“Pull up!” hastily ejaculated Hugh as he saw something glisten in the road ahead of them.
They had just started around a bend, and were going at a fair pace at the time. Bud put on the brake, and the car speedily came to a stand, but, alas! just a trifle too late to avoid the breakers. There was a sudden explosion.
“Gee! a tire’s busted!” cried Blake, in dire dismay.
All of the boys jumped out, and it needed only one look to tell them the truth, for the left front tire lay flat.
“Glass!” snapped Bud, wrathfully, as he glanced around. “Just think of anybody heaving a bottle overboard like that, when there are so many stones around. Seems to me the least the rascal could have done would be to throw the same into the bushes here.”
Hugh was bending over as though deeply interested, and just then he electrified his two companions by crying out:
“It was no accident, after all, fellows, but a part of a cleverly arranged plot! These bottles were fetched along purposely. They were broken right on this rock, where you can see all the fine glass; and the pieces were put on the road so that a car couldn’t pass along without being terribly cut. See here, and here, and here!”
Bud was furious. He gritted his teeth, and growled like a “bear with a sore head,” as he himself afterwards explained it.
“Hugh! you’re right, hang the luck if you ain’t!” he went on to say, as he looked the ground over. “That miserable skunk laid the plot, and I’m sorry to say it worked like a charm. See how he chose a place just around a bend, so we mightn’t get warning in time by the sun glinting from the broken glass? Oh! he’s a corker of a schemer, that chap is; and I’d like to get my hands on him! Say, what I wouldn’t do to him would be hardly worth mentioning.”
“Forget all that, Bud,” cautioned wise Hugh. “That sort of talk never mends cut tires. All of us must get busy, and see what we can do. Luckily enough you made out to have an extra tire along, even if it’s a tough proposition. Let’s make the change in double-quick time.”
All the while they worked the boys exchanged opinions, and if that man could only have heard what they thought of him surely his ears would have burned.
“One thing certain,” Hugh was saying later on, as the job progressed fairly well, “this thing has settled the question about his being interested in keeping us out of the mobilization camp.”
“Just what it has, Hugh,” admitted Blake, jubilantly. “When once you know what you’re up against, the chances of winning out are stronger; anyway, that’s always been my opinion.”
“Have you cleaned off the road ahead of us, Blake?” asked Bud, “because we’ll be on the move again as soon as I get a little more air in this tire.”
“I walked along the road for a hundred yards,” replied the other, “and found no more of the glass. I reckon he bunched it all around here, so we couldn’t dodge running smack into the same.”
“After this,” said Bud, grimly, “I’ll slow up whenever we come to a turn. You never can tell what a wretch like that may have fixed around the bend. Once bit, twice shy, isn’t a bad motto. I don’t mean to get trapped in the same way again, if I know it.”
“So I was right, wasn’t I?” Blake remarked, with a touch of satisfaction in his voice, “when I said I felt sure I had seen that flivver a mile or two ahead of us, when it should have been at least ten miles further along?”
“That’s correct, Blake,” assented Hugh; “your eyes told you the truth. All of us will have to keep on the watch right along. The man who could play such a mean trick on people in a car with such bad tires as this one has would be equal to anything, in my opinion. Ready now, Bud?”
“Yes, and that tire seems to be pretty snug,” came from the hard-worked pilot, who, however, never once complained, for Bud was not a shirker, if he did have certain faults of his own to contend with. “I only hope the others don’t turn out to have been cut so they’ll go back on us sooner or later. Glass like this is a bad proposition when you’re running on worn rubber.”
Once more they were moving along. How keenly they kept their eyes on the lookout for further trouble ahead could be detected by the manner in which all three forgot to observe the scenery around them, the dusty road monopolizing their attention.
As the minutes continued to slip past they had the satisfaction of knowing that they were putting the miles behind them. Five and more had been dropped since that last accident. Blake asked further questions concerning the probable distance over which they had now come, and as usual Hugh was able to give a conservative guess.
“All of twenty-five miles from Oakvale by now, I should say,” he announced. “If you want to know how I’m able to say that, let me explain. I have a rough map of the country up here. I copied it hastily from one they had at the recruiting tent, for you know the battery must have come along this same road we’re now on. A mile back we saw a crossroads. That was marked on the map with the figures twenty-four; so after all it was easy to add another mile to that score; and there you are.”
