their journey
by rail was at an end.

"Ho, hum!" yawned Jimmie, before beginning his setting up exercise, in
which the lads found much benefit, "nothing to do till to-morrow, eh?"

"Looks that way, I declare!" said Dave. "But if I'm a judge, this is
tomorrow itself. I wonder are we going into action."

"Something's brewing as sure as fate!" declared the other. "We
wouldn't unload like this just for exercise on a fine morning."

"It is a fine morning, sure enough," agreed Dave, "but I think it is
going to rain. I thought I heard thunder just now."

"Does sound remarkably like thunder," said Jimmie, with a glance at the
sky, "but," he continued, "there isn't a cloud in the sky, and a
thunder storm seems about the last thing we could expect."

"What on earth is it, then?" queried Dave, puzzled at the strange sound
that came to their ears. "I see some of the Uhlans noticing it, too.
Only they seem to be pleased about something."

"I know what it is!" announced Jimmie. "It's the sound of firing!"

"I believe you are correct, Jimmie," acknowledged Dave.

"Sure, I'm right!" declared the other. "Can't I tell what a cannon
shot sounds like? I ought to, for I heard them some time ago, but from
the other side of the lines."

"You did?" asked Dave, interestedly. "How was that?"

"Why," went on Jimmie, with just a touch of pride in his voice, "we
were in France with the airship we had built before this present one.
We got nicely tangled up with the battling forces and nearly got blown
to bits once. We got lost in the fog above the lines where the big
shells were flying around like mosquitoes."

"My word!" was Dave's astonished ejaculation.

"Yes," continued the red headed lad, "we thought once or twice we were
goners, but got out after all. The airship lived through all of it and
finally was drowned in the North Sea as we were trying to get home. I
was certainly sorry to lose that airship."

"But you were fortunate to escape without losing your lives."

"Sure were," was Jimmie's comment. "But look there! There's some
movement on foot or I'm mistaken. Wonder what it is?"

The boys were not long left in doubt. An officer came toward them
apparently in some haste. As he approached he signalled the two to
follow him to a position where the Uhlans were mounting their horses.

"You will follow these men," he said, as the lads drew near. He
indicated two soldiers nearby who were mounted and leading two