josh Freeman are in
Dover?” was Billy’s excited query.

“Just so,” stoutly maintained Jimmy. “I saw them with my own eyes.”

“Glory be!” Billy was happiest when he said that.

“Hear that, Henri, old boy? Capt. Johnson and Freeman are safe in
Dover.”

Billy could not help repeating the glad tidings.

“Wonder how they got away?”

Henri would have been mightily pleased to talk it over with the old
boys that very minute.

Billy had already added Jimmy to his good friend list, and these two
kept up a running fire of questions aimed at one another.

Aëroplanes and submarines were dissected and put together again many
times during the lively conversation.

“How did you get so far from the water? You ought to be blowing a
fog-horn instead of a bugle, Jimmy.”

“I’ll tell you, Billy,” replied Jimmy, “that it was just a fluke that
I got anywhere outside of prisoners’ quarters. They picked up a bunch
of us at Nieuport, and one of the German officers asked me if I had run
away from school. The fact that they classed me kindergarten furnished
me the chance of skipping, and I starved my way to the camp of the
Coldstream Guards. They were going my way or I was going theirs, and
here I am.”

The boys had a reminder about that time that a war was going on, for
chunks of lead began to purr over the exposed position where they were
grouped.

“Blow a retreat,” suggested Henri to the bugler; but none of them
waited for that signal to get to cover.

So great had grown their confidence in the new friend that Henri and
Billy at mess that evening jointly gave him details of their adventures
in the château and the tunnel, and even told about the treasure they
were carrying.

Jimmy was an eager listener, and as the tale unfolded, his admiration
for the prowess of his new comrades reached the top degree.

“I’ve joined the band,” he insisted earnestly, “and I’m going to see
you through. Count me in from date.”

“If we only had Leon with us now,” laughed Henri, “we could push over
an army.”

“You bet Leon was a good one.”

Billy had more than once declared that if he ever got near to a place
where they stocked Christmas ships there would be something special in
the cargo for the little Belgian.

When the sergeant roll-called the boys, as usual, that night he was
requested to include Jimmy.

“If I adopt a few more of you,” he grumbled, “I’ll be fit for the
presidency of Bedlam.”

But the sergeant’s bark was far worse than his bite.




CHAPTER XXIX. SAVED THE DAY!


The shifting tide of battle had forced the advanced line of the Allies
to contend with a strong forward movement of German troops. In the
shelter of a wonderfully ingenious and deep-dug trench the boys looked
out upon a bloody battlefield, one of the bloodiest in European history.

French soldiers with rifles in their hands, standing or kneeling
in the immediate vicinity, keenly peered over the flat land toward
the positions known to be held by the Germans, concealed in the
woods--forests believed to be bristling with machine guns, backed by
infantry in rifle pits and covered trenches.

Time and again the French infantry had found these positions
impossible of taking owing to barbed wire entanglements strewn with
brush and branches of trees.

A heavy siege gun supporting the Allies was in action at the time. A
French artilleryman with the hand elevating gear rapidly cranked the
big barrel down to a level position ready for loading. A second threw
open the breech and extracted the brass cartridge case, carefully
wiping it out before depositing it among the empties; four more
seized the heavy shell and lifted it to a cradle opposite the breech;
a seventh rammed it home; number eight gingerly inserted the brass
cartridge, half filled with vaseline-like explosive; the breech was
closed, and the gun pointer rapidly cranked the gun into position
again. In less than thirty seconds the men sprang back from the gun,
again loaded and aimed. The mortar sent its shell purring through the
air against a German position on a far-off hill. There was an answering
burst of flame from the enemy’s battery. Both shots were too high. With
this incessant trying for range, the sharp whirring sounds in the air
seemed almost continuous. And there were hits that pierced ramparts of
flesh and blood!

Groups of wounded passed without ceasing, and yet the conflict was ever
renewed with death-defying courage. The command to which the boys were
attached had been driven from their entrenchment by literal showers of
shells, and fell back to the headquarters of yesterday.

They were threatened from all sides with annihilation, hemmed in by
walls of steel and sheets of flame, on three sides by bayonets, and on
the other by blazing batteries.

The left wing of the Allies was in desperate encounter also and unable
to effect a junction with and relieve the tremendous pressure on the
right.

Twenty-five miles away were stationed troops of cavalrymen standing
at the heads of their chargers, ready to jump into the saddle at a
moment’s call and stem any torrent of infantry that came their way.
These cavalrymen had been so held in reserve by the Allies, because
of the burrowing campaign that had been conducted in the immediate
vicinity of the battlefield. But now that the fighting had burst the
confines of the trenches they were sorely needed.

There was one way only to summon the reserves in time, so desperate was
the situation. That was by aëroplane. But two machines of the French
command had escaped destruction, and but one man of the aviation corps
out of six who was not among the missing, wounded or killed.

This survivor, eager to serve, was ordered into his aëroplane and the
machine hurtled aloft. The flyer made a fearless attempt to cross the
field at a height of a quarter of a mile. Bullets from guns mounted on
top of a slope pierced the aëroplane’s gasoline tank, causing the fuel
to escape and forcing the pilot to attempt to glide to the earth. On
reaching the ground he tried to defend himself with a revolver, but was
quickly captured.

The French commander, at the sight, shrugged his shoulders, and with a
despairing gesture turned to Colonel Bainbridge, with the words:

“It is all over.”

Henri heard the remark, and in wild excitement fairly leaped toward the
officers.

“There’s another machine, and two of us left who know how to run it.
We’re ready!”

The French officer recognized the speaker as one of the boys who had
located the German battery when his own aviators had failed to make a
find.

“What do you think of it?” he asked Colonel Bainbridge.

“I think that they can save the day,” solemnly asserted the officer
addressed.

“To the front, Billy!” loudly called Henri.

Billy was already “to the front”--he was testing the machine in
preparation for instant flight.

Jimmy and Reddy were there with the shove that started the aëroplane
rolling; our Aviator Boys were in their places, and away they went.
They did not risk any low flight to attract high range guns, but
streaked for the clouds from the very start.

Like an arrow, but even speedier, they moved a mile a minute, and,
descending, displayed the French colors to check a chance shot from
some enterprising cavalryman.

The message delivered, there was a great ado about boots and saddles,
and the mounted troops galloped like mad toward the scene of action.

Again rising high, the boys slackened pace that they might watch the
progress of the cavalry below, for as swiftly as these seasoned horses
might traverse the distance, they were as snails to an aëroplane.

The flyers saw the cavalrymen hurl themselves into the conflict on the
plain, and saw men and charging horses go down here and there, and
infantrymen everywhere under furious onslaught.

So formidable was the attack of the fresh troops that they won their
way to the position where their surrounded comrades were making what
they thought to be their last stand against overwhelming odds.

It was, though, at fearful cost, through a bloody lane, and over ground
strewn with dead and wounded.

The young airmen themselves had a close call before completing their
hazardous journey; a bullet struck the machine, causing it to lurch
as though reeling from a blow, and Billy had to throw the wheel hard
around to prevent the aëroplane from rolling right over upon its side.

But, diving and swerving, the good craft swept down, while the relief
and the relieved regiments rent the air with cheers.

Our Aviator Boys had saved the day!




CHAPTER XXX. SETTING OUT FOR THE SEA.


Verdun to Mezieres, near the historic field of Sedan; Dinant,
Namur--names of everyday reading now, on the northern army route to
Brussels. Colonel Bainbridge, Sergeant Scott, the Boy Aviators, Jimmy
and Reddy were all in the march for the coast region. The Trouville
jewels and gold had been sewn into four canvas belts, and one assigned
to each of the boys, who wore them under their blouses. It was the
intention of Henri and his young comrades to accompany the command
until it reached the vicinity of some near coast point, where they
planned to try for a ship voyage that would end in the English Channel.

Jimmy had no military ties to hold him with the Coldstream Guards; he
was a waif until he found his own command.

“Give me even a day on the old stamping grounds,” he said, “and it’s me
that will be a jolly boy.”

“Wish there was a bridge over the briny deep,” chimed in Billy, “and I
know somebody who would soon start on the long walk to Bangor.”

Henri was thinking of his mother, and Reddy was never out of his dream
of Paris.

West Flanders was the scene of incessant military operations, and like
an island was cut off from the rest of Belgium, through the blowing up
of the bridges leading thereto. Peasants were obliged to make emergency
bridges from planks, and crawl along these to escape from the danger
zone.

Among the last memories, outside of fighting, that the boys carried
from Belgium, were of the bedraggled men and women suffering through
cold and hunger.

The Germans had declared the territory west of the railroad running
from Brussels to Antwerp an official war area, where nobody, including
even Germans, were allowed to travel without a special military
passport.

“Now,” said Jimmy, “we’re on the dead-line; even if we could get into
Antwerp, it’s ten to one that we couldn’t get out, and so what’s the
use of getting in?”

“But I’d rather take the chances of getting out of this wasp’s nest by
water than by attempting to break through any more wholesale killings
on the land.”

That was Billy’s view. He was war-worn.

“But we’re going back by water,” assured Jimmy, “only it won’t have to
be exactly from Antwerp. I’ve voyaged several times to Flushing--that’s
in The Netherlands, you know--and once among the Dutch, and in the
Scheldt river. I know a trick or two to get out on the North Sea.”

“You’re the captain on this trip,” conceded Henri; “if we can’t sail
from Antwerp, let’s push along anywhere, so long as it’s up-coast, even
to The Hague. Once in neutral territory, some of our troubles are over.”

“‘Some’ is the way to put it, Henri,” remarked Billy, “for if you had
said ‘all our troubles’ I’d think you were figuring on our final rest
at the bottom of the sea.”

“Well, it’s just this way,” continued Jimmy. “I believe I know a
route, rounding Antwerp on the east, that will take us out of fighting
ground, and in the town of Santvlieto, on the Scheldt, I have a friend
who is mate on a trade vessel, regularly running between Flushing and
the channel. I feel sure that he is home, for there are so many mines
planted in the North Sea now that it isn’t safe to risk anything that
isn’t insured to the limit.”

“But isn’t Santvlieto quite a way up the river from Flushing?” asked
Henri, who knew something of the coast line near Antwerp.

“Easy distance in a boat,” advised Jimmy. “I’ve been up and down
several times with my friend.”

“Let’s take the matter up with the colonel,” suggested Billy.

The boys all agreed to that, and the colonel strongly advised them to
get out of the war zone, if they could do it in safety.

“It’s hard to part with you, though, my brave boys, and,” particularly
addressing Billy and Henri, “I can never forget that it was you who
gave my dear dead son the best burial you could. I hope we can go
to that grave together some day. I will never forget, either, that
daring adventure of your own when you saved our command from being
annihilated. Here, sergeant,” calling to that officer who was drilling
some raw recruits nearby, “come and get your release as caretaker of
these youngsters.”

Sergeant Scott stood as straight as a ramrod, facing the colonel and
his young friends.

When he heard what the boys proposed to do, the sergeant bent his head
for an instant, then spoke gruffly, with a little husky note, too:

“Fall in, you lads; eyes right; salute!”

With all gravity salutes were exchanged.

“We can give them convoy, can’t we, colonel?”

“Yes, sergeant,” quickly replied the colonel, “give them protection as
far on the way as you think best.”

With that the fine soldier and gentleman turned to address some of the
staff assembling for conference.

The protecting force of cavalry were with the boys to a point within
five miles of the frontier, and all was clear.

The sergeant gave each of the boys an iron hand grip, and, leading the
horses the boys had ridden, the troop wheeled and soon disappeared in a
cloud of dust.

Billy, Henri and the sergeant were to meet again, but not in France or
Belgium.

An hour later the boys were in neutral territory, and it was the first
breath they had drawn in peace in many a day.

But of lasting peace, not yet.

Hans Troutman was at home, and sorry for it--not because of the
unexpected visit of his young friend from Dover--he was delighted over
that,--but simply because Hans was a thrifty fellow who did not like
even to waste time, let alone money.

While the good mother in the little house on the big river was setting
the oilcloth table-cover, with the kind of a meal that appeals to the
robust feeder, Henri was making a business proposition to Hans.

Hans gloried in business propositions, and he could understand them in
three separate and distinct languages.

Fifty gold franc pieces for his company and his boat to Flushing.

Fifty more if he put the boys on a ship that was bound for the English
Channel.

“It’s just like finding it,” said Hans, lighting his pipe.




CHAPTER XXXI. LIKE A MIRACLE OF OLD.


Three Dutch men-of-war, with steam up, lay off Flushing, ready to
defend the neutrality of their waters.

All vessels were forbidden to clear from the port and enter the North
Sea after nightfall, and on the sanded floor of the tap-room, in a
sailors’ house of rest, our boys were impatiently scraping their feet,
awaiting sunrise. In their anxiety to get away without submitting to
intimate inspection, they had no desire for napping.

With their belts, these boys represented a money valuation of more than
a million francs.

Since arrival in Flushing, the day before, Hans had been an active
mover at the mouth of the Scheldt, and for shipping news an eager
seeker.

At this particular date, the rumor among men of the nautical trade
was that, in the rough sea, anchored mines were often going loose, and
a bobbing mine is not apt to have any discretion as to the keel with
which it collides.

“I’ve heard dozens of mines explode in a single day,” said one captain
to Hans. The latter had heard a few himself.

In addition to mines, the sea was crowded with torpedo boat destroyers,
submarines of all sorts and descriptions, and with cruisers the waters
fairly reeked. There, too, were the steam trawlers, either engaged
in laying or “sweeping” for mines. These “sweepers” run in pairs.
Between each pair a steel net is suspended. The theory is that mines,
whether floating or anchored, will be caught by that net. Then one of
the destroyers, which are constantly darting about, is signaled, and
destroys the mine by a single shot.

Overhead, Zeppelins and other aircraft continually circled, dropping
bombs where they would do the most harm to those whom the airmen
desired to harm the most, and sometimes harm was done without intent.

Once out of the Scheldt, and trouble was likely to begin any minute,
particularly for any craft considered unfriendly by the British fleet.

A narrow lane had been slashed--as a woodsman would say--through the
sea. Outside of it there was danger everywhere.

Such was the situation when Hans introduced Captain Eberhardt to the
restless four in the house of rest.

The captain was a man of few words, and had a firecracker way of
delivering them.

He said he owned a “scow with a funnel in it,” and he was one of the
pilots who were trusted to take boats through. The shoals in the
shallow and muddy water of the North Sea had been well marked in times
of peace, but now only here and there to be seen by the men at the
wheel, for guides, were big red “war buoys.”

Henri had taken from the belts sufficient gold for even extraordinary
passage money for himself and comrades, and jingled the coins on the
deal table at which the party were sitting.

“We want to get out of here at daybreak, if you can swing it, captain,”
he said.

The captain looked at the coins and then at his watch, a massive silver
timepiece, hitched to his broad vest-front by twisted links of steel.

“Bring ’em down”--the captain addressing Hans in Dutch.

Hans nodded assent, and kept the captain company to the door, where
they apparently completed arrangements.

When the cuckoo in the clock, shelved above the fancy tiled fireplace,
warbled the hour of 4 a. m., Hans shook the sleepy attendant into a
waking moment, and hustled him after cakes and coffee.

At 5 o’clock Hans and the boys dropped again into the boat in which
they had floated down from Santvlieto.

Captain Eberhardt’s vessel was in anchor in the sloppy waters off
Flushing, and the captain was aboard when Hans and the boys climbed to
the deck.

The captain had also, just previously, been visited by members of the
coast guard service, but as he was well known, and not a character
under suspicion, this visit was wholly informal.

At 7 o’clock the vessel weighed anchor, and steamed out to sea.