“Only for your long head in making a rough copy of that road map, Hugh,” declared the admiring Blake, “we would certainly be up against it now. Well, that leaves some fifteen or twenty more miles. Can we fetch it by sundown, do you believe, Bud?”
“Oh! easy going!” came the flippant reply, though accompanied by a side wink in the direction of Hugh, which was possibly intended to convey the meaning that the aforesaid result could be attained if they were fortunate, and met with no further mishaps such as had already delayed them on two occasions.
“I think we’re coming to some sort of village,” observed Hugh, later on, “for I can see a small house on one side of the road, with some chickens and a dog in the way. Slow up, Bud; we don’t want to race through here, and be hauled up for exceeding the speed limit; or else have to stop and pay for some silly hens that were bound to get under our wheels.”
Several cottages were passed. Then they came to a stretch of woodland, beyond which, doubtless, the town proper lay, for they could see signs of smoke rising, and there was also a sound as of an engine working in some sort of mill.
Suspecting no immediate trouble, the boys were running along quite smoothly when, without the slightest warning, they received a sudden shock. Again it came to them just around a bend in the road, though Bud had kept his word, and was moving slowly at the time.
A rope was stretched directly across from one tree to another. To make the hold-up even more positive, a log had been rolled out, and lay there, blocking the road, so that even should a swiftly-going car have broken the rope, it was bound to come to grief against that other obstacle.
“Pull up, Bud! quick!” almost shrieked Blake Merton, but he might just as well have spared himself the trouble of letting out this frantic appeal, for the driver had his car well under control, and was easily able to bring it to a halt some ten feet away from the obstructions.
No sooner had they halted than a gruff voice was heard calling out:
“Throw up your hands and surrender, you three young raskels! I’ve got yuh covered, all right, and yuh might as well give in peaceable like, because you’re up against the strong arm of the law!”
CHAPTER V
AN ECHO FROM THE PAST
The boys, following up this rasping voice, stared to see the figure that broke out of the scrub close to the barrier, and approached them. No wonder they almost felt their breath taken away, for had this been a scene from some ridiculous motion picture play, the representative of the majesty of the law as met with in a country marshal or constable, could not have seemed more ridiculous.
The man was old, and spare of figure. He was dressed in gray garments, and wore a large soft hat built after the Western sombrero model. It had a gilt cord around the crown, and was tilted up rakishly on one side. Even to the glistening nickel star, that decorated his left breast, was this representative of law and order, gotten up to shame one of those stage sheriffs at whose antics youngsters in the cheap “movies” scream with laughter.
“Don’t laugh, fellows, on your lives!” whispered Hugh, instantly, afraid lest rash Bud, for instance, should break out into a loud roar that would seriously offend the officer, and mean further trouble for them.
He raised his hands, as did the other two boys, though Blake was complaining after his customary fashion.
“But, say, we couldn’t have broken any speed law, Mister, because you saw yourself we were just fairly crawling along?” he protested, weakly.
The officer was holding a tremendous horse pistol of an ancient vintage; it had an ominous look, and doubtless could give a fair account of itself if fired, for they made good weapons in old-time days.
“I never said as how yuh was pinched for speedin’, did I?” he went on to observe, with a grim smile hovering about his stern mouth, while his beady eyes continued to rove from one boyish face to another. “Huh! I guess now it’s somethin’ a heap worse nor that you’re wanted for. Where did yuh git this car?”
“Why, it belongs back in Oakvale,” stammered Bud, hardly knowing what it meant when the man with the nickel star shot this question directly at him as the pilot of the expedition, or at least the one who was handling the wheel.
“K’rect. That corresponds with the information I had given tuh me,” continued their strange captor, nodding his head until his goatee made him resemble a pugnacious billy-goat.
Hugh instantly began to see a faint glimpse of light. Something about the words which the constable had just uttered gave him a suspicion as to the possible truth. He began to take a deeper interest in the hold-up, which could turn out to be of an altogether different character from what they had up to that moment believed.
“My friend,” he started to say, giving the constable one of his frank smiles, “after all, don’t you think you may have made a mistake in holding us up as you have? Honest, now, do we look like fellows who would steal a car; and even if we ever had such a scheme afoot, wouldn’t we be apt to pick out a machine worth taking, rather than a rattle-trap like this ramshackle thing?”
