If they were pursued they never knew it, for a deer would hardly have been in the running with them as they dashed across the square.
Once in the great avenue diverging northward, the lads again breathed freely, but wasted no time in making their way to aviation headquarters. If they had expected to be immediately hauled before stern judges to show cause why they should be permitted to live, they were agreeably disappointed. Not even the lieutenant was there to inquire about their overstay of leave.
“I can’t get that horrid ring business out of my mind,” said Henri, half rising from his cot, after the tired boys had supposedly settled for much needed rest.
“Neither can I,” promptly agreed Billy, who was just as wide awake as when he first jammed the pillow under his head.
“Do you suppose it might have been that those fellows invented that story just for our benefit?”
“Not a chance, Henri,” replied the U. S. A. boy; “that man Ricker is an actor all right, but in this show he was real; I’ll lay my life on that. And don’t tell me that the long-haired guy wasn’t in earnest. Steer me clear of him on a dark night.”
“What do you think we ought to do about it?”
No sleep for Henri until this question was settled.
“There you are,” said the sorely perplexed chum; “if we go to warn the Cossack it may not blunt the claws he has sharpened for us; if we tell it straight it will put Ricker on the rack, for nobody would believe that the crank who wished the ring on the red man did it of his own accord, and with Ricker against the wall there’s no telling how far he would go to fix us good and plenty.”
“If it was a fair fight like Schneider put up,” argued Henri, “it would be no strain of conscience, but to let slow poison work when we could stop it, it seems to me, would class us as first-aid assassins.”