With Flushing far behind them, the boys began to notice an occasional
appearance above the waves of a slim gray periscope, a long tube fitted
with a series of prisms, which enable the men guiding the submarines to
obtain a view of the surrounding water.

When several of these under water boats showed at once, half submerged,
and men could be seen huddled together in the barrels of bridges,
Jimmy’s delight knew no bounds.

“What do you think of them, now, you flying catapults?” he called to
the boys.

“Wouldn’t mind taking a ride in one, old top,” was Billy’s genial
observation.

“You’d like it when you got used to it,” advised Jimmy.

“What’s up now?”

Henri’s startled question referred to a dull sound, that came from a
point quartering to their course, and a fountain of water spurting into
the air.

“A mine let go, I’ll bet,” surmised Henri.

“You’re right, and a corker, too,” admitted Jimmy.

The captain had evidently sighted something else from his position on
the bridge, for his firecracker voice shouted the order:

“Run up those flags!”

Three miles away a fleet of a half dozen destroyers were tearing toward
the little steamer, with black bands of smoke striking down from each
raking funnel.

The captain on the bridge had seen an impatient signal snapping from
the flagship of the fleet.

The curiosity of the fleet was soon satisfied, but the captain
complained that they ought to have known that he and his ship were no
strangers in these parts.

He little reckoned, then, that the good old hulk was to get its
wrecking blow that night from the inside and not the outside.

The boys, when the bell strokes were counting 10 o’clock, were still in
the vessel’s bow, where they had been since the early evening, talking
of the many dangers that lurked in the misty nooks of these turbulent
waters.

“I guess I’ll turn in,” yawned Billy. “This craft is an awful drag;
it’s been acting like a street car on an avenue with two hundred
crossings. Come on, fellows.”

The words were hardly spoken, when the deck beneath them gave a
sickening heave, with a deafening roar in its wake.

The time-worn boilers in the engine room had rebelled at last, and,
bursting, they split the seasoned fabric that immediately confined them
into countless pieces.

By the upheaval the boys were violently thrown over the deck railing
and into the churning water below.

Breathless and half-stunned, they instinctively struck out in swimming
stroke, and from them the wreck drifted away into the darkness.

Weighted down by the heavy belts, in addition to their clothing, the
swimmers were soon exhausted.

The end was near!

They swam close together, anticipating it.

One more despairing reach for life--and life was there!

The swimmers’ outstretched arms rested on the bridge of a submarine!




CHAPTER XXXII. LIKE A DREAM OF GOOD LUCK.


Through the conning tower hatch of the submarine emerged a sailor,
holding high a brilliant flare that looked like a small searchlight.

“What’s your number, lads?” he hailed.

“Four of us, sir,” weakly responded Jimmy.

The sailor stepped out on the slippery deck of the boat, that
alternately rose and fell in the swell of the sea.

“Whereaway?” questioned the sailor.

“To the bottom of the sea, if you don’t give us a lift,” replied Jimmy.

The sailor turned to the hatch, sent a call below, and two more jaunty
tars sprang through the opening.

One of the last comers was just a youngster in years, but evidently
qualified for his dangerous calling.

“By the ghost of Bloomsbury Park,” he exclaimed, when extending a
helping hand to Jimmy, and when the latter’s face showed in the shine
of the flare, “if it isn’t Stetson!”

“I’ll be blowed if it isn’t Ned!” Jimmy had joined familiar company, it
seemed.

“Seven hands ’round, Jimmy,” cried the young sailor, “did you drop from
the clouds?”

“No,” said Jimmy, wringing the water from his cap, “I came by the
boiler route to help celebrate your birthday.”

In the meantime, Jimmy’s fellow swimmers had been assisted to the deck,
and were practicing again the art of drawing a long breath.

All of the wet ones had begun to shiver, for the wind had a sharp edge
to it.

“Bring them below”--this command from the conning tower, by a fourth
sailor, who appeared to speak with authority.

Glad of the chance to get under cover, the chilly explosion survivors
followed the officer below the hatch, and immensely enjoyed the warmth
of the snug quarters.

“You’ll find this isn’t much of a passenger boat, my lads; it fits too
tight to suit most people.” This remark from the officer showing the
way.

“It felt mighty good to us when we couldn’t find the bottom of the sea
with our feet.”

Billy’s happy disposition was again working.

It was Jimmy’s hour, this business of being inside of a submarine. Our
Aviator Boys might be princes of the air, but down here Jimmy Stetson
was the ace, and all the other cards. He could not give Henri any
points that would puzzle about the gasoline engine that furnished the
power when the craft was running on the surface, and, perhaps, not a
great deal that was new about the electric motor that propelled the
boat when under the water, but to all of the visiting boys, except
Jimmy, there was much of mystery about the way the vessel was raised
and lowered.

How, when the ballast tanks are full, they sink the hull of the
submarine until only the periscope and top of the conning tower
are visible, and, when empty, the whole of the conning tower,
superstructure, and a portion of the hull ride above the water.

How hydroplanes--short, broad fins--tilt the nose of the vessel so that
the propeller can drive the craft down fifty or sixty feet.

Jimmy knew all about it, and the sailors let him have all the pleasure
of telling it to his wondering companions.

The guarded screw propeller aft and outside, the vertical steering
rudders behind it, the air flasks which supply the crew with air when
the vessel is submerged, the torpedo equipment--all the details thereof
were reeled off by the Dover boy with great gusto.

Ned Belton, with whom Jimmy had trained for submarine service in
London, laughingly nominated his friend, there and then, for head
talker on a sight-seeing ’bus.

With roving commission, the submarine was lazily drifting, half
submerged, within sight of the lighthouse with the famous hexagonal
tower, near Nieuport-Bains, a little seaside resort in Belgium.

The boys had realized that it was considerable of a cramp for the
submarine to carry passengers in the limited space allotted to the
crew, and barring this extreme emergency, it would not have done at all
for this fighting machine to serve any other than the purpose intended.

It was agreed that the submarine would go as far as Dunkirk, in the
hope that opportunity would there present itself for the passengers to
pursue the returning course in some other vessel.

A surprise beyond any dream of great fortune awaited them at Dunkirk.

This port just then was a working out point for aircraft for scout duty
on the North Sea.

From the conning tower of the submarine Henri and Billy were watching
with keen interest the aërial maneuvers then in progress. Suddenly the
lighter machines were overshadowed by a flying shape that darted like
an eagle among sparrows.

The long, tapering hull, and the float attachments, the trim, wicked
gun in the bow, proclaimed this giant patrol of the air a fighting
sea-plane.

With engines quiet, down dived the great steel-breasted bird; then a
swift upturning and she shot level upon the water and rode the waves
like a swan.

A stone could easily have been tossed from the bridge of the submarine
upon the upper plane of the aircraft, so near together were they.

The pilot of the sea-plane turned to view the rival factor in modern
warfare, half rising as he did so.

Mutual recognition flashed across the few separating yards of distance.

“Hello, captain!” shouted Billy.

“Hello yourself, Billy Barry!” came the answering shout.

“Whoopee!” This was Josh Freeman’s joyful contribution, as he poked a
grimy face from the tiny engine room of the big flyer.

“Sling us a line,” called the captain.

Ned made the cast with a stout bit of hemp, and the aircraft was drawn
alongside of the submarine.

“Put ’er there, boys,” commanded Captain Johnson, reaching for Billy’s
outstretched hand; “and there’s Henri, bless you, my lad; give me the
grip; sure this is good for sore eyes.”

Josh did not stop at handshaking, he encircled both boys in his brawny
arms and set their ribs to cracking.

“Well, for all that’s out,” exclaimed the captain, spying Jimmy, who
was just appearing above the hatch, “here’s a whole garden of daisies!
Tip us your fin, Jimmy, and let me tell you that your mother is looking
for you.”

“Why, I thought you had gone for a soldier, you Dover dandy,” put in
Josh, as he playfully saluted Jimmy.

“Here’s another of the flock,” said Billy, pushing Reddy forward for
inspection.

“When I get all of you aboard,” commented the captain, “it will look
like I was trying to outdo Noah. But come a runnin’ and I’ll pack you
all in somewhere, being as there are two lightweights among the four,”
referring to Jimmy and Reddy, “and none of you much heavier than a
pound of butter.”

The crew of the submarine came in for some heartfelt expressions of
gratitude on the part of the boys, whose lives they had saved, and Ned
was privately made banker for some tobacco money for the men.

“This is like old times,” contentedly remarked Billy, as he heard again
the drone of the sea-plane motors.




CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SEALED PACKET.


“We’re not in the soldier business,” explained Captain Johnson to
the boys; “it’s just a ‘trying out’ on contract on which we are now
engaged. The old machine is somewhere in Ostend, and I guess it’s
going to be a dead loss to us. You ask how we broke out of Ypres. Well,
we convinced a good sport in authority that it was just the wind that
blew us into the German lines, and we would favor any gale that would
blow us out again.

“He had seen us as aërial performers once upon a time at Ostend, and
being an infantryman of the old school, he privately regarded the
whole flying fraternity in the light of circus stars. He did, however,
concede that if anything counted for much above ground, it was the
invention of his friend, Count Zeppelin.

“As matters warmed up around Ypres, we were hustled back to Ostend, and
hung around there for some time, on parole, they called it, until one
day we were permitted to board a hospital ship bound for Calais.

“We can’t show any scars, nor bullet holes in our clothes--not a thing
to add to our glorious achievement of turning you boys loose in the war
zone.”

The captain by this time had heard all about the adventures of his
young friends.

“In this fuel test,” he continued, “we can give you a lift that may
pretty near, if not quite, land you where you want to go. I wouldn’t
mind sailing into Paris myself, but there are no free agents at the
working end of a contract. I don’t know yet.”

“Wake me and shake me at the mouth of the Thames,” exulted Jimmy, “show
me the docks at Tilbury, see that there is a light in the window for me
at Dover, and then won’t I be the horse for the Paris wagon!”

“Bully boy!” applauded Josh.

“Now get snug, you youngsters,” said the captain--“two in the bow and
two aft with Josh.”

“Give her power, Freeman.”

The planes were set for the upward flight, and the course for the
Straits of Dover.

Reddy was the only “cat in a strange garret” when the sea-plane cut
through the air. The little Frenchman had never had a like sensation,
and he soon began to revel in it, even though he could look sheer down
through 3,000 feet of space and see the heaving sea.

The captain lowered the flight along the French coast, for the soldiers
all down the line had been warned not to fire on the sea-plane, it
having been generally announced in wireless orders that it was an
English airship out on a trial run. The schedule included Boulogne,
and the boys had the opportunity of looking down upon the city where
Napoleon had once encamped his troops.

Swinging ’round and circling backward, the sea-plane hovered over
Calais. Somebody had evidently forgotten orders, for when the big
machine was directly above the military governor’s headquarters a half
dozen or more soldiers seized their rifles and commenced firing at the
aviators. Out rushed an officer, crying:

“C’est un Anglais! C’est un Anglais! Ne tirez plus!” (It is an
Englishman! It is an Englishman! Stop firing!)

The sea-plane dropped into the harbor off Calais, and all except Josh,
remaining as faithful guardian of his precious motors, went ashore.

The captain there hoped to solve the problem of getting his young
friends safely to Paris, and the boys certainly wished him the best
kind of luck in the effort. Both French approval and English backing
would help some in the way of hastening unmolested progress.

On Rue de Moscow the boys discovered that these were days when there
was something doing every minute in Calais. Clouds of smoke rose from
sputtering motors, whizzing to and fro, some loaded with soldiers, some
with food, while others were hastening for the field of battle.

Refugees from almost everywhere in the war zone filled the town to the
point of overflow--and such a medley of French and Flemish! Men wearing
blood-stained bandages, old women, babies in arms, worn out and half
starved.

The great warehouses, the Hotel de Ville, the railway station, lace
factories, private residences, and even ships in the harbor, were used
as sleeping quarters.

“We can’t get away from it,” sighed Henri, as the party noted a limping
procession of Belgian soldiers caked with mud, worn faces covered with
three or four weeks’ growth of beard, and who looked like they had
exhausted the last drop of energy and patience they had.

“And they are coming in by the thousands,” volunteered a bystander.

The boys waited near the Maritime station while the captain made his
visit of state to one in authority, with whom he was well acquainted.

Presently the captain hove in sight, accompanied by a Belgian gendarme,
one of the force then engaged in patrolling the city. This was
evidently a guard of honor, for the captain had no appearance of being
disturbed by arrest.

“Now, youngsters,” he briskly announced, “there is a bit of a
conference arranged for you, so put on your best front. It won’t be
like a visit to a dentist, I assure you.”

In a street not far removed from the Victoria hotel, the captain
ushered his young charges into the vestibule of a pretentious looking
residence, and guided by a smiling secretary the visitors were soon in
the presence of a man of most distinguished bearing and cordial manner,
who instantly rose from his chair behind a desk littered with papers.

“I have the pleasure, I believe,” he said in English, with only a trace
of the softer accent, “of making the acquaintance of young men who fly
like birds, and, also, who have seen much in the battlefields.”

The boys bent their heads in acknowledgment of his kindly accusation.

“The captain here tells me that you have an important mission in Paris,
of a strictly personal nature,” continued the genial host, when all
were seated.

“We have, sir,” responded Henri.

“You are a Trouville, I understand?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Henri.

“I know that family well,” observed the questioner. “Some of my people
and yours, history tells, had mutual interests in the long ago.”

“I am very proud of that, sir.”

“Why, you are quite a young diplomat,” laughed the gentleman behind the
desk.

“But,” he continued, “it is at the present we are looking.”

“My dear Anglin,” turning to his ever smiling secretary, “hand me that
portfolio.”

From the portfolio case the speaker took a sealed packet, closed by red
wax, and tape-wound.

“In Paris, my dear boy,” addressing Henri, “you will deliver this
to the address written thereon, and,” in impressive tone, “I should
regret exceedingly if it should fall into any other hands than those
authorized to receive it.

“Remember that!

“The captain will give you all other necessary instructions.

“My young friends, permit me to say bon soir.” (Good evening.)




CHAPTER XXXIV. AT THE FRONT DOOR OF PARIS.


“You made quite a hit with his nobs,” remarked Billy to Henri when the
party reached the street, and started for the Maritime station.

“Wasn’t he fine, though!” exclaimed Henri.

“You’ll find that he has the say when it comes to moving about in
France these times,” asserted the captain. “You’re a lucky lot, I tell
you.”

“I think we owe you something for all this, captain,” suggested Billy.

“Oh, well,” replied the captain, “that’s all in the family, anyhow.
There’s a certain old gentleman over in the States who never went back
on me--and you are a down-to-date picture of him, Billy.”

Josh had given the engine end of the sea-plane a thorough overhauling,
refilled the tanks, and was ready, he claimed, to sail to the moon.

“Never saw such a hungry place as Calais is now,” he grumbled. “The old
lady running the nearest bakery told me a little while ago that she
never sold so much bread before in all her life, and the ovens couldn’t
half keep up with the demand. I don’t believe, either, that there is a
cupful of milk in the town.”

“You seem to have fallen down as a grub hunter, old man,” jested the
captain. “But there is no use growling,” he added, “the machine lockers
are pretty full yet.”

Indeed, there was no immediate danger of the airmen starving.

Henri was chiefly occupied, during the exchange between the captain and
Josh, in thinking of the new care put upon him in the matter of the
sealed packet, and if it was once, it was twenty times in the hour,
that he clutched at his breast, where the parcel reposed. The carrying
of jewels and gold around his waist he passed as an old experience. It
was merely a habit, now.

