Chapter 10

FROM THE SKY

"More likely it's engine trouble of some kind," suggested Frank, gazing at the swooping airplane. "My, but he's a nifty driver! See how he handles that machine!"

"Dick Lever himself couldn't do better," remarked Bart, as he watched the graceful curves described by the aviator in his descent.

"Good old Dick!" observed Billy. "I wonder where he is now."

The aviator was evidently aiming for a large open space a little to the right and in advance of the moving column. Soon he had reached it and landed as lightly as a feather.

"Wouldn't have broken a pane of glass if it had come down on it," observed Tom admiringly. "That fellow knows his business."

The aviator climbed out of his machine and came over toward the column, which had just received the order for the ten minutes rest, which, according to regulations, came at the end of every hour of marching.

He was encased in heavy clothing and his face was almost concealed by the fur-rimmed visor that he wore.

"Something about that fellow that looks familiar," remarked Billy.

"By the great horn spoon!" ejaculated Frank, "it's Dick Lever himself."

"That's what," smiled the newcomer, as the boys surrounded him and, with a yell, fell upon him.

There was no mistaking the warmth of the greeting, and Dick smiled with gratification as he extricated himself from their grasp and tried to shake hands with them all at once.

"What good wind blew you this way?" queried Frank.

"A mighty cold wind, as you fellows would admit if you were up there," laughed Dick.

"You look pretty well fixed for it," commented Billy, as he took in Dick's voluminous trappings. "A polar bear has nothing on you."

"I need every bit of it," answered Dick. "But where are you fellows bound for, and what are you doing with these birds?" he continued, glancing at the motley group of prisoners.

"We're taking them into Coblenz to let our people give them the once over and the third degree," explained Frank. "They've been trying to stir up trouble in the American zone. Cunning little bunch, isn't it?"

"I'm glad you've got your claws on them," Dick remarked, looking at the group with cold disfavor. "There's a whole lot more like them that ought to be rounded up. I tell you our people have been too easy with this breed of cattle and they're going to be sorry for it. We're so afraid of being harsh that we go to the other extreme. We stand up so straight that we fall over backward. The Germans don't understand anything but force, and unless we exert it they think we're afraid to."

"Think we're too easy?" asked Bart. "You bet we are!" replied Dick. "We ought to treat them as the French do at Mayence and the British at Cologne. They know the people they're dealing with, and while they're just, they're stern. Anyone who tries to put anything over on them finds that he's monkeying with a buzz saw. Unless we wake up from our easy good-nature, we'll find ourselves with a lot of trouble on our hands."

"You seem to be rather worked up about it," remarked Billy.

"Not a bit more than I ought to be," returned Dick earnestly. "I have chances of seeing things that you fellows don't. I'm flying all over the occupied zone, and I tell you that the Spartacides are trying to stir up trouble everywhere. In almost every other town you can see the red flag flying. There's stormy weather coming, and we've got to be prepared for gales."

"That just fits in with what Colonel Pavet of the French Army was telling me to-day," said Frank. "He's just back from Berlin, and he's sure there's trouble afoot."

"Well," said Dick, "I hope that we're both false prophets, but I'm afraid we're not. I'll have to get on now, fellows."

"What did you come down for?" asked Tom. "Engine trouble?"

"No, it wasn't that," replied Dick. "The old girl is working fine. I just saw an American bunch marching along here and dropped down to say 'howdy.' I'm off now. See you soon in Coblenz."

With a wave of his hand, he walked over, climbed into his machine, and started skyward.

The boys watched him soaring until his machine was only a dot in the steel blue of the winter sky, and then, as their brief rest period had ended, started on the march to Coblenz.

"One great boy, that Dick," remarked Frank, when the aviator was finally lost to sight.

"You bet he is," agreed Billy emphatically. "He's one of the greatest aces that ever climbed into a plane."

"I suppose he must be feeling rather lonely now that he isn't bringing down his daily Hun," suggested Tom.

"He's all wool and a yard wide," affirmed Bart. "I'll never forget that if it hadn't been for him I might never have got back to you fellows."

"Do you remember the time he swooped down with his machine guns popping and carried us off when we were being taken to a German prison camp?" asked Frank. "I tell you it took nerve for a fellow to charge a whole detachment."

"Oh, he's got nerve enough for a whole regiment," declared Billy. "He'd be a mighty handy fellow to have at your back in any kind of scrap, and don't you forget it."

In a short time they reached the town without further adventure and delivered their prisoners into the hands of the authorities. They were off duty then and had no further assignment for the rest of the afternoon and evening. The early winter dusk was settling down, but it was yet a full hour before it would be entirely dark.

"What are you going to do with yourself, Bart?" asked Frank. "I know of course what Tom and Billy are going to do. They're going to make tracks for the house where their deities reside."

"Good guess," admitted Billy. "You bet we are."

"I haven't anything special on hand," replied Bart in answer to Frank's question.

"Come along with me then," said his chum.

"Anywhere you say, what's the game?"

"I'm going straight for the alley where they nearly got our number the other night. That thing's on my mind all the time. It haunts me even in my sleep. I'm going to get to the bottom of that mystery or know the reason why."

"All right. I'm with you."

By the time they had reached the alley it was almost entirely dark. Choosing a moment when the street was empty, they slipped into the alley and made their way toward the further end.

They felt the walls on either side as they went along for indications of a door or opening of any kind. They did the same with the blank wall that closed the alley at the other end. Nothing rewarded their search. The wall at the farther end was far too high to scale. It seemed impossible for anything except with wings to vanish from the alley as completely as had their assailants on that memorable night when they had so nearly lost their lives.

"It beats me," said Bart at length. "We saw them go in and we followed them up and they weren't there. Sounds like black magic, doesn't it?"

"It surely does," agreed Frank, in great perplexity. "They didn't go through the back, they couldn't go through the sides, they couldn't go into the air, but they did go somewhere."

"Down into the ground," suggested Bart jokingly. "That seems the only place left."

Frank started.

"There's many a true word spoken in jest," he said. "Perhaps you've hit it, Bart. That's one place we haven't examined."

"Small chance to examine that just now," said Bart. "You can see it's all covered with a glare of ice. There isn't a bit of ground showing."

They walked over the ice-covered surface with scarcely a hope under present conditions of making any discoveries, even if there were any to make. They had to depend entirely upon the sense of touch, for it was by this time pitch dark and Frank did not care to flash his light for fear they might be observed by passers-by.

They had come perhaps to within twenty feet of the rear wall, when Frank gave a sudden exclamation.