The constable somehow seemed a bit impressed. There might have been that in the manly bearing of the boy who was speaking, as well as something in his voice that touched a responsive chord in his old heart. He stroked his straggly chin whiskers with his unemployed hand, and continued to ogle the three lads so eagerly leaning toward him from the car.
“Uh! waal, it does seem like yuh’d be a passel o’ fools tuh grab a rattle-trap car as this un when yuh might a had your pick. But then he says tuh me there was a reason why yuh did it.”
“Oh! then some one put you wise to our coming along this road, did they?” Bud flashed out. “Guess we can hit on the skunk, all right, Mister. He was a little ornery reptile, wasn’t he, with a grin on his black face all the time? Tell me, doesn’t that cover his description all right, sir?”
“My name is Eben Wheezer, and I am the reg’lar authorized constable of Halletsburg,” the other went on to explain. “I’m free to confess that I was give a pointer concernin’ yuh boys. Mebbe it’s jest a lark you’re playin’, but, all the same, when a car has been taken without the owner’s knowledge or permission, the eye of the law looks on it as a bony fide theft. It becomes the duty of a constable to pinch the offenders.”
“Listen, Mr. Wheezer, please,” urged Hugh. “Delay of even an hour would mean a serious thing to us just now. We are on our way to the mobilization camp, and it is of extreme importance that we get there some time this evening. That man you talked with seems to be an enemy of ours. He is connected with a scamp back in Oakvale who would be glad if we failed to get to the camp, because it might mean money in his pocket. He has already done his best to knock us out, even filling the roadway with glass from broken bottles, so as to cut our weak tires, and keep us from getting on.”
“Which happened, too, as you can see if you glimpse that tire we’re carrying, and which is slashed something terrible,” interjected Bud, impulsively.
The country constable was interested, seeing which Hugh returned to the attack on the principle that when you have the enemy started a vigorous offensive should be carried out to get him on the run.
“Besides, Mr. Wheezer,” Hugh went on to say, confidingly, “we are, as you see, scouts. Our uniforms will tell you that, our badges too; and, if you want, I can show you a number of clippings from the papers that tell of certain things of merit the Oakvale scouts have done in the past.”
“By gum! what’s that shiny medal you’re wearin’, son, stand fur?” suddenly demanded the constable, fixing his glittering eyes on Hugh’s left breast. “She looks a heap like the real stuff to me, an’ gold, at that!”
Hugh at once took it off and passed it over. If ever he felt proud on account of the possession of such a fine medal, that time was then and there, because he believed it was going to save himself and chums a good deal of trouble and time.
The constable put on a pair of glasses with huge horn rims, and peered at the inscription, turning the neat little medal over in his hands. When he looked again at the owner there was a marked interest in his thin and pinched face.
“Tell me, air yuh this same Hugh Hardin it speaks of here?” he demanded, hoarsely, taking a step nearer the halted car.
“That happens to be my name, sir,” replied Hugh.
“Did yuh git this here medal fur savin’ lives when that flood was rampagin’ through the town of Lawrence?” continued the officer, his voice now showing signs of hoarseness that might have come from excess emotion.
“Why, yes. Several of my chums and I were visiting there when that dam up the valley broke, and the bridge over the river was carried away. We had a pretty lively time of it during the few days we were detained there, on account of no trains running. We managed to hold out a helping hand to some of the poor people caught in the flood. You know, sir, that’s what scouts live for, to assist others not so well off as themselves.”
Eben Wheezer heard the boy through. Then he did a number of queer things, first of all ramming that ancient pistol out of sight in one of his pockets, and then actually holding out a thin and trembling hand to Hugh.
“Say, son, I want tuh shake hands with yuh, that’s what I do!” he startled them by saying, enthusiastically. “This hold-up is all off, yuh understand. I was an old fool tuh take that rascal’s seegar, and b’lieve half he says tuh me ’bout some boys comin’ along the road here as how he reckoned had stole a car, and that there was likely tuh be a reward offered fur their apprehension, which I might jest as well rake in as the next un. But I kin see it all now, an’ I’m right glad tuh meet up with Hugh Hardin.”
