“Talk about striking it right,” rejoiced Billy as Henri and himself were getting into suitable outfit for a long drive in the cold; “it certainly seems as if our good fairy were on the job to-day.”
“Maybe it was good intent that had something to do with the shaping of this venture,” added Henri. “It isn’t just like we were backing this effort with a solely selfish motive. If we have nothing to gain we might have everything to lose.”
“Come to think of it in that light,” said Billy, “if we don’t gain as much as the point at which we are aiming, it is somebody else that will lose—the Cossack will be minus his life.”
A corporal was calling from the hall below, and the pilots hastened to report themselves at the hangars where the military biplanes—the famous No. 3’s—were in trim for instant flight.
Salisky and Marovitch were ready and waiting, and at the signal from the aviation chief the aeroplanes were off like a shot, soon to be in touch with the directing power of the biggest army under one command in the world’s history of warfare—the Russian forces maneuvered by Grand Duke Nicholas along a battle front of 1,500 miles.
Yet in all the legions before them the hooded pilots, holding hard to the compass-set course of the winged cyclones, would first have eyes for but one equestrian figure, scarlet clad, with a sleeping death coiled in his hand.
From the observers behind them the Boy Aviators had withheld all mention of the original incentive for this particular service—but the time was approaching when this confidence must be extended. As well address an Eskimo in Arabic as to trip the tongues the lads knew over the language knowledge of Nikita, the wild horseman.
They must speak through the city-bred Muscovites with whom they were traveling—friends in need.
The main thing was to locate immediately the man they would warn and save, and with this end in view, a plea had been made to the observers to give note if in the sweep of their glasses they caught the ground picture of the crimson cavalcade.
But not once during the flight was there even a snapshot of anything like that picture—and it must needs be a waiting game, to be finished with the journey’s end.