So it happened that the little fleet was going in just the right direction to enable Roque to reunite his own party, at the same time affording him the opportunity to see for himself what was going on. Roten had been fully advised of the exact location in the pass of the forest tract where Schneider and Henri were supposed to be watching for the return of their companions. "We will find it without fail," he confidently declared, "and taking the nearest way there." A blinding snowstorm, beginning in the night, served to hold the aviators in shelter for another day. At the first sign of clearing weather, however, Roten decided to fly, though he explained that many landmarks would be lost sight of under the drifts, markings recorded during a previous journey. "Follow the compass, old man." This remark, ventured by one of the lieutenants, the chief airman ignored with a sniff. "Pass the word to pull out," he snapped. Five biplanes were off at the signal, and winging their way in perfect alignment. As far as vision extended billows upon billows of snow capped the mountaintops and billows and billows of it smothered the defiles. The observers shaded their eyes as best they could with their hoods from the trying color effect, heightened by the reflection of the sun, and many times the pilots made hasty swipes with coat cuffs to dry wet cheeks. Roten changed the course more than once during the first hour out, indicating that he was missing here and there some familiar formation that would aid the keeping of undeviating progress. "We ought to get to the jumping-off place pretty soon at fifty miles an hour." Billy felt that he had to say something to break the sailing monotony. If Roque had an opinion he kept it to himself. There was one thing sure, the flight had carried the aviators beyond the path of the recent blizzard, for brown and gray were again showing above the white in the checkered landscape. That Roten was planning an intermission was apparent by the circling action of his machine over a plateau of broad expanse, probably an intermediate station with which he was acquainted. His initiative set the balance of the flock on the down grade, and the pilots rejoiced over the immediate prospect of a thaw-out. The chief aviator wore a satisfied smile on his bewhiskered countenance. "The Carpathians were never built to down me," he briskly proclaimed; "we'll go to the mark now like a bullet through cheese as soon as the steering boys get the cricks out of their backs." "Come to think of it," volunteered Billy, "it is a tolerably nifty morning to hold a still curve for a hundred and twenty minutes at a stretch." Roten, who understood American, grinned appreciatively at this recognition of his welfare action in behalf of the pilots.