“What do you know about me, Mr. Wheezer?” asked the patrol leader, flushing at the same time with pleasure as he felt the cordial grip of that lean hand.
“Oh! only this, son,” laughed the old constable, pumping the boy’s hand as though he might be the milkman making up a deficiency in his cans, “it happens that I had an ole wife a visitin’ over there in Lawrence at the time that dam broke. Yes, and, what’s more, she told me it was a boy named Hugh Hardin that kim along with some other scouts in a rowboat and saved her from a house that was a-floatin’ off in the flood. Huh! think I’d ever forgit that name when it belonged to the lad who kept me from bein’ a forlorn widower? This here is a joyous occasion for me, I tell yuh.”
Bud gave a whoop, and danced around like a crazy thing.
“Talk to me about bread cast upon the waters returning before many days,” he was crying excitedly. “Did anybody ever hear the equal of this! See, Hugh, how your good deeds repay you heaps of times over. We thought we had run across another enemy, and he turns out to be a bully sort of a friend. Won’t you shake hands with me, Mr. Wheezer, even if I wasn’t lucky enough to be in that bunch that did such good work at Lawrence—the honor of that exploit goes to Hugh, here, Billy Worth and Monkey Stallings. But, then, we’re all chums, you know, sir, and in the same boat.”
The delighted constable was only too glad to oblige Bud, and so warm was his grip that possibly the other felt a tinge of regret at insisting upon being given a hand-shake. Blake Merton felt that it would not do for him to be left out in the cold, so he had to grimace and bear it when Eben got to working his lean fingers.
Indeed, all of the boys felt they had good reason for feeling thankful. What had threatened to prove a disaster and promised to overwhelm their plans was now working in their favor. The wearing of his badge, given by Scout Headquarters to those members of the organization who have saved human life at great peril to themselves, had turned out to be a most wonderful blessing to them. Instead of being held up, perhaps thrust into a miserable country lock-up until the next day, with their plans ruined, they were now free to proceed along their way.
Hugh did not want to lose any more time than could be avoided, so instead of entering into a long conversation with the constable, he hastened to say:
“If we were not in such a great hurry, Mr. Wheezer, it would give me great pleasure to stop over with you, and visit your home, to meet your wife. I reckon I would know her again if I saw her. I’d be glad to tell you the story of what happened over in Lawrence when the flood swept down the valley. But we have a big stake in trying to make that camp by tonight. One of my chums here has a cousin in the battery who stands to lose a fortune if we are kept back; and the man who hired that rascal you met hopes to win it. So you’ll excuse us if we say good-bye now, and thank you for being so kind.”
The constable had already removed the log from the road, and now he unfastened his stout rope from the tree to which he had attached it.
“No apologies needed, son,” he hastened to say, cheerily. “Yuh knows your business best, and if yuh chase after it in the same way yuh won your spurs over tuh Lawrence, I reckons now yuh’ll upset all the kalculations o’ thet schemer. Good-bye an’ good luck tuh yuh, boys!”
He waved his official hand to them as they shot forward, and the last Blake saw of the odd, though good-hearted country constable, he was standing there in the road looking after the retreating car, and still waving his sombrero, while that bright nickel star on his manly breast gleamed in the rays of the westering sun.
“Congratulations, Hugh!” cried Blake, bubbling over with delight over their recent narrow escape. “They say chickens come home to roost, and that good deeds will pay a fellow back a thousand fold. Well, I want to tell you there never was such a positive illustration of their truth as this.”
“The best of it is,” laughed Hugh, happily, “that no matter how much our enemy plots against us, something comes along to upset all his calculations. He thought we were stuck there all afternoon, with an engine out of joint, but Bud here fooled him. Then there was that broken bottle game, which did hold us up a bit; but in spite of a slit tire we got started again. Last, but far from least, he fixed up this clever trick of telling the old constable three boys had stolen a car, and were coming along the road a ways back; also hinting that there might be a good reward offered for capturing the rascals and holding them over-night in the town cooler. But again our luck held good, and we slipped through.”
“I’m satisfied now,” asserted Blake Merton, “that nothing is going to keep us from getting there some time tonight. I’ll hunt up Felix right away, talk to him like a Dutch uncle, get him to write that letter, and then the first thing in the morning we can start back home again.”