But the mystery about the packet appealed to the boy, and imagination
magnified the trust until it weighed about a ton on his mind.

The captain had not yet revealed his program of action, and it was with
great difficulty that Henri restrained his growing impatience at the
delay.

After a hearty attack on the food supply of the sea-plane, the captain,
behind a pipeful of the stoutest tobacco to be found on the continent,
announced that there would be no flying that night. The skipper of a
fishing smack had just brought in the rumor from Dover that several
bombs had been dropped from hostile aëroplanes upon that famous
fortified naval harbor. The skipper had also heard that the damage
inflicted by the bombs was light. The captain, under the circumstances,
could not well afford to take chances with a costly machine that did
not belong to him, by night flight. With such rumors on the wireless
flashing down the coast, there was no telling what might happen to an
aviator who could not show his colors.

From this it may be surmised that the captain had no instructions to
put the boys on the night express from Calais to Paris.

“Say, captain, how long do we have to stay here?”

Henri had set to angling for information.

“Overnight, anyhow,” briefly replied the captain. The truth of the
matter is, he was secretly enjoying this bit of teasing, and, further,
he was himself in doubt until a certain messenger should arrive with a
wired for permit to use the sea-plane out of designated area.

Here the magic in the name of the authority to whom the captain had
appealed that day in Calais was first in evidence. Though all people in
the town were forbidden to ride on bicycles after 9 p. m., this rigid
rule then prevailing was apparently not enforced against a wheelman who
arrived at the Maritime station at 10 o’clock, with a yellow envelope
addressed to Captain Johnson.

The captain read the message, pocketed it, knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, told Josh to set the lights in the floating sea-plane and to take
the first watch, promising relief at 1 o’clock. The friendly skipper
invited them all to spread their blankets on the deck of the smack.

At dawn the sea-plane splashed a start and took to the air.

“We’re off for Havre!”

This from the man at the wheel.

Havre, at the mouth of the Seine, and the sea-port for Paris, next to
Marseilles the most important in France.

Henri now had a fair idea of the route they were to follow.

“It’s simply great of you, captain,” acclaimed Henri.

“I said ‘near, if not quite,’ you remember,” trumpeted the captain, for
the noise of the flying machine would have drowned any softer sound.

“Oh, you Havre!” cried Jimmy, when shipmasts loomed like a forest of
bare poles far below.

With marked precision and care, the captain swung into the port, which
thousands of water-craft entered every year.

The coming of the sea-plane had evidently been heralded by a swifter
agent of the air, the wonderful wireless, for no sooner had the flying
machine found clear space in the basin, than it was rapidly approached
by a small motor-boat, in which were seated three men, the one looking
out from the elevated bow exhibiting an empty coat sleeve and the
glitter of an honor decoration upon his breast.

“Is it Rue Castiglione?” he hailed.

“No; it is Rue de Rivoli,” called the captain.

Only names of noted boulevards in Paris--and evidently used in
agreement to insure recognition.

With the uttering of the passwords, there was no further attempt to
speak in riddles.

“Which of the boys?”

He of the one arm was closely inspecting the sea-plane company.

The captain nodded toward Henri.

“Your hand, young sir,” said he with only one to offer. “I knew your
father before you, and of that I am proud.”

Henri was beginning to believe that a Trouville could not be lost in
France.

“Come into the boat,” urged this new found friend.

“But there are three more to go,” stated Henri.

“Ah, I see, you have attendants?”

“Not that, my dear sir; we are all of one rank, and we move on the same
spring.”

“What you wish is a command,” politely conceded the man in the boat;
“will the four come aboard?”

“It’s all in the deal,” said the captain, in a low tone to Henri. “I’ll
have to quit here, and you boys are to go on. But it’s good luck and
not good-by that I’m saying now. It’s not far to Dover, you know.”

When the motor chugged away, the four boys were in it.




CHAPTER XXXV. THE FLIGHT UP THE SEINE.


The motor-boat swiftly threaded its way into the Seine, guided with the
greatest skill, for it was a crowded waterway, and landing was made at
the base of a stone staircase leading to extensive grounds, surrounding
one of those old time mansions still holding its dignity against the
modern building advances and commercial activity now prevailing in what
was once Havre de Grace, named from a chapel of Notre Dame de Grace,
founded in 1509.

From a large bay window of an upper room of the mansion, to which the
boys were taken by order of the man with the empty sleeve, they could
see great ship building yards and the tall chimneys of sugar refineries.

Looking at the tapestry-hung walls, Billy remarked: “This reminds me of
Arras.”

“Sure, it does,” agreed Henri. “But,” he added, “without the noise of
the big guns.”

“Wonder if it isn’t train time?”

Jimmy evidently did not approve of all this ceremony over the short
journey still before them.

“You’d think it was an affair of state,” he concluded.

“But you must remember, Jimmy,” advised Henri, “that Paris is something
of a closed town, these days. They are not advertising for visitors
up there, unless they come in uniform, and of the right color. I, for
one, don’t want to be searched,” feeling for the packet inside his
shirt-front, and giving also a tug to the treasure belt.

“Right you are,” approved Billy, “and when you figure that we haven’t
a passport among us. Mine was soaked to a pulp when that old scow blew
up and strewed the sea with us. I couldn’t this minute prove that I was
from Bangor.”

“We’re all members of the Don’t Worry club, and we have always
alighted on our feet,” was Henri’s cheerful view. “Besides, we’re
traveling under sealed orders, so to speak, and it’s up to the fellow
who is personally conducting this excursion.”

The last mentioned personage just then put in appearance, smiling and
making apology for being so long away from his guests.

“I have some rare good news for you,” he impressively announced--“and a
plan that will be much to your liking, I think”--looking at Henri, and
with a side glance at Billy.

“The letter from my friend, whose name I shall not mention, and which
monsieur the captain handed to me, I had not read until I left you, and
I knew not until the reading that of the air two of you are masters.
It is splendid, and it so beautifully fits. Pardon the enthusiasm of a
Frenchman, but so superb is the idea, I must speak this way. You shall
go to Paris, not among the locked in of the railway carriages, not in
the cabin of some little steamer--like a bird you shall go. Is it not
grand?”

Billy had begun to believe that the speaker had stopped too often
in the cafés during the visit downtown, but so convincing was the
statement which followed that he felt sorry for holding such a belief:

“In this port there have just arrived three of the new military
aëroplanes, so much larger than the little ones that have been sent out
from the forts in Paris for scouting--these bigger ones give room for
an observer to move and signal, and the pilot may attend alone to his
duty of managing the machine.

“You understand the foreign make?”

It would evidently have been a sore disappointment to the eager
proposer if the answer were contrary to his hope.

“They all look alike to us,” assured Henri.

“Glorious! It is but the one thing, to put together these fine birds,
to fly them to Paris, and when they are there, so you are there. What
benefit for all. Gilbert! Gilbert!”

Responding to the call of the excitable host, a stocky built youth
with a shock of coal-black hair of such length that it mixed with
his eyebrows, and who had evidently been awaiting the result of the
conference upstairs, sauntered through the doorway.

“For what would you take him?”

Billy thought that he would not “take him” at any price for beauty, but
he politely guessed:

“Artist?”

“Ah! That is it--he is one artist like yourselves--he is the great
scout of the air. Gilbert LeFane of Rouen.”

“I fear it is too much honor, monsieur, that you have bestowed upon me.
I but serve.”

“But what gallant service it is. Permit me now, my dear Gilbert, to
present the youths who also fly with the best, Monsieur Trouville and
Baree, also the young men who travel with them.”

Jimmy and Reddy felt a couple of inches growth through the tops of
their heads. Billy was thinking how “Baree” would sound in Bangor.

Gilbert spoke rapidly and to the point. He was here to receive the
aëroplanes which had been specially built for his government. An expert
assistant in assembling these machines was overdue, and it was a matter
of emergency--of great emergency, he emphasized.

To his patriotic friend, who had so generously praised him a few
minutes before, he had confided his troubles, and this meeting was
arranged. Would the young gentlemen volunteer for this relief service?

The young gentlemen would--and did, and in less than a day, the new
machines were set to the tune of flight.

The master of the mansion was a picture of delight over the success of
that which he had brought about, and even cherished a fond hope that he
had permanently added to the flying corps of his beloved France.

He assured the boys that when they followed Gilbert in the air trip
up the Seine to the capital, it was insuring them a welcome beyond
anything they could have expected--doubly welcome, indeed, with this
and with the endorsement of the power at Calais.

“I wish I knew how far his knowledge goes regarding the sealed packet
that I am carrying,” thought Henri.

But about this, Henri discreetly resolved not to ask any questions.

As to the manner of proceeding on their aërial journey, it was decided,
of course, that Gilbert should lead in one machine, Henri and Reddy in
the second, and Billy and Jimmy in the third.

They followed the course of the river, as the crow flies, land crossing
and cutting out the big bends, and with never a mishap, so perfectly
were the machines adjusted and so expertly managed--a master hand at
every wheel.

Billy said to Jimmy that surely Joseph’s coat never had as many buttons
on it as there were towns, little and big, along this line of travel.

But when he looked down on Paris, on its quays and embankments, on its
magnificent public squares, on its beautiful gardens, on its lofty
towers, all surrounded by twenty-two miles of fortifications, Billy
rested on the guiding wheel in silent admiration.

The grim visage of war was pale in the distance.




CHAPTER XXXVI. THE WAY THAT WENT WRONG.


Along the outworks of Paris our Aviator Boys had the delight of
hearing of the war exploits of some of the greatest airmen of their
time, Paulhan, the hero of the English tour from London to Manchester;
Brindejonc des Moulinais, Garros, Vedrines, and last, but not least,
the very Gilbert LeFane, whom they had followed through the air from
Havre to the capital.

While it had been said that French aëroplanes had never been seen
above the French lines, though many machines of the opposing power
were constantly reconnoitering over the heads of the French soldiers,
it was well known within the circle that this aviation corps had been
operating not only on the German lines, but considerably to the rear of
them, and many and brilliant were the achievements of intimate record.

Within the first few hours after their arrival in Paris--not the
laughter-loving city of yesterday, but the militant Paris of
to-day--the boys had a glimpse of the military dictator, the commanding
figure of the hour, General Joffre, on whom all France relies--a man of
medium height, stout, with a massive head, thick drooping mustache,
and heavy eyebrows nearly concealing his eyes.

As Gilbert remarked, “he had an easy-going manner until he sets his
jaws. By the way,” he added, “how would you like to show him what the
new machines can do?”

To perform before General Joffre! Our Aviator Boys fairly gasped at
the idea. So closely had they been allied with military doings, and so
easily does the war spirit expand by such association, that a great
field commander was just about the very top of the list with them.
Legions gave devotion to General Joffre and General Sir John French.

From the first line of fortifications, over the enceinte (works forming
the main inclosure), to the detached forts still beyond, there was a
splendid natural theater for the aërial exhibit, 430 square miles thus
enclosed, with an encircling line of 77 miles.

“These machines are certainly the very ‘last word’ in aëroplane
construction,” observed Henri, when Gilbert, Billy and himself moved
about the hangars engaged in the “tuning up” process.

“Something like the machine in which young Bainbridge took his last
ride,” recalled Billy.

In all their lives the boys could never forget that sad incident.

To demonstrate the passenger-carrying capacity of the new aircraft,
Gilbert was accompanied in the leading flight by a comrade airman,
while Henri took Reddy, and Billy chummed with Jimmy.

The graceful evolutions, and, particularly, the lightning speed shown
by the up-to-date machines, excited admiration and wonder. Practically
the entire length of the encircling line was traversed in an hour--that
is, 77 miles an hour!

Jimmy and Reddy had never before traveled like a ball from a cannon,
and even for the practiced aviators it was a little more than their
limit.

“The general can’t say that there was anything slow about this,”
asserted Billy, when he climbed down from the wheel-seat at the close
of the thrilling performance.

“It was good work.”

Gilbert was a man of few words, and he always meant what he said.

He showed that when he said to Henri and Billy, in his earnest way:

“The flying corps would count it a big day if your services could be
secured for regular duty.”

“But we are not ready to settle down yet,” was Billy’s plea. He did not
want to tie himself to any foreign job.

“It is a temptation,” admitted Henri, “yet I must decide with Billy.
It’s a partnership that won’t break.”

“And which reminds me,” he went on, “that we have a pressing duty
elsewhere, and now that we have given this day to show our gratitude to
the kind Gilbert, it is very necessary that we hurry on.”

“All the obligation owing is mine,” stoutly maintained Gilbert; “you
have a thousand times paid for your ride to Paris. Can I do any more
now to get a nearer balance?”

“Only give us some directions that we want, and for possible need,
something in writing, to ward off suspicious soldiers or gendarmes.”

Gilbert provided both, and would also have sent a trooper or two with
them had not Henri protested against it.

He felt that having set out on a secret mission, he was going to play
the game that way.

It chanced that they must pass through one of the older parts of the
city to reach the destination fixed by the address on the packet. It
also happened, in this time of war, that of vehicles for hire there
were very few running in the central part of the city--and there were
none at all to be seen in these outskirts and wilderness of narrow,
irregular streets.

Henri had not figured on such a condition as no means of public
conveyance, for it had not yet been fully impressed upon him that this
was not the same Paris he had known in the past. It was now a city
fearful; not a city wonderful.

Getting lost in this part of Paris, and when the Apache bandits and
ghouls of the night found less restraint and greater need, was no merry
jest. Henri began to vainly wish that he had accepted Gilbert’s offer
of an escort. Billy and himself had encountered so many big things in
the way of danger and peril in the last few months, so many close calls
on land and sea, above and below, that this adventure at first seemed
of little moment.

Yet the sinister, lurking menace of these silent, shadowy highways and
byways in this beleaguered city was heightened by its very contrast
with the scenes of turmoil in which the boys had participated, and
where death stalked them with open hand.

“I’m stumped if I know just where Gilbert told me to make the turn that
would set us straight for the Rue de Rivoli. Here’s night come upon us,
and the high lights all out for fear of the Zeppelins, so you really
can’t tell whether you are going or coming. Never thought for a moment
but what we could hail a cab before this.”

“What’s the matter, then, with turning back, Henri?” questioned Jimmy.

“Nothing the matter with ‘turning,’” replied Henri, “but where is
‘back’?”

Jimmy did not know, so he had nothing more to say on the subject.

The four at the moment were passing a seemingly endless row of
tumble-down tenements. The street was cobbled, or had been many years
ago, and of sidewalks there was hardly a trace. At a far-away crossing
ahead, an imitation of a lamp-post held up the kind of light one might
expect from the fag-end of a candle. Behind, the darkness hung like a
curtain.

“What a hold-up we would make,” muttered Billy, as he tightened a belt
worth something like a quarter of a million francs.




CHAPTER XXXVII. OUT OF A SPIDER’S WEB.


A bundle of rags huddled in the doorway of one of the shaky old houses
took unto itself life and height. In a gargoyle face snaky eyes
balefully glistened at the sight of prey. The boys, who in a moment of
indecision had stopped within earshot of this hideous, hidden thing,
were about to resume their way through this wretched street, in the
scant hope of finding some clew to their whereabouts under the feeble
glow from the dimly distant lamp-post.

If there had ever been any gendarmes bold enough to regularly patrol
this gruesome thoroughfare, these heroes were certainly not in evidence
now. They must either have gone directly to war or were on guard in
some more prosperous locality.

In fact, this dilapidated neighborhood appeared to be generally
deserted, for even of prowlers not a one up to the minute had given a
sign of open movement in the long square.

There had been a lamplighter at the crossing, however, and that was
something on which to hang a belief that there might be more of his
kind further on.

