Read Ebook: Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in Russia; or Lost on the Frozen Steppes by Porter Horace

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Ebook has 1005 lines and 35654 words, and 21 pages

From the wide expanse of the warehouse roof could be seen, quite near, the channel of the Vistula river. Hamar had reached the extreme west line of the elevation, and was looking down into the void that effectually blocked further flight.

"I have him now," exulted the big policeman, hurrying forward.

But it was not a sure thing, after all.

Directly beneath the coping, over which Hamar was leaning, rose the rigging of a great crane, the mighty arm of which was lifting with mechanical regularity to swing heavily weighted sacks from the wharf into the hold of a waiting collier.

Hardly ten feet separated the pursuer and the pursued, when Hamar bestrode the coping--now he is over and hanging by his hands--now he drops into the crane rigging--then crawling out on the swinging arm, he is swept in wide circle over the dizzy height--now he slides down the chains, now astride the sack just hooked--now lowered with the weight of coal into the vessel!

During the exhibit of daring, from the first sight of the perilous descent on the chains to the final dump, the stevedores stood aghast and open-mouthed.

As for the policeman and the boys, looking out and down upon the astonishing performance, none of them had a word to say for several minutes after it was all over.

"Gee whiz, but wasn't that the limit?"

It was Billy who broke the breath-holding period.

When the policeman awakened from his temporary trance, he was very much awake.

"There is still a live chance to nab him," he exclaimed, "if we can only get down there before the collier clears. Once out in the channel and that fool is liable to drown himself."

If the officer had only known it, the man he most wanted, and upon whose head was the far greater price, even now was a stowaway in the very ship into which Hamar had been tumbled.

FOILED BY A FALL.

Such was the haste of the officer to get to ground that he started down the spike row in the chimney regardless of the fact that a slip for him might spell dire consequence. It was not exactly a slip, however, that actually brought him to grief, but the outpulling of one of the big nails, owing to the drag of unusual weight, and resulting in about a twenty-foot fall. Had it not been for the assumed leadership of the ponderous policeman, either or both of the boys who might have immediately preceded him would either or both probably have ceased to take any further interest in the doings of earth.

Billy, next in the line of descent, almost took a drop himself, when he heard the gasp of alarm and the thud of the heavyweight on the stone pavement below.

The fallen man was unconscious when the boys reached his side, and blood was flowing in thin streams from his nostrils. He groaned when an attempt was made by Henri to raise his head for pillowing on the boy's coat, which he had removed for the purpose.

"One of us had better go for help right away," suggested Billy, "and I guess it will be me, for you are better on the nursing part of the job."

With the utterance the self-elected seeker for aid ran at a lively clip up the passage toward the street front.

The runner was hardly through the spring-locked door before Henri, left behind as nurse, noted in his patient signs of returning consciousness. Indeed, the policeman had opened his eyes and was staring at his attendant.

"Where am I?" he hoarsely questioned.

"You will remember it yourself in a minute or two," cheerfully replied Henri. "Take a brace, cap., and you'll be going again like a top before the supper bell rings."

"Now I have it," cried the victim of the jarring fall; "we were just closing in on that wild man when he jumped onto the derrick. Why are we not at the wharf to stop that boat?"

"Take it easy, cap.," cajoled Henri; "you've had a bit of a tumble, but you'll be there on time. Don't worry."

The policeman raised himself on his elbows, fired by a spirit averse to delay, twisted himself about, and succeeded in making a back rest against the chimney.

"What has become of the other boy?" was his next inquiry.

"Gone for a doctor or anybody else that he can pick up in a pinch," advised Henri. "But you can see for yourself--here he comes now."

Billy was accompanied by a tall, slender man with a clean-shaven face, swinging a leather case in his hand in the usual professional way, and indicating readiness for any surgical or remedial emergency.

Bringing up the rear were two policemen in uniform and a short-legged apothecary from the nearest drug store.

The company entire sounded a note of recognition when they saw the injured man sitting at the foot of the chimney base.

"Strogoff, by my soul," ejaculated the doctor; "this young messenger said that a policeman had been hurt, but I had no reckoning that it was the fighting sergeant of headquarters staff. Let me have a look at you, man."

"Ah," he said, after quick examination, "a little concussion, that is about the extent of it; no bones broken; lucky, sergeant, that you were so well-cushioned by nature, and good feeding, I might add. You will be sore from this shake-up, but far from the hospital, my dear sir."

"Here, give me a hand," broke in the sergeant, addressing the officers standing behind the physician. "Now," he continued, stiffly rising with the assistance rendered, "I want the pair of you to use your legs to best gait and give order of detention to the master of the wharf back of these buildings, to hold at all hazards the collier there loading. Go!"

With the doctor's arm aid on one side and the druggist's on the other, the sergeant was led, slowly and limping, out to the street.

Hailing a hack, passing through the square, Strogoff, aided by vigorous boosting, climbed in and motioned the boys to follow.

"Drive like the devil around to the river front," he commanded the reinsman on the box, and the way the vehicle rattled over the pavement showed that the officer inside was not considered the kind of individual with which to trifle.

When the sergeant reached the wharf, a big transport occupied the offing, upon which troops were embarking, and small mountains of military supplies also being loaded with all possible dispatch.

Strogoff's brother officers, who had been sent in advance to the wharf, had made no progress in their mission, owing to the martial preemption of the premises, and the sergeant's attempt at argument with the irate lieutenant-colonel directing the getaway proceedings fell upon deaf ears.

It was not until the transport was in mid-channel and swiftly steaming up the river that the wharf master could be reached.

The sergeant, for the time being, had no regard for his aching head and back, and with renewed vigor was on the trail of the suspect who had given him the slip on the warehouse roof. "You saw the way that ape got into the coal boat, didn't you?" was the first interrogation fired at the wharf master.

"I'm not blind," responded the official addressed.

"Has the collier cleared yet?"

"No, and it will not until morning."

This last answer to his questioning set the sergeant up in confidence that he would be soon dragging Hamar out of a dust pit.

The vessel which he was seeking was readily located, out at anchor, by an obliging stevedore, and the three officers, accompanied by our boys, reached the hulk in the wharf master's launch.

It was in the deepening dusk that the searching party went aboard of the dingy craft, and the skipper was inclined to be surly until the rays from the mainmast lantern were reflected in the shining badges of authority on the breasts of two of the officers.

"What's wanted?"

"A fugitive from justice."

Strogoff's declaration was snappy. He did not approve of the sullen attitude of the skipper.

"I will call the crew; you can choose your man."

"The rascal I am after came on board with a sack of coal this afternoon."

"That oaf," sneered the shipper, "have him hide and hair for all of me. Druski, ho, Druski," he called.

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