“If anything goes wrong with the car, we’ll find some other way of returning, make up your mind to that, Blake,” Hugh assured him.
It was in this happy frame of mind that the three scouts passed through the little town of Hallettsburg, and continued onward. As they went they could frequently discover plain signs that to their practiced eyes assured them the battery had traversed the same road they were now on. Perhaps a boy untrained in the art of using his eyes, and seeing small things that told a story, would never have been able to accomplish this thing; but Hugh, Bud and Blake had served their time at studying woodcraft, as practiced by the Indians from the days of Daniel Boone, and they knew dozens of things that would, when noticed and examined, tell an interesting story.
The sun was getting pretty low in the west, and evening was coming on. It was about the last quarter of the moon, which had been full on the fifteenth of the month, so that no help from this source could be expected until toward midnight, when the silvery remnant would be seen rising in the East. That was one reason why the boys were anxious to be getting on as fast as they dared chance it, because, once night settled in, their progress would be blocked.
“The sun’s going down, Hugh,” announced Blake, with a touch of dismay in his voice.
“That’s all very true,” replied the scout master, “but we’ll have half an hour of light yet, perhaps more, and I think we ought to make the camp in that time!”
CHAPTER VI
THE BURNING BRIDGE
“Hugh!” called out Blake Merton a short time later, “did you see that light flash up ahead of us there?”
“Just what I did,” came the immediate reply.
“Do you think it could be one of the camp fires of the boys, a sort of vidette post, you might say?” further questioned Blake, eagerly.
“There it goes again, as sure as you live!” ejaculated Bud Morgan at the wheel, “and, say, it’s a fire, all right—growing stronger all the while. I wonder what it can mean for us?”
“We’ll soon find out,” remarked Hugh, confidently. “We’re advancing, and will come to a clear stretch in a minute or so, where the trees happen to be sparse, and we can see ahead.”
“Perhaps, after all, it’s only some cabin alongside the road, with the people doing their cooking outdoors,” observed Bud. “I saw that done heaps of times when my folks took me down to Florida that winter I was sick.”
Their curiosity grew by leaps and bounds as they proceeded along the road. The closer they drew to the scene of the illumination, the more puzzled all of the boys found themselves.
Then suddenly it broke upon them. They must have turned a bend in the road, for just as though a wave of a magician’s wand had caused the picture to appear before their eyes, they saw it all.
“Oh! look at that, will you?” shrilled Blake, aghast at the vision. “It’s a bridge afire!”
“It sure is!” echoed Bud, staring as though he could hardly believe his eyes.
“See how the flames are creeping along the wooden sides!” continued the Merton boy, hysterically. “Why, they look like red snakes, that’s what they do. Hugh, what can we do to get across that river if the bridge goes down?”
“I can’t tell you just yet, Blake!” snapped the other. “Let her out some more, Bud. Never mind the risk to the old plug of an engine; we’ve got to get there so as to fight that fire, or we’ll be dished. I know what stream that is, and it’s a deep one, too, far too deep for us to ever hope to ford it with this car. Faster, Bud, faster, I tell you!”
Bud Morgan never accepted anything that bordered on a dare. He had held in thus far principally because he knew Hugh would not be apt to countenance speed when it necessitated additional risk. Now he “let out another notch,” as he himself would have expressed it.
The old car shambled along with dizzying celerity, making all manner of ridiculous sounds, as though protesting against such haste. Still nothing happened to indicate another breakdown; and at least they were advancing toward the burning bridge with accelerated speed.
All the while Hugh was wondering what could have caused the fire. It was very strange, he concluded, that a country bridge should take a notion to start up in a blaze like this, and just when it became a most important link in their drive to the concentration camp.
So they arrived on the scene. Bud was evidently for trying to run the gantlet with a mad rush, but Hugh called upon him to draw up short, which he did, stopping the car close to the near end of the wooden structure.
“We might have made it, Hugh!” urged Bud, reproachfully, as though he regretted the cautious policy of the scout master.
“But there would always be a chance that our gas tank would explode!” cried Hugh; “look how the flames are driven straight across the bridge by the wind. Then the fire is along both sides, so we’d have to run a regular gantlet. No, Bud, old fellow, we couldn’t afford to take the chances. Out with you all, and let’s see if we can’t save the old bridge yet.”