“Say, Henri, I don’t believe graveyards were mentioned in the
directions Gilbert gave you.”

“This is no joke, Jimmy, and you would never have seen the like in
Paris if it wasn’t for the war. To save my life, though, I can’t
imagine where all the people that belong here could have gone.”

“There are some that we might not care to meet after dark,” suggested
Billy.

As they talked the boys were groping their way over the rough cobbles
toward the one promise--meaning the lamp-post.

As they passed, single file, the blank front of a tenement where the
crooked street curved inward, a crouching, cat-like something leaped
from the rear upon Henri’s shoulders, and clawing fingers sought his
throat.

Henri wildly struggling to break the strangle hold of the wiry arms,
and bewildered by the shock of sudden assault, made no outcry, and
Billy, next in line, did not realize for an instant or two what had
happened to his comrade.

He felt a loose stone under his foot in the worn and broken pavement,
in a second made a weapon of it, and poised alert to strike at the
assailant of his chum. The streak of lamplight was so flickering and
uncertain, and Henri being dragged further and further into the deepest
shadow of the overhanging doorway--the web of the human spider--that
Billy feared to risk a chance blow.

In the meantime, Jimmy and Reddy, warned by quick ears, had turned to
face the shuffling charge of another creature of the night. There were
more of the spiders, it seemed.

Billy found an opening to lay a sounding whack with the flat stone on
the back of the writhing thing that hung upon the shoulders of his
friend, and such was the force of the blow that Henri was freed for a
moment from the horrid embrace.

He struck out blindly for himself and knocked the bundle of rags into a
shrunken heap upon the pavement. The fallen creature uttered an acute,
piercing sound, and slinking shapes responded, front and rear.

Reddy had used a French close-fighting trick, and planted a kick under
the chin of the assailant with whom Jimmy and himself were contending,
and the English boy made his count with a straight-from-the-shoulder
right blow right on the beak of another onrushing shape.

“Together, boys! Together!”

Billy’s fighting blood was up.

The four closed in, dashed forward several yards and backed against the
door of the tenement just around the curve and where the street ran
straight. This gave them the advantage of all the light the crossing
lamp-post afforded. It was not much, but as Jimmy panted, it “helped
some.”

The house where the boys presented determined front to the now swarming
human spiders was apparently of a far better class than the tumble-down
hovels in the row around the curve--a contrast so often presented in
the big cities. It rose to a height of four stories, of brick with
stone trimmings. But every shutter in the front was tightly closed, and
if occupied there was no light nor sound to indicate the fact.

Hemmed in by the menacing circle, the boys mounted heel by heel, never
turning their heads, the stone steps of the house, rising to the wide
and solid oak door with a brass knocker projecting from its panels.

Here was the last stand against the spider crew--no way of retreat.

The ragged gang were muttering ugly threats in the mixed language of
the slums, and knives were gripped in every hand. They were preparing
for an overpowering rush upon their prey.

The boys knew that without other defense than their fists and their
feet they had no show at all to stop an attack in force.

“Give the high note for help, Reddy.”

Henri had heard the little Frenchman’s “high note” in the hills of the
Meuse, and it was a ringer.

Reddy set up a shriek in the still watches of the night that would have
shamed a steam whistle.

“Secours! Secours!” (Help! Help!)

The immediate response was the cast of a knife, which whizzed close to
the head of the shrieker and struck, shivering, in a door panel.

“I’d give something big for a gun,” offered Billy when repeated yells
for help in chorus had counted for nothing.

“Here they come!” shouted Henri.

“Let ’em think we’re still in the ring.”

Billy followed the words by heaving the paving stone, which he had
retained for the finish, into the thick of the leaping spiders.

Pressed against the door, the boys gave up all hope of escaping the
knives of their assailants.

Jimmy as a last duty kept the brass knocker thumping like a bass-drum.

Suddenly the door swung back, the boys fell into the opening like a
cluster of ninepins scattered by a bowling ball, and as quickly the
door slammed shut in the faces of the baffled spiders. The boys heard
the settling sound of heavy bolts in their sockets.

The hall into which the four had tumbled with so little ceremony was
sable black to the sight, and with the settling of the bolts as silent
as the grave.

“If this isn’t about the rummest go yet, I don’t know what,” was
Billy’s stage whisper, as he rubbed a bruised elbow.

“If there’s any next to this, lead me to it quick.”

Jimmy was finding a deal of swift action since he joined issue with our
Aviator Boys.

“You have cause to be on your knees to the Power above that you were
delivered from that _canaille_ (mob) outside. They would have left only
your bones for the rats to knaw.”

Thus were the boys solemnly addressed, in deep voice, by some person
unseen, but near them, in the dark recesses of the hall.

The speaker was then revealed as he opened a door of a lighted room.

A man of almost imperial bearing, but white-haired and slightly bent
with age, wearing a skull cap of velvet and a long study gown of the
same material.

The room into which the boys were invited was typical of the scholar,
the open books on the table, under the shaded lamp, and the hundreds
of volumes displayed in wall-cases.

Unknown to them, the boys stood in the presence of one of the most
eminent philosophers of the age.




CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE FORTUNE DELIVERED.


“To one of those dictates of the mind for which there is sometimes no
accounting,” gravely stated the scholar, “you owe your lives, my young
friends. Within these walls,” indicating the room by a sweep of the
hand, “I hear no sound. But I was moved to open yonder door, and the
drumming of the knocker drew me to the front entrance. By the cries
for help I knew someone was in distress. At all times the side streets
about here are dangerous for night travel, and in these times there is
no protection at all. You came a strange way, my boys.”

“I had forgotten that it was not like it used to be,” explained Henri,
“and, too, I made a wrong turn, owing to the fact that the tower lights
no longer serve to guide.”

“Yes,” continued the scholar, “the new element of warfare, the
death-dealing airships, are responsible for that precaution. But in
the morning my man, Armand, will set you right. He has gone up into
the city for food supplies, and will not return to-night. Rest with me
until then.”

With the light of day, and it was a glorious sunlit day, the terrors of
the past night folded their wings and disappeared.

Armand well fitted into such a day; he was a jolly fellow, all smiles
and a waistband that extended a long way ’round. He could not for the
life of him see, he declared, how the boys ever got into queer street,
when the way (to him) was so straight to the big boulevards. He was
full of a story how he had seen some great flying by noted aviators
only the day before.

“It is wonderful, this flying, is it not?”

This question as much to promote his enthusiasm as anything else.

“How fine is that Gilbert,” he rambled on, “and, to think, two young
boys who also traveled the air just like the master.”

“It just happens, my friend,” said Henri, “that those two boys are
standing close to you this blessed minute.”

“Mon Dieu!” (Goodness me!)

Armand was a slave from that minute.

He must tell the great doctor in the library all about it. And the
great doctor himself also had a second look at his young guests.

His was a kindly farewell, but he lifted a hand when the boys tried to
thank him for the boon of life he had conferred by his action of the
night.

“In your prayers, my boys; in your prayers.”

He turned and shut himself in with his books.

“You know of this location?”

Henri read to Armand from the address on the packet.

“Do I know my name? It is the grand boulevard. And the number--that,
too, is easy.”

Armand knew his Paris.

“March on!” Billy giving mock command.

Reddy’s dream of Paris had first been realized in the form of a
nightmare, but now it ranged to climax of delight--the Place de la
Concorde, one of the largest and most elegant squares in Europe; the
Egyptian obelisk; the magnificent Arc de Triomphe; the column to
Napoleon I; the gardens of the Tuileries; the Louvre; the Art Palace;
the Eiffel tower--just a few of the beauty spots noted in the passing
on that first day when trouble was napping.

Armand was not only able to secure one cab, but had two at his bidding.
A wonderful fellow was Armand, and much given to style.

“Here you are,” he announced with a flourish to Henri when the cabs
drew up before a handsome residence, with bronze lions crouching on the
stone rests at each side of the entrance.

It was agreed that Henri should enter alone with his precious packet,
which delivered and his trust fulfilled, he would be at liberty to seek
his mother and place in her own hands the Trouville fortune that had
been so hardly won from the iron-bound chest in the depths of the now
ruined château on the Meuse.

With heart beating high, head erect, and feeling the responsible charge
of a messenger of state, Henri applied at the entrance for admission,
and as promptly was admitted.

“Wish I had a picture of Henri receiving the medal for distinguished
conduct when he gives up the packet.”

Billy was back in his habit of expressing funny thoughts.

“It is not the house of the Premier,” said Armand, shaking his head.
“And the government is not sitting in Paris now. It is the private
residence, I am sure.”

“The private residence” is the French way of saying that you just don’t
know who does live there.

The minutes passed, and then the half hour.

“I’m glad,” remarked Billy, “that these are not taxicabs. If they were
we would have to lighten these belts to pay out.”

“There he is now!” Jimmy had sighted Henri coming out of the house.
Then:

“Why, he looks like he had just fallen off a Christmas tree.”

Henri certainly did look as if some great joy had crowned him.

“Boys, that sealed packet was all a frame-up, arranged by Captain
Johnson and that splendid gentleman at Calais. But it is simply the
finest kind of a frame-up that you could imagine.”

Henri reached out his hands to his comrades lolling in the cab.

“Come, climb out.”

Then to Armand:

“My friend, I thank you for your good company and your good service.
No--not a word.”

Henri had slipped something into Armand’s hand.

As the cabs rolled away, Henri marshaled his friends to the
lion-guarded entrance of the house.

The aforesaid friends were almost bursting with curiosity.

“Give us the tip.”

Billy prodded Henri with his elbow.

“You’ll know soon enough,” was the unsatisfactory reply.

Henri led the way into the drawing-room at the left of the entrance.

Standing there to greet them was a queenly tall gentlewoman with one of
the most sadly sweet faces that the friends of Henri had ever looked
upon.

In courtesy to the American and the English boy she addressed them in
the language they understood, somewhat haltingly, it is true, but so
graciously that they felt completely at their ease.

“So you are the brave ones who were with my boy in his every hour of
peril. Would that I could say all that I feel.”

It was Henri’s mother!

“Now you see to whom the sealed packet led me.”

Henri, drawn within his mother’s arm, went on to tell of the surprise
that met him when he first entered the house.

“I was expecting to be ushered into the presence of some stern-faced
statesman, to hand him this packet with a bow; then to receive some
word of approbation; and, then, to hurry out and hunt for mother.

“Instead of the ‘stern-faced statesman’ you now know whom I found.
The packet was addressed to C. Giraud. My mother’s maiden name was
Clementine Giraud. I never thought of putting the two together; indeed,
I never even noted the name--only the street and number. The oldest
friend of our family at Calais in this important looking document,
with its seals and ribbons, merely extended his compliments to Madame
Trouville, and wished her joy of his messenger. And another thing, it
provided the captain with authority to land us at Havre. Wasn’t that a
dandy frame-up?”

Without another word each of the three boys faced about, unbuckled and
pulled the treasure belt from beneath his blouse. Noting the action,
Henri did likewise.

Then, gently guiding his mother to a chair, where he enthroned her as a
queen, he laid the four belts in her lap.

The Trouville fortune had been saved!




CHAPTER XXXIX. THE CALL OF THE AIR.


The call of the air and action was again insistent. Our Aviator Boys
grew restless with leisure, though it could be imagined that they had
well earned a season of rest. Only the regret of Henri to leave his
mother held them quiet even so long as a couple of weeks.

As to Jimmy, he was hankering for submarine service, and only Reddy had
the Paris fever. He wanted to live out his dream.

What a gala occasion it was, then, the day that Captain Johnson and
Josiah Freeman pressed with their brogans the pavement of Rue de
Rivoli, and brought the news that another brand new sea-plane had
slapped the face of the Seine two hours previous.

“The testing and exhibition work has grown a little too much for Uncle
Josh and myself,” was the captain’s first after-dinner remark, when
Madame Trouville had laughingly accorded him the privilege of smoking a
cigarette. Henri and Billy did most of the laughing, however, when the
captain really tackled the cigarette.

“As I was saying,” went on the captain, “it is not in the pins that we
can train two of the planes at the same time--and we have three now in
the hangars at Dover that must have our warrant. Now I know,” waxing
confidential, “a pair of likely young men who could, with a reminder or
two, fill the bill to perfection.”

“Are they at present in France?”

Henri passing the wink to Billy.

“Oh, go on there, now,” bluffed the captain.

“I know who you mean,” clamored Jimmy, who at times was seriously
English.

“You’re a genius, my boy,” put in Josh.

“Well, and out with it, the very boys are here, and guying their old
friend for attempting suicide with a cigarette.”

“Is it a go?”

“It is.”

One voice from both Henri and Billy.

“I suppose it will have to be,” sighed Madame Trouville.

“Don’t worry, mother,” Henri meekly submitting to the hair-stroking
process, “we’ll never get hurt if we keep off the ground.”

“That’s the way for an aviator to talk.”

The captain’s approval was hearty.

“It’s in the morning, my boys, that the good airship leaves for Dover.”

“And I’ll get a lift, won’t I?”

“You’ll be set down in Dover, Jimmy, as sure as shooting. How about
this youngster?” turning to Reddy.

“He has enlisted as guard for mother,” explained Henri. “You can’t tear
him away from Paris.”

“Good-night all,” said the captain, making a move to go, after signal
to Josh.

“But you’re going to stay here to-night,” urged Henri.

“No, thank you, my boy, Freeman and I have the ‘plane’ to look after,
and we’re not used to gilded beds, anyhow.”

The truth of the matter was the captain and Josh had each a blackened
briar pipe in his pocket that would have spoiled before morning.

Gilbert was among the crowd that had assembled at the river front the
next morning to see the big airship make its getaway.

He was made an honored guest aboard the craft and was greatly
impressed with the tremendous power stored in the sea-plane.

“It is a big advance over anything I have ever seen in this
construction, and, think of it, a ship within a ship.”

The great airman had parting words with Henri and Billy:

“If you ever have the notion to fly for France, the wireless will be
all too slow to bring me the word.”

Ten minutes later the sea-plane was in full flight.

On this trip Captain Johnson and Engineer Freeman joined Jimmy in the
passenger list. Billy was at the wheel and Henri at the motor end.

This was the order until the sea-plane finally took to its floats in
Dover harbor.

“You have won your certificates as English air navigators. My word and
my hand on it.”

The captain spoke the word but he used his hand to slap the boys
between the shoulders.

“Now, my young submarinist, I don’t suppose you’re going to let us
teach you the business.”

“I guess not, captain; I think I prefer the other game, though you’ve
got a good one. I hate to quit the band, though, I tell you.”

Jimmy looked for a minute like he was going to cry.

Henri and Billy made a show of being cheerful to help Jimmy out, but
it was not much of a success.

“Look alive, youngsters, you’ll be running together in Dover right
along.”

The captain was a good sympathizer.

It was a long time thereafter, however, until the band was reunited,
for the submarine boy went north in a torpedo boat destroyer, and our
Aviator Boys went--but that’s another story.

For several weeks the boys--only two of them now--listened to daily
lectures from the captain and Freeman on the fine points of sea-planing.

“You must remember that you are going to be demonstrators and
instructors--you’re not just plain aviators any more,” jollied the
captain.

“When you go out alone in the cold world--aloft I mean--it is just
as well to know just what to do in any weather. You may never have
a chance to correct an error if it occurs five thousand feet from
nowhere.”

The boys evidently never forgot the captain’s advice, for they lived to
report all the mistakes they made.

Day after day the young airmen drilled as pilot and engineer, one time
in one position, and one time in another, change about. Billy was
regular as pilot, but the captain insisted that each could take the
place of the other if emergency demanded.

