"Glory be!" This was Billy's high-pitched note. "Here's to you, Buddy, bully old boy!" Henri cried. The "bully old boy" then made a dash for Schneider and worked the latter's brawny arm up and down like a pump handle. Roque repeated the last-named performance with both the recovered members of his crew. In the meantime the Austrians were saluting Captain Schwimmer, well known to them as a gallant officer in a famous command. "But for them, gentlemen," gravely stated the captain, nodding toward Schneider and Henri, "I had been in my last fight. Through danger, cold and hunger have they brought me, and neither needs a patent of nobility--nature took care of that." Roque had only to listen to the happy reunion chatter of the boys to get the side of the story he wanted to hear. "It seems," he commented, "that Billy and I were not in the same class this time with these trouble hunters." "Do you suppose that there is anything left of our biplane?" Henri had taken on the air of a sea captain who had lost his ship. "That is an important question," said Roque, "There is only one fit mate to that craft in this part of the country." Fortunately for the preservation of good feeling, Roten did not hear this latter statement. It was necessary to detail two corporal aviators to take the wounded captain back to army headquarters, where he could have the skilled surgical attention that would hasten his recovery. As the invalid was lifted into the machine that was to do ambulance service, he gave a hand each to Henri and Schneider. "From my heart I thank you both," were his last words in profoundly earnest farewell. Henri traveled as a passenger with Billy and Roque in the brief journey to the forest station in the pass where it was hoped to find intact the stranded biplane. Schneider, who had been given a lift by Roten in the trip, was in high glee when it developed that the No. 3, behind its screen of bushes, had sustained no damage. "See that?" The big fellow held aloft the rabbit's foot. "There's no jinx that can beat it." Roque was delighted to learn, as the aërial expedition proceeded, that one of his cherished desires had matured--a large German contingent had arrived to support the determined effort of the Austrian forces to relieve the Przemysl fortress. He had made up his mind that it was well worth the risk to carry back the new word of hope to the hemmed in garrison, and Roten was informed of his purpose. "I regret that you must quit us, Mr. Roque," said the aviation chief, "but it's the big thing you are going to do, and I certainly wish the best for your undertaking. Let me advise, however, that not a screw should be loose when you make that dash. You can't fall in that country now without bumping a Russian." "I'll back my boys to make the riffle," confidently asserted Roque. "They'll need the keen eye every inch of the way," persisted Roten. "We came out safely, and I guess we can repeat," declared the secret agent.