Poodle had ridden seven miles behind the Jolls automobile, but he had to walk twelve, for it was five miles from the hill where he had left his own car to “the next town,” where he had told his chauffeur to wait for him.

Twelve miles of hard, fast walking, while the Virginia August sun made his head ache till every snapping farmhouse dog that ran out seemed like a dragon, and he could scarcely see the glaring fields, smelling of jimson and milkweed. The dust, the endless deep dust of the road, got into his throat and caked on his wet feet and legs. But he never stopped, and found his chauffeur waiting him, well on in the afternoon.

The man grinned at his appearance, but he straightened up and dived out of the car, to crank up, startled at the way in which Poodle yelled, “Back to Washington—your best speed.”

Poodle crawled wearily into the tonneau, and tried to scrape off some of the dirt. He had always dressed rather beautifully, but he couldn’t help his looks now. He hated to face the General’s servants, dirty as he was, but he’d just have to, he decided.

They whirled into town shortly after six, and down M street toward General Thorne’s home. A servant somewhat curtly told this roughly dressed country boy that General Thorne was out at dinner. No; he didn’t know where.

Poodle had to find the orderly who knew him before he could get the butler to tell him that the General was dining with the military attaché of the British Embassy, at the most gorgeous restaurant in Washington.

Poodle hurried there. He broke through a line consisting of hat-boys, the head waiter, and the cigar-clerk, who tried to keep him out. He rushed up to the General’s table.

The lackeys were horrified as they saw the young rustic, with dried mud up to his knees, and bits of old straw still clinging in his tangled hair, hurry to the General. They summoned a special policeman and started after him. But they stopped, amazed. For the General held out his hand, and motioned Poodle to take a seat at the table with him and the English attaché, a handsome gentleman with a monocle—and a surprised stare!

Worried though he was, Poodle had to grin at the excitement now spreading through the whole restaurant. Then he whispered sharply to the General, “Found Hike—prisoner—taken by Jolls. In cabin—way over in Virginia. Captain Welch and Jolls have meeting there, to-night. Hike—Jerry, I mean—may be killed, for refusing to write a letter to Priest that Jolls wants. Will you take a couple of soldiers and come over there to-night, with Lieutenant Adeler and me, in the tetrahedral—get the goods on Welch?”

“Yes,” whispered the General. “Get hold of Adeler, and I’ll meet you at the tetrahedral’s shed, right away.”

“Right!” said Poodle, and walked away, with a military salute. He smiled a broad, cheerful, slightly insulting smile at the band of waiters and water-boys, who were still watching him suspiciously.

As soon as he had got hold of Lieutenant Adeler, by telephone, he hurried to the tetrahedral’s shed, and started filling her fuel tank, looking after her oil, and polishing the search-light lens.

The General arrived at eight, with two soldiers—an old sergeant, who had fought hand-to-hand with Indians and Filipinos, in a dozen battles; and a husky young private, who had a record as a prize-fighter.

From the Hotel de Suisse, they received a message that Captain Welch and Jolls had started out in a motor car, at about six.

“Let her go,” said the General, at that.

Lieutenant Jack Adeler got ready to take the pilot’s seat in the Hustle, but General Thorne said, “I think my young friend Darby, here, would like to run your aeroplane. Wouldn’t you, Torrington? Ah, I thought so. Go ahead, then.”

To the Lieutenant he explained, “Mr. Adeler, it’s like this. If you smashed us up—of course we will get smashed up, flying in this harum-scarum way, at night, it would be rank insubordination. Lieutenants really ought not to kill Generals. Or, if you want me to be serious with you, I think that young Darby here, by his work to-day, has put himself right on a level with young Griffin, and you, and I am quite serious in saying that I couldn’t give him higher praise.”

Poodle blushed, as he took the levers. The Hustle bumped down the roadway, lighted by the search-light, and joltingly launched out into the darkness.

He was rather trembly, but he was glad, too. What could be a greater lark than to rescue Hike, good old Hike!

He sang to himself as he left the Potomac and, with the search-light on, swung over to the road which he had followed earlier in the day.

When he had reached a spot about half a mile from the hill where Hike was imprisoned, Poodle suddenly switched off all lights, shot the Hustle up to three thousand feet, snapped off the motor, and made a long glide toward the top of the hill. For the first time, he wished that cool Hike were at the levers, instead of him. It was a terrific strain. Silent as a night-flying owl, yet with a swift drop, the Hustle shot down toward the top of the hill. The many planes creaked quietly. Then they circled, and landed in the fields just beyond the marshes at the bottom of the hill, all so quietly that none of the guards could have heard them.

They climbed out, and filed through the marshes. The General, who had so cheerfully acted as merely a passenger while on the Hustle, took charge, and with quick, sharp, whispered orders led them through the mud and brush to the foot of the hill.

“Adeler, you and the soldiers stay here. Darby and I will climb up and try to get on the roof of the cabin. Thatched—we can hear through it. When I light a match up there, you charge up and get into the fight. We’ll capture Captain Welch, if I find that he’s guilty of plotting with Jolls. We’ll have to let the others go—we have no civil warrant for them. But we can damage them a little, and set the police on them directly. Come on, Darby—you’ll have to lead up, you know the lay of the land.”