“You are both qualified for aëroplane work, fore and aft, but you must
remember that a sea-plane is a bigger proposition, and I want you to be
top-notchers. You get me?”

“We ought to be able to get you, captain, for this is the eighty-eighth
time this week that you have said the same thing.”

“All right, Billy, I’m stopping on the eighty-eighth. I think you’ll
both do.”

The next day the boys were ordered to speed a sea-plane to London.




CHAPTER XL. CAPTURED BY THE GERMANS.


One fine morning a great airship was discovered by Londoners floating
over the Admiralty Arch. Now it was well known that guns had been
mounted on the Admiralty Arch and on the roof of the War Office and
several of the other larger buildings. The purpose of these guns was,
of course, to repel hostile airships, about which London had become
decidedly nervous.

These guns, however, had no occasion to bang at this aërial visitor,
for it was known by those on the inside that this craft was not going
to drop any bombs on the big town, but simply, on order, drop itself
into the Thames, which in navigable importance has been pronounced the
greatest river in the world.

There was no doubt many a hysterical outburst regarding the big
aircraft, but as nothing was blown up during its hovering period, there
was consequently nothing to tell a policeman about.

This particular airship was conducted by our Aviator Boys--Billy Barry
and Henri Trouville, or Henri Trouville and Billy Barry, as you please,
according to who was at the wheel. It happened that Billy was working
his regular trick as pilot on this London visit, and it was the first
journey of importance that Henri and himself had been in sole command
of a sea-plane--the largest of its kind.

It being a peaceful or commercial mission, there was no gunner in the
bow, and no wireless operator sat in the center of the hull. Just
Billy, fore, and Henri, aft. A small crew, but a crew trained to the
minute.

The sea-plane, by signal, took to the river a short distance below
London Bridge, in the dock region, where there was a total water area
of some 600 acres.

On the occasion of the official visit to the sea-plane, as it floated
near the docks, the inspecting officers, one and all, looked their
astonishment upon the size of the crew, physically as well as in point
of number.

They looked at the craft and they looked at the boys and they looked at
each other.

But when the crew took up the matter of detail and explanation,
so thorough was the review they gave, that the officers ceased to
wonder that these agents had been selected and entrusted with so much
responsibility.

“This is about the only thing we do not have occasion to handle in this
craft,” said Billy, as he swiveled in all directions the machine gun in
the bow.

“It’s a handy little barker,” observed one of the officers, who
evidently knew all about guns.

Having completed their inspection and notes, a senior officer asked
Billy if the crew went with the craft.

“Until it is sold, only,” was Billy’s prompt reply.

“Sorry,” added the officer, “that we can’t have you in the balance.”

“We have traveled with three fighting flags since we have been flying
around on this side of the ocean. It keeps us guessing what will be the
next.”

Henri was repeating what he had said to the captain just before leaving
Dover.

“Have an eye out, or the Germans will get you yet,” smilingly warned
the senior officer.

“Who knows?” thought Billy.

The inspecting officers extended the freedom of the town to the young
aviators, but it was necessary for them to return to Dover immediately,
and having assurance that there had been nothing left undone connected
with their mission, they took flight that afternoon, fixing their
course from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the most conspicuous
building in the metropolis.

When they reached Dover the captain had a story that a few days ago
one of the destroyers had picked a German sea-plane out of the channel
waters off Harwich, and it had been announced that it carried a freight
of bombs, which were destroyed. The two men who formed its crew had
blandly refused to give any information as to their plans.

“And while I can’t swear to the story,” averred the captain, “it gave
me some worry about you. That kind of thing is pretty close.”

“Never saw another thing in the air that could catch us,” chirruped
Billy.

“Don’t you go to singing yourself into the idea that your ship is
the only thing afloat, my boy. The Germans have a few good birds
themselves.”

The captain never figured out of reason.

Billy and Henri soon after had an experience above the Straits which
convinced them that they were not the only speeders on the course, and
confirmed the captain’s opinion.

They had been flying through a North Sea mist and had just lifted to a
clearing when Billy, peering sideways around the rising bow, saw the
nose of another airship dart out from the sheltering mist. Sharp around
Billy twisted the wheel to save collision, and endeavored to swing away
from the intended attack of the German crew. Henri set the engines to
their maximum power, but it was too late to avoid the shot from the
fore gun of the opposing aircraft. There was a ripping and rending of
rods and stays. Billy turned the planes for the fall, and down they
went, their stricken craft helpless and beyond control.

Striking the water, the damaged seaplane settled like a bird with a
broken wing.

The craft from which the shot had been fired dived down to complete a
capture, and Billy and Henri, seeing the folly of attempting to resist
a stalwart crew of four, promptly surrendered.

“You ought to be spanked and put to bed, you naughty boys,” admonished
the giant pilot of the German craft, when he noted the youth of his
captives.

“But I guess you are smart enough,” he admitted, “or you could not have
made the play you did to get away. If it had not been for the gun we
might have been fooled.

“Give them room there, Franz, maybe we can find places for them in the
service.”

So they climbed aboard the big German flyer without a word, fully
determined, however, that they would not enter the service of Germany
any more than they had entered the service of England and France; but
very thankful to the good-natured Teutons who had rescued them after
plunging them into the sea.

Captain Johnson watched for his flying boys in vain, and when at last
the wrecked seaplane was towed in from the North Sea by an English
vessel he gave them up for lost.




CHAPTER XLI. THE BOYS PUT ON THE GRAY.


When our Aviator Boys had been crowded into small space aboard the
German seaplane, the big flyer cut through the mist at top speed. The
capture of the young airmen had been but an incident; an accident,
indeed. The German aviators were playing a bigger game. The boys heard
the man called Franz jesting with his comrades about something that
was going to spit fire like a volcano upon the English. Henri, in soft
aside tones, let Billy know what it was all about, for Billy was as
short in German as he was in the French language.

The seaplane gunner (they called him Joseph), when the machine soared
above the mist line, kept a sharp lookout through field glasses for
some expected coming over the sea.

The boys could see, now that it was clearing to the north, the familiar
trend of the English coast.

“They’re up to something, that’s sure,” whispered Henri to Billy; “but
what it is I haven’t the least idea.”

“I don’t see any bombs in this craft, so it can’t be anything like a
blow-up from above,” was Billy’s whispered reply.

“Hold your mouths,” growled the giant pilot.

Henri put a warning finger on his lips, glancing at Billy.

Gunner Joseph had evidently sighted the something for which he had
been looking, for he made a rapid motion with a hand behind him, which
the pilot evidently understood, for he immediately changed the direct
northerly course of the seaplane sharply to the northeast.

Now visible to the naked eye was a fleet of cruisers, under full head
of steam, and as they swiftly approached, the black cross in the
flapping colors proclaimed the Kaiser’s warships.

Billy and Henri were astounded at the sight. A German fleet within easy
shelling distance of the Yorkshire coast!

One of the cruisers turned broadside, and from the armored hull
belched smoke and flame. Looking down upon the town of Hartlepool,
the boys saw buildings crumple like houses of cards before a gale.
Other vessels of the war fleet followed the leader in broadsides, and
every iron cast seemed to find a mark and exacted toll of death and
destruction. The Hartlepools, Whitby, and Scarborough, places well
known to the captive aviators, were under galling fire for an hour.

“They’re shooting a mile, but look how true they get the range,”
remarked Billy in Henri’s nearest ear.

“Look!” Henri pointed to the land batteries, now spouting fiery
responses.

The German fleet was speeding northward--the hovering seaplane giving
signal that the British patrolling squadron was hastening to cut
off the invading vessels. Now favored by the gathering mist in the
northerly flight, the daring raiders made their escape, but it could be
seen that one of the lighter cruisers was afire. The land batteries had
evidently scored a target or two.

A guttural command from the man in the sea-plane’s bow, and the machine
was set in the wake of the fleet, and with full power in the motors.

“How much of the oil feed have we?”

The gunner’s question was passed back from mouth to mouth to the engine
man, for in the noises of the high speed nothing else could be heard
beyond a foot or two.

“Hundred miles or so,” was the answer of the engine man, passed forward.

“And nearly four hundred miles to Kiel,” muttered the gunner. “But the
fleet will put us right,” he satisfied himself.

So they were bound for Kiel, and the boys did not know it until the
seaplane settled among the German cruisers churning the waves in their
race for home. With tanks refilled, the aircraft led the flight to
Helgoland Bay.

While far in advance of the warships, the sea-plane drew the fire of
an English submarine that suddenly rose from the depths of the sea. A
figure jumped from the turret of the underwater craft, turned a lever,
and the gun that was folded into the back of the submarine swung muzzle
upward. Once, twice, thrice, the gun cracked, but every shot a miss.

The third shot, however, was a near one, for Billy and Henri,
interested spectators from the steel gallery, heard the ball hiss in
the passing.

The lookout man of the seaplane trailed a signal to the fleet, but the
submarine had disappeared before the cruisers had warily crossed the
danger spot indicated by the seaplane.

“It would have been good-by if we had caught that solid shot in the
business section of this ship,” was Billy’s essay to the stolid pilot
in front of him.

If the pilot heard or understood, he did not condescend to answer.

Some forty miles from the German naval stations in the neighborhood of
Helgoland, the sea-plane’s own gun was swiveled in the direction of a
darting aëroplane scouting from some English warship, on the watch in
these waters, but when the machine guns on one of the German cruisers,
adapted to high-angle fire, broke loose on the British machine, it
turned tail at a speed of seventy miles an hour.

Franz appeared to be greatly amused at this, and started a rapid flow
of German humor about the high-dodging machines made somewhere else
than in Germany.

Henri did not tell Billy what all the fun was about, for fear of
bringing Billy to his feet with an argument as to where the best flying
machines were made. But it would not have made any difference, for
Franz and Billy were both assured of personal peace, in that neither
could understand the other, though they talked until doomsday.

The boys had no fixed idea as to what fate had in store for them on
German soil.

“I do hope that it won’t be a military fortress for us,” said Henri.
“It would be mighty rough luck to be locked up at Cologne, or some
other jail of a place.”

“But you remember the pilot said when we were caught that they might
find a place for us in the aviation service.”

Billy found comfort in that memory.

“If I couldn’t have anything else to do but carry oil around a hangar,”
asserted Henri, “it would sure be away ahead of looking at the stone
walls of a fortress.”

It was a happy moment, then, for our Aviator Boys when at Helgoland
they were told by the giant pilot of the seaplane, whose name proved to
be Carl, that they were booked, not now for Kiel, but Hamburg, which
was the center of great aircraft activity.

“No dungeon deep for us,” sang Billy, as he executed a clog step on the
deck of the boat that later was taking them up the great river Elbe to
one of the most remarkable cities of Germany.

“An aircraft town for sure,” cried Henri, when, with Carl as kindly
captor and guide, Billy and himself fared forth from the docks into the
streets of Hamburg.

In an hour the boys saw eleven sheds, each said to contain a Zeppelin,
and at the air camp all manner and makes of aëroplanes were housed.

It was here that Carl presented his charges to Heinrich Hume, aviation
lieutenant, who conducted the new recruits to a mammoth canvas house,
where both aëroplanes and aëroplanists rest, when there is a chance to
rest.

Billy had another pleasurable shock when Lieutenant Hume, in good old
English, abruptly told Henri and himself to shake themselves out of
their blue flannel outfits, and dive into a big camp chest filled with
clothing of the lead color.

“Don’t mind the blue,” advised the lieutenant, “but it doesn’t mate
with the other moving pictures here.”

“We don’t have to be sworn in, or anything like that?” anxiously
inquired Billy.

“You’re more likely to be sworn at than in,” laughed the lieutenant.
“Now to the point: Do you know enough about aëroplanes to roll one with
the right end foremost? Carl says you kids were working an armored
seaplane when they plugged you, but Carl is sometimes inclined to draw
the long bow about adventures in which he has figured.”

Billy was inclined to hump his back at this, but wisely concluded to
let action stand as the proof.

When Billy and Henri went to work among the ’planes, the apprentices
under training by Lieutenant Hume looked like the oft-quoted thirty
cents. One or two of them even looked daggers at the newcomers.

At the end of the first day of the boys’ service test, the lieutenant
said to himself:

“Carl has stumbled against the real thing, for once, at least.”




CHAPTER XLII. FOUGHT TO THE FINISH.


The boys awaited patiently an invitation from the lieutenant to exhibit
their skill by upper-air exercise in one of the Taubes--the Germans
called their military monoplanes doves--but that officer did not seem
then inclined to favor one of the aviation field helpers above another.

A shock-headed boy, hailed as Max, who had been an ironworker in
Bremen, showed a decided disposition to “pick upon” Henri and Billy in
their daily occupation of valeting the aircraft.

He was nursing a jealous spirit, aroused by a chance word of praise
bestowed upon our Aviator Boys by Lieutenant Hume, and tried to enlist
the sympathy of the other employees of the hangars in common cause
against the “fancy fellows,” as he persisted in calling the newcomers.
But as a rule they were a good-natured lot, and not inclined to worry
about anything except a food shortage at meal time.

Max, before our boys had arrived, had claimed rank as first among those
serving the more noted aviators, who were constantly coming and going.

The climax of wrath with Max came when Ingold, the great aviator,
starting for the war zone, dispensed with his clumsy services and
accepted those of Billy and Henri in overhauling a double-decker, or
biplane, that was to be used in active military movement.

“You’ll get a cracked head for this,” hissed Max, when the lieutenant
and the big airman had passed out of hearing.

Billy, to whom the threat was addressed, did not understand the words,
but he guessed from the attitude of the threatener that something ugly
was intended.

So Billy, who never counted fear a burden worth the bother, simply
grinned, turned, and went on with his work of tuning the biplane.

Henri, tinkering at the motor end of the machine, looked up just in
time to see Max, wrench in hand, poised to strike at the back of
Billy’s head.

“Look out, Billy!”

The warning cry from Henri saved Billy from a stunning blow on the
head, but he caught the jolt from the wrench on his right shoulder, as
he swiftly faced about.

With a good left uninjured, however, Billy gave Max a short-arm jab
in the neck, at the chin, that tumbled the would-be slugger upon the
packed earth floor of the hangar.

“Good arm!” exclaimed Henri. “But how about the other?”

With the question, Henri gently worked his comrade’s right arm up and
down to see if there was any hitch in the shoulder where the wrench had
landed.

“Not a chance for a surgeon,” assured Billy. “Just a little
numb--that’s all.”

Max slowly gathered himself up from the ground, with a hand on his jaw,
and a vicious glitter in his eyes.

“It will be to the finish next time.”

His tone was full of menace.

“What’s he saying?” inquired Billy.

Henri translated.

“Tell him,” said Billy, “that the day and the hour is his very own to
name, so long as he comes in the front way.”

Henri did not comply with this request, but hooked arms with Billy, and
walked him away.

This was the glove in the ring that led to one of the liveliest
lightweight come-togethers that the aviation camp boys had ever
witnessed.

Neither Henri nor Billy had mentioned the wrench incident to the
lieutenant. They were too self-reliant for that kind of business. There
was nothing, either, to induce Max to relate his sorry part in the
hangar scrap.

It was not until several days later that Henri was approached by a lad
with the name handle of Jacob. The latter was apparently not a willing
messenger.

“Max wants a fight with your friend,” he explained, “and if it was me
he couldn’t get it, for he’s a tricky one and as strong as a bull. But
I just had to do this to get rid of him.”

“You tell that fellow that we don’t want anything to do with him,” was
Henri’s message to the challenger.

The next morning, while many of the machines were aloft in practice and
test flights, and the aviation helpers were grouped at the far end of
the parade ground, Max deliberately called Billy an unbearable name,
and followed the insult with a ringing slap on the cheek of the boy
from Bangor.

