"If I see a man with a dog underneath us, just bring me within rifle shot, young man, and I will show you something fancy in the way of gunning." Henri, whom Schneider was addressing, mentally resolved that he would be in no haste to perform as suggested. Conditions, however, were reversed long before this test could be made. Indeed, the reversal, with the dawn, was at hand. The hunters were the hunted. The thud of iron-shod hoofs, the clank of sabers--a troop of cavalry charging through the wooded avenue--four madly racing footmen in the furrowed field. Full two hundred yards between them and the biplanes! CHAPTER X. THE CARRIER PIGEONS. Billy and Henri, with much less weight to carry than their stalwart fellow fugitives, and much spryer as sprinters, easily led in the race to the flying machines. Schneider stopped more than once in his tracks to fire from the hip at the pursuing cavalrymen, but he failed to score a hit until the leader of the troopers had almost ridden him down. One of the long-barreled revolvers emptied the saddle of the rearing charger. Schneider had thrown his rifle away at the last moment, finding his pistol more effective in close quarters. By this time, the boys, assisted by Roque, who was doing some shooting himself, until all of the cartridges in the revolvers he carried were exploded, had pushed and dragged the biplanes into the road, and ready for the getaway. Schneider, with a yell, hurled the empty revolvers in the direction of the next comer, then bounded across the first ditch in his way, jammed a shoulder against the now humming machine in which Henri was seated, to give it starting impetus, and at the same instant leaped within the machine. Both machines were off in a jiffy, and when the cavalrymen in force galloped to the spot, their carbines fell short of range. That they had been chasing airmen was something of a surprise for if they had not been so sure of a capture, the troopers would probably have pumped lead much earlier in the chase. "Guess he didn't get his man for keeps," remarked Billy to Roque, as a side turn of the aircraft enabled him to look down on the field, where a dismounted rider was getting a helping hand up from a comrade. "Schneider gave him something to remember, anyhow," grimly replied Roque. In the other machine the red-topped and red-tempered aviator in the observer's seat was deeply deploring, in no uncertain terms, the loss of a crack-a-jack rifle and two up-to-date revolvers, borrowed for the occasion. "Hume may toss earth when I tell him his pet irons are gone, but it was a shindy for quick action, and no saving grace." Schneider evidently intended to tell the aviation lieutenant about the fight before he mentioned the missing weapons. The next flight planned by Roque was one of long distance--starting twenty-four hours later, and leaving France.