Under Fire For Servia

"Then you'll have to shift for yourself!" shouted Stepan, brutally. "I've done all I can for you!"

And, leaving Dick dumbfounded, he spurred on and was soon visible only as a cloud of dust! Dick could scarcely believe his eyes and ears. That Stepan, his trusted friend, who had shared every imaginable peril with him, could desert him so now! But he had not long to think. The pursuers whose horses they had heard were on him in a minute more. Without a struggle, since the odds were overwhelming – ten or twelve men assailed him – he let himself be dragged from his horse and bound.

One man came to him and searched him. When he found the belt he gave a cry of triumph. The next moment he was examining the drafts.

"Another one was with you?" he said, in excellent English and with a marked American accent. Dick started. This looked like Hallo's work, certainly. "Where is he?"

"He's gone – to save himself," said Dick, bitterly.

"Ah, well – you are the one we want," said his captor, who was plainly the leader of the band. "Now, my young friend, endorse these drafts, in blank, at once!"

"I will not!" said Dick, hotly. "And you can tell Hallo so, too!"

"You will not?" said the other, smoothly. "Then I will tell you what will happen. I give you an hour – because I have lived in New York, and done well there. I like you Americans. If you have not signed then, I shall sign for you."

"That will be forgery – and I shall stop payment!"

"So? Suppose, when I leave you here, I leave you under the earth? There are many graves in the Balkans in these days – new graves! One more or less will matter little. Do you think it will ever give up its secret – the one that shall hold you?"

Something in the man's cool tone made Dick shiver. It carried conviction – it made him believe that this was no idle threat. And yet he felt that he could not yield. Oh, if only Stepan had not left him! He was glad, now that his anger had cooled, that his chum was not involved in this new trouble. And yet – he would have felt better had Stepan been beside him, to share this peril, as he had shared so many others.

"It is eleven o'clock now," said the brigand. "If at midnight you have not signed – !"

"That's enough," said Dick. "I'll think it over."

"Light a fire – it is chilly," directed the chief of Dick's captors. "I am a kindly man. I would not want this hour to prove a chilly one for you."

Strange and weird indeed Dick found the scene. There were eleven men, he found, when he could count them. All wore the Bulgarian national costume; all looked like soldiers, but he thought all were not Bulgarians. There were Turks and Albanians among them. And then, suddenly, one man pitched forward, very quietly, and lay still. The others started toward him; two or three of them fell. They fell as Dick had seen men fall when they were struck by bullets, though he had heard no sound of a shot, but only a faint noise, like the cough of an animal.

Then wild panic spread among his captors. They blazed away in all directions with their guns; for the moment they forgot him. And then silent, fierce figures were suddenly among them, cutting, stabbing – and Stepan's cry rang out.

"Dick! Dick! Are you safe?" he shouted.

It was all over in a moment. Stepan, the tears streaming down his cheeks, released Dick.

"I lamed your horse – I had to pretend to desert you so that they would believe you and let me go!" he cried. "I knew our horses were too tired for us to escape unless we could delay them. A few miles from here is a little colony of Serbs. We, you see, have to do something to get warning of the border raids. They have guns with silencers – I knew I could get help. Now we must ride for the Greek line, but we can make it now!"

On through the night they rode, leaving the dead and wounded behind, while those who had been captured unhurt were tied and gagged. And before daylight they came to a Greek frontier post. Greek soldiers greeted them; there was a captain who had served with Stepan's father against Bulgaria.

"The road to Salonica is safe and open now!" he told them.

And so it proved. Dick had recovered his papers and a week later, his adventures over, he sailed from Athens, and waved to Stepan, standing on the deck, until he could no longer see him. He was homeward bound.

Hallo had played his last card – and lost.

The End