The fat was in the fire!

Instantly the circle widened, and in the center two husky youngsters
went at it hammer and tongs.

There were no gloves, no seconds, and no referee with rules up his
sleeve.

Billy ruled a strong favorite, but Henri alone made a noise about
it, for the others were reluctant to take a chance of offending Max,
unless they were assured in advance that he was going to be thoroughly
whipped.

It certainly did not appear that way in the opening of the bout, for
Max had gashed Billy’s forehead with a full knuckle blow, and also
landed a rib-cracker on the latter’s body.

Billy now sparred warily, seeking time to recover from the body blow,
which had proved the most serious, though the bleeding bruise on the
forehead made the most show of injury.

He kept his antagonist on the move, at the same time keeping out of
range of the fists swinging like windmills. Max had the strength, and a
certain skill as a rough-and-tumble fighter, but he also had too much
flesh on his bones, and little science as a boxer.

Billy was as clean built as a greyhound, muscled like a young
gladiator, and learned where to hit and how to hit under an old master
of the craft in Boston.

“Take your time, Billy,” encouraged Henri, “he’s a beef, and you’ll get
him all right.”

Henri’s blood was running warm at the sight of his chum’s bruised face,
and he would have violently resented any attempt to interfere in what
he firmly believed would result in payment in full by the loose fighter
who had provoked the battle and inflicted first injury.

Max began to exhibit distress from his exertions, which had ceased to
count since the opening onslaught. He struck hard, but he struck at
random. Enraged at the useless and wearing practice of hitting at
something where it was not, the panting slugger made the break to get
under Billy’s guard and clinch. It was a grievous error for him.

Billy, keen-eyed, caught him coming, and nothing but daylight between a
ready fist and the knockout point of a square chin.

Biff! There was everything behind that blow in the way of steam.

The Bremen lad had been coming too fast for the impact to hurl him
backward. He simply sagged at the knees, and dropped in a heap.

The fight was over, but not all of the trouble. Billy rushed to the
side of his fallen foe, who, showing the whites of his eyes and
rattling the breath in his throat, was viewed with alarm by the
witnesses of the exciting mill.

“Give him air,” hoarsely urged the victor to the crowding white faces.

Henri ran to a platform nearby where water buckets were placed, and the
chums gave all of the first aid in their experience to the vanquished.

Max, directly, recovered consciousness, and raised his head and dazedly
looked about him. Finding that his head was pillowed in Billy’s lap,
Max struggled to free himself from the sheltering embrace of the arm
that put him down and out.

Recovering speech, the way he expressed his chagrin and humiliation
was enough to make the air blue.

Jacob told him that he ought to be satisfied now, and Billy offered
truce by extended hand. Max, however, was far from the mood that finds
any consolation in defeat.

“Here comes the lieutenant,” announced Henri; “we’d better skip, Billy,
and patch up that face of yours before we are put on the question rack.”

All the boys scattered in pairs, or several more together, except Max,
and he walked alone, brooding, sullen, and implacable.

Billy had been washed clean of blood and holding a washer-plate of cold
steel against the bump on his forehead, when Jacob came into the hangar
with the information that the lieutenant had been calling for his pair
of late recruits, and wanted them forthwith.

“He’s heard about the fight,” was Henri’s first surmise.

“Do I look like a pug?” Billy inquired, lifting the plate from the
bruised spot.

“You will likely go into training on bread and water,” gloomily
predicted Henri.

“Oh, quit croaking,” advised Billy. “Come ahead, and we’ll take the
medicine, whatever it is.”

The lieutenant was framed in the flaps of his canvas house when the
boys presented themselves for supposed correction.

The officer calmly inspected the recruits through the smoke that
wreathed around the bowl of his meerschaum.




CHAPTER XLIII. SETTING OF A DEATH TRAP.


“I’ve been getting a line on you.”

When the lieutenant delivered himself thusly the boys were sure and
positive that he had all the details of the fight, and wonder only
was left as to how serious a breach of discipline the officer would
consider a battering match on the parade ground.

What was their surprise, then, when the lieutenant went on to say,
aiming the stem of his meerschaum at a group of officers--high officers
apparently--which at the moment made a ground circle of slim, polished
boots about a Zeppelin taking in its flying cargo of gas:

“Colonel Muller, over there, has just been telling me the story of
a couple of boys he met in America who beat anything of the age in
the matter of expert flying. I mentioned that the crew of one of
our seaplanes had picked up a pair of kids who, they claimed, were
navigating alone in an airship big enough to keep the best of them
guessing. The colonel has expressed a wish to look you over. He’s great
for aviation.”

“Gee! I believe that this Muller was with Colonel McCready when we
made that record flight in Texas. You remember, the tall one, with the
monocle, and hair and mustache the color of a ten-dollar gold piece.”

The lieutenant had walked down the canvas row to ascertain the further
wishes of the colonel, giving Billy this chance to search the memories
of his chum and himself.

“Come to think of it,” replied Henri, “I do recall seeing a man like
that, but it is no sure shot that it is the same one.”

“We’ll soon know, anyhow.”

Billy saw the lieutenant raise a beckoning finger, and the boys hurried
to present themselves.

Facing Colonel Muller, the boys, in their ill-fitting gray tunics and
rawhide boots, hardly hoped for recognition. They knew their man in an
instant.

The colonel had a long memory, too, for he immediately exclaimed:

“Hello there, Boy Aviators, as Colonel ‘Mac’ called you; you’re a long
way from home, I see.”

It was a matter of pride and satisfaction to the boys that the big
soldier could place them, even in the disguise of an aviation camp
outfit.

Turning to the lieutenant, the colonel inquired: “Have you put these
youngsters through the paces yet?”

“No, colonel,” replied the lieutenant, “they have been working in the
oil-can brigade chiefly, but from the way they handle the parts I
suspected they were out of the apprentice class.”

“Why, they are builders as well as demonstrators,” explained the
colonel. “Teach them anything about aircraft? I guess not.”

By this time all of the officers were sizing up the objects of the
colonel’s unusual comment.

The helpers, with open mouths, had gathered at a respectful distance,
but near enough to hear what was going on, and marveled that the
great colonel should condescend to familiar terms with boys whom they
claimed as of their class and number. Max, the malignant, was in the
front row, and none the happier for the new honors conferred upon the
fellow-workers whose very presence galled him.

“Trim them up a bit,” said the colonel to the lieutenant, pointing to
the slop-chest clothing in which the boys were attired, “and send them
over to headquarters this evening.”

“You’ve made a ten strike,” observed the lieutenant, as he sent the
boys to a military clothier in the town with a written rush order.

“We could register from Annapolis now and get across with it,” laughed
Billy, as they awaited the pleasure of an orderly at headquarters. The
boys had been “trimmed up a bit,” and neatly garbed in gray looked as
fine as middies on parade.

“Ah, here you are; come in,” invited the colonel. “Gentlemen,” turning
to others in the room, “here are the young airmen about whom I was
talking. This aviation business, I confess, is a hobby with me. Why,
just think of boys this age not only able to completely assemble
one of these wonderful machines, but to drive them, under ordinary
circumstances, so expertly that safety aloft is about as equally
assured as in a railway journey.

“Behold one of the natural enemies of your craft,” continued the
colonel, directing the boys’ attention to a smart-looking young
soldier, a lean, keen fellow, with captain’s straps, lounging on a sofa
nearby. “He’s a fellow who turns balloon cannon loose on about every
plane that hasn’t a black cross on its yellow stomach. That’s one of
the reasons why a military aviator would have as much chance of getting
life insurance at Lloyd’s as would a snowball of holding together in
the furnace room of a cruiser.”

“We’ve seen some of the steel noses turned up at us,” volunteered Billy.

“Don’t believe they were exactly of my kind,” interposed the gunman on
the lounge. “These are new ones, just out, and they reach further than
any other make. We can haul them around at the tail of an automobile at
the speed of about sixty miles an hour. Come along when we pull out of
here and I’ll show you what a spin of a wheel will do in aiming the
little daisy on the steel truck.”

“Don’t let him ever catch you asleep on your perch,” joked the colonel,
“or there will be a bird funeral in the aviation family.”

When the lieutenant passed the word among the helpers to hustle the
aëroplane shipment, it was noticeable that Billy and Henri served no
longer in the pulling and hauling end of the job. They were held at
the elbow of the directing force, and vested with the power to give
orders in the hangar instead of taking them. This change of class met
with no rebellion among the apprentices, for they reckoned that the
newcomers must be of extraordinary ability to be so quickly advanced,
and, further, it was soon recognized that even the lieutenant had no
aircraft knowledge superior to his young assistants.

“I believe,” acknowledged this officer, “that I have you beaten in only
one branch of the profession, the Zeppelin branch, I mean, and that,
I suppose, is only due to the fact that this invention is exclusively
German.”

“That’s mighty kind of you to say this,” returned Henri, “but Billy
and I feel that you can yet set us straight on a good many points in
these foreign planes, and we would be glad to have a chance to dig into
Zeppelin instruction.”

“I don’t know about that last,” was the uncertain answer of the
lieutenant.

“What’s the matter with Max, I wonder,” observed Henri, as the last
crate of the shipment was rolled down to the docks; “he must be raising
a pair of wings on his shoulders.”

“If you had seen the side glance he gave me to-day, you would leave the
wings out of your calculations.”

Billy felt that Max quiet was more to be feared than Max boisterous.

“Sorry to see Colonel Muller leave, I tell you.”

“So was I, Henri; but he said that only a bullet would prevent our
meeting again.”

The colonel had also told Billy that Henri and himself had only entered
the side door of Germany, and there was a big chance of their seeing
more of the country.

Among the several satisfactory results of their reunion with the
colonel, one bobbed up that very afternoon, when Lieutenant Hume stated
that a new lot of machines were to be set up and jockeyed, and, as
nearly all of the aviators had gone with the last shipment, the boys
could take a turn in the air every day, if they so desired.

“If they desired!” Did thirsty ducks need a second invitation to visit
a pond?

As there were no double-deckers, or biplanes, in the fresh invoice,
Billy and Henri were to work separately in the war monoplanes, those
with the birdlike wings and curved tail rudder piece, the smaller
birds that whirred and whined.

Two of these machines had been carefully groomed and set in order for
an early morning flight, and the boys retired with all the assurance
in the world that they could give the helpers such a practical
illustration of scientific planing that there would remain no doubt
in the minds of these groundlings as to the merit and right of the
newcomers’ promotion.

Silence reigned in the house of canvas, and no hostiles to guard
against, sentinels were not stationed, and only occasional inspection
required during the night.

It was midnight. Stealthy hands parted the flaps of the entrance to
the big tent, and a stocky figure, but light-footed, darted across the
floor of hardened clay to the stalls where the monoplanes were set for
motion.

An electric light tube flashed into a box of tools, and the intruder
was speedily operating with a chisel at the propeller end of the
monoplane, in which was placed the repair kit, numbered 16--charged in
the hangar record to one Billy Barry.

The furtive visitor, apparently satisfied that he had accomplished
his purpose, replaced the chisel and closed the tool box. He took the
further precaution of picking up every chip or shaving that had dropped
during the use of the chisel edge. Then, with a final sweep of the
electric tube, the stocky shape flitted through the canvas door into
outer darkness.

Would that there was some warning word in dreamland to sound in the ear
of sleeping Billy Barry. An assassin hand had set a death trap with
cunning intent to conceal the peril therein until a moment too late to
baffle the devilish design!




CHAPTER XLIV. A LIFE IN THE BALANCE.


Billy lifted a ruddy face from a bucket of ice-cold water, in which he
had been taking a waking dip, and then yanked Henri by the heels out of
a warm blanket nest.

“Get up, lazybones, and let’s be scraping the sky. It’s a good six
o’clock, and the cook’s all in a fume about the breakfast getting cold.”

Henri caught the spirit of his companion, and both gave way to joyful
anticipation of a twenty-mile dash in a pair of monoplanes.

They attempted to waltz with the cook, but neither could reach even
a quarter way around the waist of this rotund Wilhelm, and if the
latter’s legs had not been so much shorter than his waistband it is
likely that the skylarkers would have received several jars from a
ham-like foot.

Capering like colts, the boys headed for the hangar, and with the
assistance of Jacob and another helper, early on the ground, the
machines were rolled out to make their buzzing start for high places.

When Billy had removed kit number 16 from his monoplane he hopped into
his seat on the frame. Henri was already settled for flight.

The run-off, however, was postponed for a minute or two so that the
aëroplanists could watch the rise of a Zeppelin directly in front of
them.

“Let ’er go,” sang Billy, and both monoplanes got away together.

The Zeppelin had just swung around in the great arc of a circle, and
the boys in the monoplanes were sailing immediately above the great
cylinder. Henri had just turned a swift glance at his companion
aviator, with intent of setting the direction of flight, when--and the
horror of it--Billy’s machine suddenly stopped in midair, wabbling like
a cradle, and before the young aviator’s desperate attempt to retain
control could prevail the machine turned upside down, and the boy from
Bangor hung by the knees from the tumbling frame.

Henri would have cried aloud in agony of spirit--but he was as one
stricken dumb. He almost spelled death for himself by letting go of
the controls of his machine.

But what a sight for his staring eyes!

The falling monoplane had struck athwart the aluminum envelope of the
Zeppelin, and, though the bigger craft trembled from stem to stern with
the shock, it held its way, buoyed up by the gas chambers on each side
of the cylinder. Billy soon rested safely on one of the platforms,
cheered by members of a rejoicing crew.

Henri found his voice again, and, shouting like a madman, he sent his
monoplane darting toward the earth, and if he failed to land in his
usual beautifully precise way he was there when the Zeppelin brought
back to him that “dear old Billy.”

The lieutenant, hastily responding to summons, found his two expert
aviators hugging one another, and the crew of the Zeppelin critically
inspecting a damaged monoplane grounded between its mate and the big
ship.

“What’s the matter here?” nervously demanded the lieutenant.

“It looks like foul play is the matter,” shortly responded the chief
officer of the Zeppelin. He was not a member of Lieutenant Hume’s
command.

“You’re right,” exclaimed the lieutenant with an oath, as he knelt to
more closely inspect the chiseled propeller and the spiked rudder.
Turning to Billy, and in severe manner:

“Do you always hold your life so lightly as to start an air machine
without previous inspection?”

“That machine, sir, was as right as could be when we left it last
night. Indeed, sir, it was in elegant shape.”

“No question but what some devil in human form planned your death, and
if I get the dastard it will be a yardarm in the harbor for him, and no
waste of time and lead.”

The lieutenant was aroused, and when a calm like his was rudely broken
it meant woe for the object of his wrath.

Told of the manner in which Billy had been saved, the anger of the
officer relaxed its force for the moment, when he solemnly said:

“Of the like I have never known; it is beyond me.”

Investigation, vigorously pushed, soon developed a significant
fact--the youth to whom kit 9 was charged failed to respond at roll
call. Max was missing.

Jacob then blurted out the whole story of the fight, and all that had
preceded and followed it.

“I want to say right here and now,” was the stern declaration of the
lieutenant, “that the next offender in this camp will get his billet to
Cologne, where they play checkers with their noses on iron bars. As for
Max, if he is captured, you will see an example made that will not rub
out of your memories for many a day.”

With that the speaker’s jaws set like a clamp.

When Billy petitioned for the job of making another monoplane test the
very next day, the lieutenant was astonished.

“You certainly ought to take something for that nerve of yours, boy.”

“But, sir, it’s all in the game,” argued Billy; “it’s our business, and
we can’t quit for every close call.”