“Go to it, boys!” shouted Bud, instantly on the move, for he was a lad of action, and never happier than when doing things.
“Work on the windward side first!” ordered Hugh, with the sagacity that leadership in an energetic scout organization is apt to bestow upon any wideawake youth. “Here, snatch up these old lap-robes, and souse them in the water. If you beat at the flames just as we did when the woods on fire that time, you’ll find they can be mastered. Everybody get busy!”
“Whoop! watch my smoke, will you!” cried Bud, starting off with a rush.
There chanced to be some old lap-robes in the car that Bud had managed to secure, not of any great value, to be sure, so far as things of beauty went, but bound to be of great value in an emergency like the present. Each of the three scouts managed to secure possession of one of these, and it required but a brief time to submerge the same in the swift flowing and deep stream.
With this soaking cloth in hand the energetic boys started to fight the fire, slapping at the running flames as they curled along the side of the bridge in long spirals that resembled creeping snakes.
When three lively fellows get started at a task of this sort it is wonderful what remarkable progress they can attain. With each stout blow it seemed as though the fire that was threatening to demolish the entire wooden structure received a serious setback. The boys fought their way completely across the bridge, which was not of any great length.
“Good enough for us!” cried the panting Bud. “We’ve licked that line of skirmishers; do we tackle the other side now, Hugh?”
“One good turn deserves another, so go for it!” advised the leader, setting a pace himself that kept the others hustling to continue in the same class.
Success is always encouraging, and, having found that they could get the better of those creeping flames, the three boys fought all the harder, determined to crush the fire completely.
“A little more elbow grease, boys, and victory is going to perch on our banner!” Bud was crying, while he slapped that scorched laprobe again and again on the railing of the bridge, even mopping up the floor with it when occasion demanded.
The boys were past masters at this sort of thing. They had served their time at it on another occasion, when the woods, catching fire not many miles from Oakvale, they had been called upon to help save certain isolated farmhouses and crops that were threatened with destruction.[2]
Breathing heavily, the three lads finally had the satisfaction of seeing the last zigzag line of fire succumb to the vigor of their attack. Still, Hugh would not be wholly satisfied.
“Let’s go down and wet these rags again,” he told his chums, “and hunt out every crack where the least bit of fire hides, so that after we go on it isn’t going to spring up again.”
“Might as well make a clean job of it while we’re about it,” agreed Bud, as he followed Hugh down to the edge of the river, there to immerse their “fighting togs” again in the water.
As they walked along, carefully scanning both sides of the bridge for any evidences of hidden peril, Bud once more broke out, voicing some suspicion that he had evidently been harboring in his brain.
“Hugh, don’t you think it’s mighty funny how this old bridge could get afire? Suppose a threshing machine traction engine could have passed over here lately; but, then, it’s too early in the season for anything like that to be going around. If a man on a wagon threw a burning match aside after lighting his pipe, would it start things to burning? Somehow I just can’t believe this is an accident at all.”
“Oh! do you really mean you suspect it was done on purpose, perhaps to keep us from crossing this deep river, and making us miss connections with the camp?” asked Blake, apparently thrilled with the thought.
“I’m certain of it,” asserted Hugh, positively. “I’ll tell you why. Just bend your heads closer here, and take a whiff where this rail has been only a little charred; what does it smell like?”
“Why, Hugh, it makes me think of home, when the girl is starting our oil stove going!”
“That’s a fact,” added Bud, gritting his teeth ferociously, “and somebody’s gone and saturated both sides of this bridge with kerosene, so as to give the fire a good send-off. Oh! the low-down wretch, what wouldn’t I give to have a chance to choke him.”
“Try it again over here, and you get the same odor,” Hugh observed, impressively; “yes, and right there you can see where some of the stuff spilled, for the spot looks greasy. He must have had a can of kerosene along with him in his car for just such a purpose as this.”
Each boy in turn dropped on his hands and knees, the better to take a “sniff” at the discolored spot on the floor boards of the bridge that had such a “close call.” As they once more regained their feet they nodded their heads, unanimous in their opinion as to the origin of that greasy mark.
