Two hours later the trap was lifted, and the exhausted survivors of this desperate adventure were hauled into daylight, joyfully greeted by a goodly company, including Roque. Stanislaws, sanitary officers, pioneers, and last, but not least, Blitz, tugging at the line by which he led the rescue party to the scene of his original discovery. CHAPTER XV. DUEL TO THE DEATH. SCHNEIDER was a very walking furnace, with his burning desire to meet again, on equal footing, any individual of the Cossack band that had thrust him, lamblike, into the stone tomb under the farmhouse, and, particularly, the fake peasant for whose wiles he had so foolishly fallen. "Give us a biplane hunt for that gang," he importuned Roque, "or I will never get the red out of my eyes. Filimonoff himself might have been in the crowd, for all I know, and you ought to be doing some tall bidding for his headdress. It was just like one of his tricks." The firebrand felt that he had hit the mark with the last part of his heated argument. Roque would have counted full reward for the chase in the bagging alone of the wily chieftain of the strange horsemen. He turned to Stanislaws, remarking: "You men for awhile will have to resume the use of your own machines in the carrying service. I have concluded to give Schneider a chance to retrieve his blunder and return a lesson that will stick into savage hides." "We won't stand in the way for a minute," quickly and earnestly stated the Austrian flyer, "and more power to you, sir. What's more," he added, "we can spare an aëroplane or two, and I know several full-blooded lads who would be mighty willing to join such an excursion." "Meaning that you are one of the volunteers," rejoined Roque. "How about it, Schneider?" "It is hitting the nail on the head," heartily approved the brick-top warrior, "Stanislaws, Breckens, Bishoff, and Mendell--there's two crews that would help some." "What's the matter with us?" The Aëroplane Scouts had edged into the circle. The idea of a biplane hunt especially appealed to them. "Sure you're going," proclaimed Schneider, glancing first at Roque for sign of assent, which was given by a nod. Four military biplanes twelve hours hence lay in readiness to start for the Cossack roundup. The Austrians in the party carried a supply of bombs for emergency work, but the most elaborately armed of all was Schneider, in the rôle of chief challenger. He bristled with revolvers, a shoulder-hung carbine and a heavy cavalry saber. "If you should have a fall, old fellow," laughed Stanislaws, "it would sound like a barrel of tinware rolling down a mountain." "Never you mind," said the one-man arsenal, "I have a job of making sieves on hand." The plan was to hover for a time in the vicinity of the farm where Schneider and the boys had been held up, or, rather, down, and if no sight of the Cossack company, to reconnoiter still further north. The flyers were given a great send-off by the soldiers at headquarters.