"I know what it is!" Jimmie almost cried out loud. "It's an airship!"
"Can it be the boys coming back after us?" questioned Dave doubtingly.
"That doesn't sound like the exhaust from the Eagle," protested Jimmie with a shake of his head. "She's got a dandy muffler."
Others of the party beside the train were now observing the noise that the lads had noticed. An officer dashed across the open space on which the soldiers were exercising. Running up to the group in which the Kaiser walked, he saluted gravely and reported the circumstance.
Nearer and nearer came the sound. At length it appeared directly overhead. Looking up, the boys could faintly make out a great gray form at some distance above the train. For an instant only it appeared, to vanish the next instant in the darkness. The clamor of the motors, however, was not diminished.
"He's going to land near here," whispered Jimmie, grasping Dave's arm in his excitement. "We'll soon see who and what he is."
The boy's prediction was correct. For a short time the aviator circled about the station, evidently searching for a suitable place in which to make a landing. In another moment it was seen clearly that he intended to land as near the station as possible.
Of all the observers none was more interested than the two Boy Scouts so strangely thrown into the company of this train load of fighting men and their emperor. Jimmie was the first to discover the pilot's intentions. Grasping Dave's arm, he dragged the other a short distance away from the spot, to be clear of the descending plane.
A switch engine was bringing up a coach to attach it to the rear of the train. The coach was evidently intended for the use of the Kaiser, for it was stopped exactly opposite the little party surrounding him.
At a signal from the man whom the whole German army worshipped the engine moved the coach a short distance down the track while the emperor and his staff gave their attention to the daring aviator.