“Which shows that our good luck still haunts our footsteps,” Blake said, trying to smile happily, though there was a deep-seated look of apprehension to be detected in his eyes.
Truth to tell, all of them were more or less impressed with the malignity shown by this party whom they believed to be in the pay of Luther Gregory. He was evidently bent upon earning the sum promised him in case he, by hook or crook, prevented the boys from reaching the mobilization camp until it was too late to secure that apology from the quick-tempered Felix.
“Well, do we cross over now, and move along our way?” asked Blake, unable to conceal the anxiety he naturally felt because of these numerous delays.
“Nothing to hinder that I can see,” replied Hugh.
“I’ll drive the old car across, presently, while you two wait for me at the other side,” Bud said, as he climbed aboard. “Take a good look as you go, and tell me if any of the flooring is burned through.”
As they crossed over, Hugh and Blake kept a good lookout, and reported all safe; so presently Bud, having coaxed the engine to start again after some effort, joined his mates on the further side of the stream.
“I certainly do hope,” ventured Blake Merton, with a sigh, as he proceeded to settle down in his old seat again, “that we’ve run up against the last obstacle. It’s certain that chap can’t think up much more evil to turn against us.”
“What’s coming now?” cried Bud. “I can hear shouts, and, Hugh, there seems to be men running around that clump of undergrowth alongside the road.”
“I bet you there’s a village along there, and that the people have just discovered the smoke of the fire here,” advanced Blake. “They know about the bridge, and are coming to save it. They would have been just too late if not for us.”
“They ought to give us a vote of thanks, then, for our services,” said Bud.
“Listen to ’em shouting, will you?” continued Blake. “Why, it sounds to me like they were real mad at something. Hugh, don’t it strike you that way, too? Look at some of the fellows in the lead shaking their fists at us, just as if we’d gone and done something mean. Gee whiz! I hope now they don’t get the notion into their silly heads that we started this bridge to burning.”
Quite a crowd was coming wildly toward them, consisting of men and boys, though there were also a few energetic women. Some of them carried clubs, and waved these in a suggestive fashion.
“Sit tight,” warned Hugh, sternly; “it means that we’re up against it again. Above all things, don’t do or say anything to start a fight!”
CHAPTER VII
THE ACCUSATION
If one of the three scouts entertained doubts as to the hostility of the mob that came running along the country road, these were quickly dispelled. In another minute the car was surrounded by an angry crowd. A dozen voices shrilled at them, and sticks were shaken in their faces.
“Stand back, everybody!” shouted a burly man, who seemed to be invested with more or less authority. “I’m the sheriff of this county, it happens, and I don’t allow any interference with my business. Three of my posse being present, I call on them to stand by me. The rest of you hold your peace. I’ll do what talking is necessary.”
Hugh was glad to know this. He could deal with, a single individual, where it was utterly impossible in the case of an excitable mob. So Hugh hastened to speak up, addressing his remarks to the man of authority.
“Will you kindly tell us what all the row is about?” he asked, pleasantly. “We are heading for the camp where the State militia is mobilizing, and, discovering this bridge afire, worked with all our might to put out the flames. If you look at those dirty cloths lying there, you’ll find that they were once lap-robes. We soaked them in the water, and slapped the flames out as we were trained to do in fighting a forest fire.”
A few of the villagers may have been impressed with the words spoken by Hugh, as well as his manly bearing; but they were vastly in the minority. Most of those present were so worked up by anger that they seemed blind to the facts.
“Don’t believe him, Sheriff,” urged one man, venomously; “he’s only lying. All boys’ll lie whenever they get a chanct. I know these here scouts, how they like to strut around like heroes. And, Sheriff, you c’n depend on it they set fire to our bridge just a purpose to make believe they did a big thing whipping the flames out.”
“That’s what he told us they’d like enough say,” called out another man, whose small face and vinegary looks told of a mind that was below the mediocre. “He says he saw ’em running around like they was pourin’ something on the sides of the bridge from a bottle. Say, I kin smell coal oil, by Jimminy crickets; if I can’t now.”
“Lock the young rascals up, Sheriff!”
“Larn ’em a lesson they’ll never forget. ’Cordin’ to my mind, there’s a heap too much talk nowadays ’bout boys doin’ great stunts. It’s jest upsot a lot o’ ’em, so they’re lookin’ around all the time for ways to make people think they’re jest like little David when he knocked over that Goliath chap long ago.”