“See me to-morrow; besides, Herr Roque wants to have a talk with you.
Here he is now.”

The lieutenant presented Billy to a mild-looking man in citizen’s
attire, and who peered at the boy through horn-bound spectacles. This
noted secret agent was the picture to-day of a well-to-do merchant in
the lesser lines of trade. What his appearance would indicate to-morrow
is another thing. He was a lightning change artist, according to repute.

“Glad to meet you, young sir,” was his bland address, in perfect
English.

“Same to you, sir,” Billy politely replied, all the time wondering what
was coming.

“I just came over from the city to take up a little supply contract
with the officers here, and I learned of your narrow escape from death.
It was wonderful, miraculous. I congratulate you.”

“Thank you kindly, sir.”

“Ah, no need of thanks, young sir. I highly appreciate the favor of
meeting you.

“Let us be seated, if you please. I am not so young as I used to be.
Good. Now we can chat in comfort. I am very fond of the air sport, I
assure you. Isn’t it queer that often what we admire the most we know
the least about? Art, for instance--and flying, too, on little boards,
without the lifting power of gas. Wonderful!”

“What’s he driving at?” thought Billy. Then aloud: “I expect I had
better not take up any more of your time, sir, as you are here on
business.”

“I wish you knew just how dull it was in Hamburg now. Business is, oh,
so quiet. And I so like to talk to bright young men. It just occurred
to me that you and your young friend would like to take a little voyage
with me, in a trading vessel that I own. Of course, in these sad times
of war a sea voyage is not the popular choice for recreation, but just
a brief cruise in known waters isn’t at all bad for the nerves. The
regularly enlisted young men, it seems, cannot be spared, and I have
spoken to the lieutenant about borrowing his young visitors for a
week or two, promising them both a good time, and just that spice of
adventure which lads of your caliber seem to require.”

“It just occurred” also to Billy that it was more than passing strange,
in the first place, that there should be so much personal interest
manifested in the affairs of Henri and himself, and, secondly, how it
was that an ordinary tradesman could have such a “pull” with military
authority. The civilian here, as a rule, did not count in high figures
alongside of a uniform.

This was evidently an exceptional case, for not only did the lieutenant
approve of Herr Roque’s proposition and invitation, but that officer
had unbent to the extent of entertaining Henri, on the side, and
telling him that Billy and himself were lucky in attracting the
interest of this kindly merchant.

So it proved no longer a matter of open consent on the part of the
boys; it was simply a go, when the lieutenant commanded.

“I don’t know why I was selected as the dummy for all that beating
around the bush,” observed Billy, when the boys tumbled into their
bunks that night.

“You oughtn’t to kick because you are the prominent member of the
firm,” teased Henri.

“Well, we won’t know what it is until we get to it, that’s one thing
sure,” yawned Billy.

They were booked, if they only knew it, to discover that “Herr Roque”
was a man of many moods, as well as make-ups.




CHAPTER XLV. THE WAYS OF THE SECRET SERVICE.


“That doesn’t look like a pirate craft, anyhow.”

The boys were on the docks bright and early the next morning, and were
looking at the vessel in which they were expected to embark within the
next hour for the trip down the Elbe to the sea.

As Billy had put it, the ship they were viewing was neither “low,
long, nor rakish.” Herr Roque had not deceived them on that point, at
least. It was a “trading vessel.” All of the crew in sight were of the
roustabout class, except the captain, who was somewhat of a dandy, with
a glazed cap, high collar, military blouse, and corduroy trousers.

“Hi, there!” he called to the boys in high-pitched German, “are you
from Herr Roque?”

Henri advised in loud tone that such was the fact.

“Come aboard, then,” invited the boss of the deck.

The boys made short work of the rickety gangboard, and, aboard, cast an
eye about for their host.

The captain said something in his way of speaking that meant “you’ll
see him later.”

It was some time later--at the mouth of the Elbe, and late at night.

Before this happened, the boys, not experienced as seamen, were
surprised to the limit at the ready transformation of that “trade
vessel.” Tarpaulin coverings removed, like magic unfolding, revealed a
funnel, gunbeds, and guns in them, of the kind to raise the mischief
with a hull at short range; spars were stripped of clumsy sails, and
the craft generally departed from the peaceful classification in which
it cleared from Hamburg.

“Oh, you pleasure trip!” Billy merrily commented.

“You surely didn’t swallow that story?”

“You know I didn’t, Henri,” returned Billy. “When is a dummy not a
dummy? Answer: When someone thinks he is what he isn’t. How’s that,
Henri?”

“As good grammar as could be expected on a trick ship,” acknowledged
Henri.

The sailors even changed their faces with their clothes, their jaws
fitting as tightly as their sea-going outfits, and, as far as the
captain himself, he was no longer set up in landscape style. Straight
as a poker he stood on the newly discovered bridge like an image of
lead.

“Wouldn’t jar me if Herr Roque showed up with horns on his forehead
instead of in spectacle trimming.”

Billy was preparing for the next fall of the wand.

While the boys were watching the hoist of the anchor, following a
curt command from the officer on the bridge, and a distant chime was
proclaiming the midnight hour, Billy was made aware that someone, not
of the regular crew, was standing at his elbow.

The voice was that of Herr Roque, but the speaker could never for a
single moment be materially taken for the late elderly spectacled
merchant.

“How now, young sirs; is it well with you?”

Billy and Henri stared at the face showing in the pale gleam of a
spar light. Clean-shaven, thin-lipped, hard-eyed, not a trace of the
benevolent cast of countenance worn by the bland tradesman.

The line of talk was there, but not another line of the other assumed
character.

“Is--it--really--Herr Roque?” stammered Billy.

“At your service, young sirs.”

“It all works like a play,” put in Henri.

“I hope not a tragedy, young sirs.”

“Would you mind cutting out the ‘young sirs’?”

Billy was getting nettled at this mockery.

“No offense intended, I assure you.”

For reasons of his own, the secret agent had no desire to blunt the
edge of his selected tools in useless manner.

Indeed, he kept the boys on velvet, so to speak, for the first two days
at sea.

Then his mood changed with lack of leisure moments. He was constantly
on the alert and abrupt in word and action.

There was a sailor constantly in the crosstrees, sweeping the watery
expanse with powerful glasses. The gunners were standing, watch about,
in readiness for any emergency.

As a completing touch to this deck setting a runway had been rigged and
the boys for the first time realized the part they were expected to
play. There was a pair of monoplanes under cover, a waspish pair, of
exquisite make and finish.

“Get to them and get them in shape,” sternly ordered Roque, “as if your
lives depended on it--and” (grimly) “I guess they do.”

In this assignment Billy and Henri took the star rôles.

“Smoke ahead,” sang out the man up the mast.

“Whereaway?” demanded the captain.

“South by southeast,” floated back from the masthead.

“Get that?” The captain to the wheelman.

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Hold her hard, then.”

Signal to the engine room: “Slow speed.”

Roque summoned the boys with imperious motion.

“Take the air; bring signal red, if English warship; signal white, if
French cruiser; and signal black, if channel steamer. Get away!”

Four sailors manned the runway--first Billy shot the chute; then Henri,
a moment later. A clean leap, and off they went.

The steamer they left logged lazily, drifting, waiting.

The aviators guided the flight toward the thin spiral of smoke
penciling a point on the horizon. The air was as clear as a bell.

With no fixed notion of what purpose they were serving, the aviators
exulted only in the joy of air conquest. The machines were keyed up
like a watch--that is, perfection--and could be directed to a hairline.

The smoke spiral was rope-sized, then body-round, then a column.

The aviators looked down for a fleeting moment on one of the large
channel steamers, somewhat out of its course, and instantly whirled
about, flying like the homing pigeon, and exactly as the compass set
the lines.

Each monoplane trailed a black streamer.

The sailor at the masthead caught the color in his glasses.

And drawing nearer the aviators, caught their signal to descend.

It is a nice piece of work to drop an aëroplane upon the deck of a
wave-rocked ship, and in this instance it was a nice piece of work
nicely done.

There was a gleam of approbation in the cold gray eyes of Roque, when
the machines floated in and nested without strain or creak upon the
foredeck.

“I see that I sized you about right,” he said, and it could be plainly
inferred that he accepted the exhibit largely as a vindication of his
own judgment.

True for Roque, for it had been said that he seldom erred in matters of
this kind.

It was also evident that the color of the signal streamer was the one
to his liking, for, with a great flurry of orders, the vessel, under
full head of steam, hastened its hunt for the big channel boat, as
located by the aviators.

As they ran in course, the channel steamer was crossing the line
followed by the fast-approaching German vessel. The latter, moving
free, could easily overhaul the cargo-laden ship, straightway, and more
surely in crossway.

The overhauling was soon accomplished, and the unarmed channel boat
hove to, to the tune of a round shot across her bow.

Billy and Henri were not included in the boarding party. They had
served their turn, and beyond that were not expected to serve.

They could not imagine what Roque had in mind when all hands were
hustling in the transfer of numerous canvas rolls to the German deck,
all labeled “music machines.” They well knew of the Teuton fondness
for music, but here was a whole lot of trouble and expense to get what
might have been easily and cheaply purchased in Hamburg.

Roque made no attempt to take prisoners or other plunder from the
nonresisting commercial carrier.

The “music machines” were all he wanted, and, with a deck full of them,
the German vessel broke its grapples and steamed away.

It never dawned upon the boys that the labels were not the true index
of contents, until one of the parcels was broken open for inspection.

The wrappings enclosed rifles--hundreds of them.




CHAPTER XLVI. THE FACE IN THE MIRROR.


“This man Roque must have a long reach to have known about that
consignment of guns, how and when they were to be shipped, and make the
strike he did within three days.”

Billy was discussing with Henri some of the remarkable features of the
recent voyage, as the steamer came in sight of Helgoland Bay, on the
return trip.

“He’s a magician, that’s what he is,” maintained Billy. “Did you ever
see the beat of the way he unmasked this ship?”

“And himself,” added Henri.

At the mouth of the Elbe, the tarpaulins again shrouded the warlike
fixings that had been revealed by their removal, and it was the
familiar “trading vessel,” dandy captain, roustabouts, and all, that
went in with the tide.

“Home again, young sirs.”

The oily tradesman once more, horn spectacles, bland address, and
benevolent smile--Herr Roque, the peaceful merchant with a liking for
bright young men and pleasure trips when business was dull.

“We’ll have a little run up to Kiel by the way of the great canal, a
nice jaunt to complete our vacation, young sirs.”

Herr Roque was the picture of innocence, as he genially waved his hand
to a party of harbor officials, passing near in a launch. He took snuff
from a silver box and extended the compliment of giving the captain a
chance to take a pinch.

It was noticeable, however, that the slightest word from the kind
“merchant” commanded the instant respect and attention of those about
him.

“It would make us all very happy, my dear captain, if you could spare
the time to arrange our ship to Kiel. Herr Raum is very anxious to get
the goods. He has orders from Berlin to fill.”

This comedy was for the sole benefit of the assemblage on the docks.

The canvas rolls with the rifles inside were already on the way to
Kiel, and the boxes to which Roque was pointing were simply ship
supplies.

Billy and Henri were not aware that they had been accorded an unusual
privilege when they looked upon the real Roque during the hunt for the
channel steamer.

Kiel, in contrast to Hamburg, seethed with activity, the streets
swarming with sailors and marines, while in the harbor dispatch boats
dashed hither and thither.

Herr Roque kept Billy and Henri close to his elbow, and forbade their
engaging in conversation with any stranger, unless duly presented by
him. The English tongue was not at all popular in Kiel at this time.
Henri, to be sure, could rattle off German like a native, but it was
deemed best that he also become a mute like his companion.

Notwithstanding all this precaution, the boys were fated to have their
usual adventure before quitting this lively town. They never would
stand hitched! Herr Roque had some special business in the town, no
doubt concerning the “music boxes,” and he “planted” his young charges
in a hotel near the docks, with a word to the landlord to give them a
look over now and then.

“I don’t propose to stick around this coffee house all day,” rebelled
Billy, “when there is so much going on outside. Let’s join that crowd
piking at the harbor. Something’s doing there.”

Henri was in the same humor, and the pair mixed with the mentioned
curious crowd.

The attraction was three huge liners transformed by a coat of gray
paint and yellow funnels.

The boys pushed their way to the front rank of the viewers, and then a
little ahead of what appeared to be the limit of approach.

There was a murmur from the crowd. It was known that soldiers aboard
were not allowed to leave these particular ships, popularly believed
to be transports destined for the invasion of England, and an equally
stern rule that nobody was allowed to come near them.

Of course, Billy and Henri had no knowledge of the rule, and they
crossed the deadline as care-free as clams.

Then something dropped. It was a heavy hand on the shoulder of Henri,
a few feet in advance of his chum. Somebody set a vise-like grip on
Billy’s wrist. A bevy of graybacks fluttered around them. They had
committed the unpardonable sin of ignoring a military order, and also
they were unpardonably foreign to the soil. They were English, until
they proved themselves something else.

A lane opened in the muttering crowd, and through it marched the file
of soldiers, with the suspects sandwiched between the leader and the
next in line.

At the city hall the soldiers and the suspects abruptly deserted the
lengthy street procession behind them, and the prisoners were presented
without further ceremony to the bulky occupant of a revolving chair
within a railed enclosure.

“What have we here?” sharply questioned the man behind the railing.

The soldier spokesman briefly related the cause of the arrest.

“Lock them up.” This order completed the first hearing.

Billy and Henri a few minutes later perched themselves on a sack
mattress filled with straw, in a prison cell.

“‘In the prison cell I sit,’” chanted Billy.

“Don’t be a chump,” complained Henri. “This is a serious matter, I tell
you.”

“What’s the use of crying, old top, when you can sing?”

Billy was prescribing a tonic for his partner.

“There is just one man who can get us out of this scrape,” stated
Henri, “and he wears horn spectacles.”

“It won’t take that man long to find us; he’s a smooth one.”

Billy had the utmost confidence in Herr Roque’s ability as a sleuth
since the affair of the “music boxes.”

Footfalls sounded in the long corridor outside.

“Maybe that’s him now,” was Henri’s eager expression, as he hastened to
the grated door of the cell.

But the footfalls did not belong to Roque. The man at the door was only
a burly guard who handed in two tins of hot coffee and a dangling roll
of raw sausages.

“Say, major,” pleaded Henri in German, “we’ve got a good friend uptown
that knows all about us--can’t we get word to him?”

Even the rank of “major” did not appeal to the jailer, for he only
grunted, and turned on his heel.

“Looks like a night of it, Henri.”

“And there will be a morning of it, too,” predicted Henri.

“‘We won’t go home until morning,’” warbled Billy.

“Oh, what’s the use? You have quit being human.”

Failing to turn his friend from his waggish way, Henri rolled over on
the straw mattress and went to sleep. Billy followed suit.

They were awakened by the clang of a bolt, and sprang to sitting
position, rubbing their eyes.

The jailer, with a lantern swung to his arm like a railway conductor,
was framed in the cell door. A pair of horn spectacles glistened over
his shoulder.

“Glory be! It’s Herr Roque!”

Billy was not bluffing now. He was glad enough to see this able
protector.

Herr Roque did not appear to be very amiable. He was not accustomed
to have his arrangements disturbed by a pair of flyaways like these.
But he was still the finished actor, for the guard’s benefit, and
pretended, in words, to be overwhelmed with anxiety:

“How glad I am to see you, my young friends. I could not imagine what
had become of you, and I had been seeking you high and low when I met
the Burgomaster Haupt coming from his club, and he told me about the
trouble at the docks. I was shocked, indeed, and it has been proved all
a mistake.”