The General had been used to an easy life, these last few years, but it kept Poodle hurrying, crawling on his stomach up through the grass and shrubs, to keep ahead of him. Once, when their heads were near each other, he could make out that the General’s jaws were set like iron.

They stole up to the cabin, and heard the five guards lazily talking near the door, in front.

“Give me a leg up,” hissed the General, and climbed the low back wall, clutching at the thatch of the roof, and dragging himself up. He thrust down a hand to Poodle and pulled him after; then the two of them lay flat as shingles on the roof, for a guard was just meandering about the cabin, humming.

The General was still panting from his exertions; and he whispered to Poodle, “Well, young man, what do you think of a man of my age and rank crawling up cabins that don’t even belong to me, as though I were a boy shinning up a tree for apples!” But he didn’t seem very angry, as he patted Poodle on the shoulder.

With slightly raised head, Poodle leaned on his elbows, digging down into the rotten old thatch. He had to lift out all the straw, lest it fall through and give them away to any one beneath. But in a few moments he had a sizable hole, through which they could listen to anything that went on within the cabin.

It was time they were listening!

Four of the five guards had entered the cabin. A stocky man addressed by the others as Bat was arguing with a sleezy fellow called Snafflin. “Aw thunder,” Bat was urging, “give the kid a little while longer, Snafflin, you whopperjawed jackass.”

“Look here, you mutton-head” (Snafflin really called him something much worse, but what he said would better not be repeated here), “you know what the Boss said; ‘Give him till eight o’clock. Then if he won’t come around and write the letter, tie him up in the swamp.’ It’s way after eight now, and either you tie him up or— Well, there’ll be a new leader in this cute little band of cutthroats, savvy?”

“Speak for yourself—about being a cutthroat, Snafflin. Me, there is one throat I hope to cut—yours. One of these days I’ll get you, Snafflin, just remember that. Now—well, you guys are four to one. We’ll tie up the kid.”

Then, speaking to Hike, Bat continued:

“Kid, I’m sure sorry I’ve got to do this. Cummon now, won’t you sign the letter? Aw, cummon!”

“Nope, Bat, I can’t do it. Sorry.” Poodle could just make out Hike’s tired smile as he said it, tied up, down there in the frowsy cabin.

“So’m I sorry. Well, kid, here goes.”

The door opened, and Poodle and the General could see the four men leading out Hike, while the fifth man, still on guard, brought up the rear, rifle on his arm. Hike, with his feet hobbled and his wrists tied tight, stumbled along weakly.

Poodle whispered to the General, “I’ll sneak down and let him loose, and beat it back up here.”

“Good. Go ahead.”

Poodle was already sliding down the thatch, and crawling after the thugs and their victim. In the thick bank of weeds at the edge of the woods, he nestled comfortably, and grinned as he thought how horribly fooled were the five thugs there, who were tying up Hike so securely. They were talking quietly, taking it for granted that no one nearer than Washington had any idea what they were up to. In the light of the lanterns they carried, Poodle could see them pass a heavy line about Hike many times, fastening him to a fir of prickly, uncomfortable bark, which would scratch Hike every time he moved. Hike’s feet were left in thick mud; and away from him stretched pools thick with mosquitoes. Even Poodle, with his hands free to brush them away, was terribly annoyed by these pests, as he crouched and waited; and when he thought of Hike, trying to drive them off, with his hands tight bound, and his skin scratched by the bark every time he moved, gentle Poodle wanted very much to kill the whole bunch.

The thugs filed away, talking (Poodle could hear them) of whether “The Boss”—probably P. J. Jolls—would leave Hike there to die, or release him. “He’ll never sign that letter, that’s sure,” said Bat. “Well, he might ’a’ done it if it hadn’t been for your blankety blank butting in,” snarled Snafflin. Poodle saw Bat stop, calmly raise a lantern, and look at Snafflin, till those vicious, yellowed eyes were turned away.

Then Poodle slipped into the muddy edge of the marsh; hastily crawled through to Hike, and whistled low, adding “Shhhh!” He pulled out his little penknife, and hacked away at the bonds, with Hike busily pulling at the cord as it frayed through. So at last Hike stood free, beside the thorny-barked fir. For a moment he staggered. Then he abruptly sat down, in the wet brush. Poodle sat down beside him. They shook hands; not saying a word as yet, and with one accord these aviators, these meddlers with Army Boards and wealthy manufacturers, burst softly into the highly grown-up and dignified Santa Benicia Freshman Class song; written by that excellent young poet Mr. Poodle Darby:

“H. G. Griffin,” remarked Poodle, “if you can’t find anything better to do at this crisis than to sing things like that, I think you’d better just jolly well get tied up again. There’s Jack Adeler and two sojers over across the clearing waiting for the General’s signal, and General Thorne is lying on top of the cabin, getting his trousers all nice and dirty with thatch, and saying ‘O cuss! O trunions!’ every time he slaps a mosquito. And here you beat it into this very nasty swamp to study nature.”

“Poodle, my son, you are a jackass,” were Hike’s first words to his rescuer.

“Hike, my child, you are a goat,” was Poodle’s retort; after which they solemnly shook hands again, stopped being boys for a while, and Poodle hastily led the way to the Lieutenant and his soldiers, where Hike was to wait and join the charge on the cabin.

Poodle hastened back to his nook on the thatch. He was hardly in place, beside the hole through the roof, when excitement began in the dingy room beneath.