So several other men had their say. Hugh listened to it all, and waited for an opportunity to get a chance to explain. He knew that he must depend on the sheriff, and so he kept him in mind when he finally started in to speak.
“Please listen to me, Mr. Sheriff,” he began to say, impressively. “We belong in the town of Oakvale, where you’ll find, if you telephone the Chief of Police, that our reputation is gilt-edged. We are on our way to the big camp over beyond the hills yonder, where Battery K, from Oakvale, is located. We have very important business with one of the members, who is a cousin of this boy here. It will cost him his inheritance if we are unable to talk with him by tomorrow. There is a man whose interest it is to keep us from doing this. He has tried through an agent of his in a number of ways to hold us back; and, if you wish, I would take pleasure in telling you all about these things. Sir, we have good reason to believe that this setting fire to your bridge was a part of his scheme to detain us.”
“What’s that, boy?” asked the sheriff, hastily. “Can you tell us what this man you’re speaking of looks like?”
“A man passed us while we were fixing our engine on the road hours ago,” Hugh readily explained, “and when we asked him to lend us a hand he said he was in too big a hurry to stop. He seemed to be grinning all the while, as though tickled at finding us in such a bad mess. We believe that man is the agent sent out to hold us back from arriving at the camp until it is too late to do any good.”
“Was he a little man, with a sharp face, and eyes that glittered like a snake’s?” called out one of the more friendly disposed men.
“Yes, and he was in a flivver, a small machine with the top down,” explained Bud, taking part in the affair now. “He wore a suit that looked as near green as you could find, and had on a leather cap with goggles pushed up above the peak.”
The sheriff was impressed by what he heard. At the same time, he did not appear disposed to drop the case against the three lads. Perhaps the knowledge that some of those in the crowd refused to take any stock in the story of the boys influenced him more or less; for murmurs were heard rising here and there.
“Don’t you believe half he says, Sheriff,” one man called out.
“Boys c’n be all-fired tricky,” another remarked, sharply, “and he’s certainly got a smooth tongue. Better run the lot of ’em in, and make ’em prove their innocence. That’s the best way to fix it, ’cordin’ to my mind.”
Hugh felt uneasy. If the sheriff were so disposed he could, of course, lock them up on suspicion; and while nothing might eventually be done toward convicting them for the crime of setting fire to the bridge, the delay would cost them dear.
But it happened that once more in their extremity fortune worked what almost seemed like a miracle in their behalf. Hugh noticed that two children had joined the crowd. He also knew that they had certainly not come along the road with the runners, for they could never have kept pace with the mob racing toward the river.
A sudden thought struck him. He turned to the sheriff and began to suggest a plan of action that would possibly prove the truth or falsity of the charges against them.
“Listen, Mr. Sheriff,” Hugh began. “I think that small boy and girl there must have been somewhere near by, because they came up out of the bushes here just now. Ask them questions, won’t you, sir, and find out if they saw anything of what took place here? It may be they were in hiding, and saw us come up while the bridge was burning. It’s only a fair deal we want, sir, and I’m sure you’ll agree to that.”
The sheriff was more impressed than ever with the bearing of the boy who addressed him. Besides, the plea he advanced seemed very plausible. He turned upon the two children, a bright-looking boy and girl of about ten. They were barefooted.
“Look here, Billy Burt, and you, too, Sally, were you hiding in the bushes here when we came up?”
“Yep, that’s what we was,” said the boy, urged to speak by sundry punches in his side, given by the elbow of his girl companion.
“Why did you hide there?”
“We was skeered when we got here, and seen the fire,” came the answer.
“Then the bridge was burning, was it, when you came along?” continued the sheriff.
“It shore was,” the boy told him, positively.
“Were these boys around at that time?”
The boy stared at Hugh and Blake and Bud, then he grinned. “Nixey, they wasn’t. They kim hurryin’ along, and fit the fire like wildcats. Yuh jest orter seen how they slashed and slashed around till every bit o’ flames was done fur. Me’n Sally jest hid there in the bushes an’ watched the fun. It was better’n the movin’ picture fire I seen down in Hallettsburg.”