When he got the boys outside, though, he concluded a different line of
talk with:

“I’ll have to tie bells around your necks when next you wander in
strange pastures. You are likely to get into a neck-twisting fix with
such pranks as these.”

Neither Billy nor Henri made speeches for the defense. They meekly
accepted this chiding, all the time rejoicing that they were again
breathing free air. It was a mile ahead of six-by-eight stone walls.

“I’m through here,” briefly announced Herr Roque at breakfast, “and
after a call at Bremen I am going to restore this pair of lambs to the
aviation lieutenant at Hamburg. There you can always be found when I
want you.”

“That means, Herr Roque, I suppose, that we will get cards for some
more vacation trips?”

“It means, young man, that if you ask no questions you will receive no
false information.”

Billy was subdued for once.

At Bremen they found the hotels deserted, but the theaters and cafés
full.

It was among these cafés that the boys sharpened their wits by close
observation of Herr Roque, who was always looking for something when he
appeared to be looking for nothing but an easy way of life.

They found occasion to use keen wit before that first evening in Bremen
was over. It was a startling test.

As they basked in the benevolence of Herr Roque, facing him at a
well-spread table in one of the brilliantly lighted cafés, Billy saw
a familiar face reflected in a mirror hanging on the wall back of the
chair occupied by their host--the smiling face of the secretary the
boys had met in the office of the great man in Calais, who speeded them
on their way to Paris.

The mirror also reflected the garb of a sailor, merchant marine, and
the man was at a table directly back of where the aviators were seated.

Billy felt in a flash that it would be like signing a friend’s death
warrant to make the least show of recognition.

Fearful that Henri might forget himself and draw the attention of Herr
Roque, if suddenly confronted with the mirrored face, Billy used a
knowledge of telegraphy, in which his companion was expert, by softly
finger-tapping on the polished table surface between them the word
“caution.”

Henri was puzzled at the operation, but with the warning gave no sign
by change of expression.

Herr Roque was toying with a fork, and seemed to be thinking at a
distance. The boys, for the time being, were forgotten pawns.

Billy tapped “mirror.”

Henri fixed a glance there.

Three pairs of eyes met in the shining glass.

The smile left the face reflected from behind.

The “sailor” knew and was known. His right hand was lifted carelessly
to his lips, and a finger lingered there for a scant second.

The understanding was complete.




CHAPTER XLVII. THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE.


The boys were just aching in spirit for even a word with the supposed
sailor, safely out of range of the lynx-eyed Roque, but the latter,
after the experience in Kiel, stuck closer than a burr to his charges.

The face had passed from the mirror, and the owner of the smiling
countenance sauntered through the street door of the café, mingling
with many of his kind, smoking and chatting on the sidewalk.

“How will we make it?” tapped Billy on the table.

“Do not know,” was Henri’s answering tap.

Roque had paid the waiter for the dinner service, and was placidly
puffing a long, black cigar.

“We might take a stroll,” suggested Billy.

“Something like you did at Kiel?”

The secret agent seemed to have amused himself with this sly dig, but
it was lost upon his young companions, who were working their wits to
invent a getaway.

“How would you like to go to the theater?”

“Bully idea!” This was Billy’s vote.

“Fine!” echoed Henri.

As the three passed out of the café, the boys brushed against the very
man with whom they were eager to speak.

Billy was inspired at the moment to distinctly address Herr Roque
regarding their return journey to the air camp:

“What time to-morrow do we leave for Hamburg, sir?”

Roque gave Billy a look of stern rebuke.

Billy was not worried about the answer he did not get in words. He saw
a certain bystander uncover a fine set of teeth, and that was enough.

The play at the theater was a war drama, which was not at all like
the real thing, but Billy was so delighted with the success of his
stratagem at the café door that he was inclined to applaud at both the
right and the wrong time.

Henri held his praise for his chum, when the two retired for the night.

“It looks like a case of ‘diamond cut diamond’ to me,” he observed,
“for you can wager that they would never send a fool over here to buck
against the like of Roque.”

“I bet they wouldn’t,” was Billy’s sleepy opinion.

The next evening the boys were back in the air camp at Hamburg.

“You have your hands full, lieutenant,” remarked Roque, with a wink and
a nod at our Aviator Boys.

There is no telling what he might have said had he known what Billy had
put over on him the night before.

“Well,” said the lieutenant, “though it appears that Roque has the
first call on you, I’m going to keep you busy between times, and as
there is nobody around now to scuttle your air mounts you can fly to
your hearts’ content.”

They flew the air as they willed, in monoplanes and biplanes, singly
or doubly, and, as usual, at the same time these boys managed to fly
together into some of the ticklish affairs of earth.

It was on a Sunday morning that a jolly party of sailors came over from
the harbor to the air camp, and, as they were all supposed to be “true
blue,” or, rather, “true gray,” they were permitted to poke their noses
into the hangars without restraint.

Billy and Henri, as the chief aviators present, were counted in as part
of the exhibit, and delegated to represent the lieutenant, who claimed
this one day for late slumber.

One of the sailors, while he and his comrades were watching the aërial
maneuvers of a Zeppelin, had picked standing room as near to our
Aviator Boys as he could conveniently get. So enthusiastic was this man
over the majestic flight of the big airship that he grasped the hand of
the nearest member of the flying profession, which proved to be Henri.

There was something more than the mere pressure of the shake, however,
for Henri’s fingers closed over a wad of paper.

The sailor kept on cheering, but he did not keep on standing in the
same spot.

The paper wad lay in an itching palm, for the holder was itching to
open it.

He knew the man who had “delivered the mail!”

Billy also had something of an acquaintance with the bubbling sailor.

When the boys jointly read the faint tracing of the tissue message
they could not comprehend all that it was intended to convey. That
understanding was to come later.

Then, too, Roque must be in the reckoning.

Here we shall have to leave them, flying toward Kiel harbor, but their
further adventures in their chosen profession will be found in the
second book of this series under the title of “OUR YOUNG AËROPLANE
SCOUTS IN GERMANY; or, Winning the Iron Cross.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The Navy Boys Series

[Illustration]

A series of excellent stories of adventure on sea and land, selected
from the works of popular writers; each volume designed for boys’
reading.

HANDSOME CLOTH BINDINGS

PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME

THE NAVY BOYS IN DEFENCE OF LIBERTY.

A story of the burning of the British schooner Gaspee in 1772. By
William P. Chipman.

THE NAVY BOYS ON LONG ISLAND SOUND.

A story of the Whale Boat Navy of 1776. By James Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS AT THE SIEGE OF HAVANA.

Being the experience of three boys serving under Israel Putnam in 1772.
By James Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS WITH GRANT AT VICKSBURG.

A boy’s story of the siege of Vicksburg. By James Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS’ CRUISE WITH PAUL JONES.

A boy’s story of a cruise with the Great Commodore in 1776. By James
Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS ON LAKE ONTARIO.

The story of two boys and their adventures in the War of 1812. By James
Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS’ CRUISE ON THE PICKERING.

A boy’s story of privateering in 1780. By James Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS IN NEW YORK BAY.

A story of three boys who took command of the schooner “The Laughing
Mary,” the first vessel of the American Navy. By James Otis.

THE NAVY BOYS IN THE TRACK OF THE ENEMY.

The story of a remarkable cruise with the Sloop of War “Providence” and
the frigate “Alfred.” By William P. Chipman.

THE NAVY BOYS’ DARING CAPTURE.

The story of how the navy boys helped to capture the British Cutter
“Margaretta,” in 1775. By William P. Chipman.

THE NAVY BOYS’ CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS.

The adventures of two Yankee Middies with the first cruise of an
American Squadron in 1775. By William P. Chipman.

THE NAVY BOYS’ CRUISE WITH COLUMBUS.

The adventures of two boys who sailed with the great Admiral in his
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For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
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       *       *       *       *       *

The Boy Spies Series

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These stories are based on important historical events, scenes wherein
boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of
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THE BOY SPIES AT THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS.

A story of the part they took in its defence. By William P. Chipman.

THE BOY SPIES AT THE DEFENCE OF FORT HENRY.

A boy’s story of Wheeling Creek in 1777. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.

A story of two boys at the siege of Boston. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES AT THE SIEGE OF DETROIT.

A story of two Ohio boys in the War of 1812. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES WITH LAFAYETTE.

The story of how two boys joined the Continental Army. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES ON CHESAPEAKE BAY.

The story of two young spies under Commodore Barney. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES WITH THE REGULATORS.

The story of how the boys assisted the Carolina Patriots to drive the
British from that State. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES WITH THE SWAMP FOX.

The story of General Marion and his young spies. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES AT YORKTOWN.

The story of how the spies helped General Lafayette in the Siege of
Yorktown. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES OF PHILADELPHIA.

The story of how the young spies helped the Continental Army at Valley
Forge. By James Otis.

THE BOY SPIES OF FORT GRISWOLD.

The story of the part they took in its brave defence. By William P.
Chipman.

THE BOY SPIES OF OLD NEW YORK.

The story of how the young spies prevented the capture of General
Washington. By James Otis.

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
the publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York

       *       *       *       *       *

THE JACK LORIMER SERIES

5 Volumes By WINN STANDISH

Handsomely Bound in Cloth Full Library Size--Price 40 cents per Volume,
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CAPTAIN JACK LORIMER; or, The Young Athlete of Millvale High.

Jack Lorimer is a fine example of the all-around American high-school
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JACK LORIMER’S CHAMPIONS; or, Sports on Land and Lake.

There is a lively story woven in with the athletic achievements, which
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JACK LORIMER’S HOLIDAYS; or, Millvale High in Camp.

It would be well not to put this book into a boy’s hands until the
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JACK LORIMER’S SUBSTITUTE; or, The Acting Captain of the Team.

On the sporting side, the book takes up football, wrestling,
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action.

JACK LORIMER, FRESHMAN; or, From Millvale High to Exmouth.

Jack and some friends he makes crowd innumerable happenings into an
exciting freshman year at one of the leading Eastern colleges. The book
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For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
the publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Boy Allies With the Battleships

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

By ENSIGN ROBERT L. DRAKE

Price, 40 Cents per Volume, Postpaid

Frank Chadwick and Jack Templeton, young American lads, meet each other
in an unusual way soon after the declaration of war. Circumstances
place them on board the British cruiser “The Sylph” and from there on,
they share adventures with the sailors of the Allies. Ensign Robert L.
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THE BOY ALLIES UNDER THE SEA; or, The Vanishing Submarine.

THE BOY ALLIES IN THE BALTIC; or, Through Fields of Ice to Aid the Czar.

THE BOY ALLIES ON THE NORTH SEA PATROL; or, Striking the First Blow at
the German Fleet.

THE BOY ALLIES UNDER TWO FLAGS; or, Sweeping the Enemy from the Seas.

THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE FLYING SQUADRON; or, The Naval Raiders of the
Great War.

THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE TERROR OF THE SEAS; or, The Last Shot of
Submarine D-16.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Boy Allies With the Army

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

By CLAIR W. HAYES

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In this series we follow the fortunes of two American lads unable to
leave Europe after war is declared. They meet the soldiers of the
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THE BOY ALLIES IN GREAT PERIL; or, With the Italian Army in the Alps.

THE BOY ALLIES IN THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN; or, The Struggle to Save a
Nation.

THE BOY ALLIES AT LIEGE; or, Through Lines of Steel.

THE BOY ALLIES ON THE FIRING LINE; or, Twelve Days Battle Along the
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THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE COSSACKS; or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians.

THE BOY ALLIES IN THE TRENCHES; or, Midst Shot and Shell Along the
Aisne.

       *       *       *       *       *

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By RALPH MARLOW

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It is doubtful whether a more entertaining lot of boys ever before
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS ON THE BATTLE LINE; or, With the Allies in
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS AT THE FRONT; or, Carrying Dispatches
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS UNDER FIRE; or, With the Allies in the War
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS’ SWIFT ROAD CHASE; or, Surprising the Bank
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS ON FLORIDA TRAILS; or, Adventures Among
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS IN TENNESSEE WILDS; or, The Secret of
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THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS THROUGH BY WIRELESS; or, A Strange Message
from the Air.

       *       *       *       *       *

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In this series of remarkable stories are described the adventures of
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THE BOY CHUMS IN MYSTERY LAND; or, Charlie West and Walter Hazard among
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THE BOY CHUMS ON INDIAN RIVER; or, The Boy Partners of the Schooner
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THE BOY CHUMS ON HAUNTED ISLAND; or, Hunting for Pearls In the Bahama
Islands.

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FOREST; or, Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida
Everglades.

THE BOY CHUMS’ PERILOUS CRUISE; or, Searching for Wreckage on the
Florida Coast.

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO; or, A Dangerous Cruise with the
Greek Spongers.

THE BOY CHUMS CRUISING IN FLORIDA WATERS; or, The Perils and Dangers of
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THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FLORIDA JUNGLE; or, Charlie West and Walter Hazard
with the Seminole Indians.

       *       *       *       *       *

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By FRANK FOWLER

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A series of stirring stories for boys, breathing the adventurous spirit
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THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS WITH FUNSTON AT VERA CRUZ; or, Upholding the
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When trouble breaks out between this country and Mexico, the boys
are eager to join the American troops under General Funston. Their
attempts to reach Vera Cruz are fraught with danger, but after many
difficulties, they manage to reach the trouble zone, where their real
adventures begin.

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS AT KEYSTONE RANCH; or, Three Chums of the Saddle
and Lariat.

In this story the reader makes the acquaintance of three devoted chums.
The book begins in rapid action, and there is “something doing” up to
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THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS DOWN IN ARIZONA; or, A Struggle for the Great
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The Broncho Rider Boys find themselves impelled to make a brave fight
against heavy odds, in order to retain possession of a valuable mine
that is claimed by some of their relatives. They meet with numerous
strange and thrilling perils and every wideawake boy will be pleased to
learn how the boys finally managed to outwit their enemies.

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ALONG THE BORDER; or, The Hidden Treasure of the
Zuni Medicine Man.

Once more the tried and true comrades of camp and trail are in the
saddle. In the strangest possible way they are drawn into a series of
exciting happenings among the Zuni Indians. Certainly no lad will lay
this book down, save with regret.

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ON THE WYOMING TRAIL; or, A Mystery of the
Prairie Stampede.

The three prairie pards finally find a chance to visit the Wyoming
ranch belonging to Adrian, but managed for him by an unscrupulous
relative. Of course, they become entangled in a maze of adventurous
doings while in the Northern cattle country. How the Broncho Rider Boys
carried themselves through this nerve-testing period makes intensely
interesting reading.

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS; or, The Smugglers of the
Rio Grande.

In this volume, the Broncho Rider Boys get mixed up in the Mexican
troubles, and become acquainted with General Villa. In their efforts to
prevent smuggling across the border, they naturally make many enemies,
but finally succeed in their mission.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our Young Aeroplane Scouts Series

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

By HORACE PORTER

Price, 50 Cents per Volume, Postpaid

A series of stories of two American boy aviators in the great European
war zone. The fascinating life in midair is thrillingly described.
The boys have many exciting adventures, and the narratives of their
numerous escapes make up a series of wonderfully interesting stories.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN ENGLAND; or, Twin Stars in the London Sky
Patrol.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN ITALY; or, Flying with the War Eagles of
the Alps.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM; or, Saving the
Fortunes of the Trouvilles.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN GERMANY; or, Winning the Iron Cross.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN RUSSIA; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes.

OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN TURKEY; or, Bringing the Light to Yusef.

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
the publishers

A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E 23d St., New York

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.