CHAPTER V. AT THE FERRY.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"
Giraffe was one of those fellows with a disposition very much like arubber ball; when crushed down by some sudden disappointment he wouldcome up again on the rebound.
"Here's that other road!" remarked Thad; "and do you see any onefollowing after us, to watch, and find out what we do?"
"Nope, coast clear back here," said Bumpus, nearly bursting a bloodvessel in his endeavor to look.
Thereupon the pilot deliberately disobeyed the orders of the officerstationed in the town. He turned into the side road, and thus gavepositive evidence of an intention to once more try to run the blockade.At the same time Thad understood what risks he was taking; only theremay arise situations that demand radical cures, unless one means to laydown meekly and submit to Fate.
Bumpus began to show signs of renewed interest.
"It may be a case of two strikes, and then a swat over the fence for ahome run, Thad!" he announced, after they had gotten well started alongthe new trail, which did not seem to be built along the same order asthose other roads, though not at all bad in that dry season of the year,early August.
"Let's hope so," replied the pilot. "From the way this road runs we'llhave to give up all notion of getting across the line into Belgium.We'll be lucky if we can make it Holland."
"Well, along here where a tongue of Holland runs down between Germanyand Belgium," explained Allan, who had looked up these things on themap, "and which is a part of the Limberg country, it isn't over twelveor fourteen miles across. There's one place at the Holland town ofSittard where the gap can't be much more than four miles, so you see howeasy it would be for us to run across that neck, and land in Belgium."
"With this lightning car," observed Giraffe, "we'd hit the border, giveone grand splurge, and then bring up on Belgian soil."
"Limberg, you said, didn't you, Allan?" remarked Bumpus; "I guess I knownow where that strong cheese comes from. I only hope we don't strike anyfactories on the way. It always makes me feel faint, you know."
"Huh!" snorted Giraffe, the taint of German blood coming to the surface,"that's because some people don't know a good thing when they strikeit."
"Well, Giraffe, you ought to be glad then that I don't, becausesometimes you complain of my appetite, as if I could help being alwayshungry."
"Thad, of course we're bound to strike that river again, if we keep onheading into the northwest?" suggested Allan.
"Yes, for it runs into Holland on its way to the sea far above where wehope to cross," admitted the other.
"This doesn't seem to be a very important road, for we haven't comeacross a single soul on it so far," Allan suggested, significantly.
"And from the marks of wheels I'd be inclined to believe few vehiclesever come this way," continued the patrol leader; "but what makes yousay that, Allan?"
"Oh! I was only wondering if it really kept on to the river, or turnedback after a bit," the other explained.
"That is, you hardly think such a road would deserve a bridge, whichmust be a pretty costly proposition, the way they build them over here,to last for centuries; is that it, Allan?"
"Yes, you've struck it to a fraction, Thad. Now, supposing there shouldonly be a ford for a crossing, we couldn't take this car over."
"Certainly not," came the ready reply; "but the fact that so many carstravel the roads of Germany in these modern days makes me feel prettysure there will be some kind of way for getting over the river, evenwithout a bridge."
"Do you mean by a ferry?" asked Giraffe.
"More than likely," he was told, "but we're going to know right away,for I had a little glimpse of the river through those trees back there.We ought to be there in a jiffy."
A "jiffy" might mean almost anything, but with that slow car it stoodfor more than five minutes. Then Allan heard Giraffe, who had abnormalvision, give an ejaculation that had a smack of satisfaction about it.
"It's a ferry, I guess, Thad!" said the tall scout, who had that neck ofhis stretched to an enormous extent that gave him a great advantage overhis comrades.
"What makes you say so?" asked Bumpus, who could see absolutely nothingas yet.
"I notice a rope stretched across the river," Giraffe told him, "andyes, there's some sort of a barge or float up at the landing on thisside."
Allan just then announced that he, too, could see what Giraffe wastrying to describe, and there could be no doubt about its being a ferry.
"Here's luck!" cried Bumpus, puffing out with new expectations.
"Let's hope they haven't gone and stuck a soldier alongside the ferrymanso as to keep him straight!" grunted Giraffe; "and, Thad, I suppose I'llhave to do the interpreter act again, if the chap doesn't talk UnitedStates?"
"We depend on you for that, Giraffe," he was told.
The road led directly down to the edge of the water. There was some sortof landing there at which the ferryboat put up. It allowed the travelerwho had a vehicle of any sort to pass directly from the shore on to thedeck of the monitor which was used for a ferryboat.
No one was in sight when they first arrived.
"If he doesn't show up couldn't we take charge of the boat and run heracross to the other side?" Bumpus was asking, as though about ready totry anything once.
"Toot your horn, Thad, and see if it'll wake him up," Allan suggested."There's so little to do on his lay that p'raps the ferryman takes a napbetween trips."
"That's a good idea," assented Thad, and accordingly he used the autohorn to some advantage, making certain doleful sounds that were easilycalculated to awaken any sound sleeper.
Immediately a man appeared in view. He may have been taking a nap forall they ever knew. He was an old fellow wearing wooden shoes and a knitcap. As he approached the car he seemed to look them over curiously.Probably it was seldom indeed that any one outside of the natives camehis way.
"See him take in our little American flags, will you?" remarked Bumpus,while Giraffe entered into a labored conversation with the ferryman; "hemust know what they stand for, too, because I could see his eyes lightup when he first noticed the same."
Giraffe at that moment turned to them.
"Yes, you're right about that, Bumpus," he said; "this man says he has ason and his family out in Cincinnati, and wants to know if we've evermet Hans Kreitzner. I told him I wasn't quite sure, because there weresome people in America I'd never yet run across, though I hoped to roundthem all up later on."
"Don't josh the poor old fellow, Giraffe," urged Bumpus; "as for me, I'mso glad because we haven't run across a pesky military guard here at theferry I'd be willing almost to promise to look his son up when I gotback home--by mail, of course, and tell him I'd met his respected paw."
"How about taking us on his ferryboat, Giraffe?" asked Thad.
"I hope he hasn't got his strict orders, like all the rest of the menwe've run across to-day," ventured Allan.
Giraffe nodded his head in a way that stood for hope.
"Seems to be all right, fellows," he assured them. "Old Hans here hasagreed to set us over on the other side. Perhaps when I promised todouble his fee it made him jump after the silver hook more nimbly."
"Yes, there he goes now to get his ropes unfastened," said Bumpus."Whew! from the way he's tied the old batteau up I should think hehadn't had a passenger all this day. He's as slow as molasses in winter,and that can't be beaten."
Giraffe looked at the speaker and grinned. When Bumpus called anything"slow" it must move about as tediously as an ice wagon, or one of thoseenormous German guns drawn over the hard roads by a powerful tractionengine.
"Let me crawl out first, Thad," the fat boy remarked, "if you're meaningto move the car aboard the ferryboat."
"Bumpus is afraid of you, Thad!" cried Giraffe; "he thinks you may makea slip and dump the whole business over the side of the boat; and Bumpusdoesn't care to go in swimming with hi
s suit on. If it should shrinkwhen he tried to dry it, whatever would he do for another?"
All the same, Giraffe himself was not averse to leaving the little oldcar while Thad was taking it carefully aboard the flatboat used as aferry, showing that he might be just as guilty as Bumpus.
"Well, now!" exclaimed the fat scout on noticing that even Allan joinedthem, "seems like we might all be in the same boat, doesn't it?"
"We expect to be, right away," Giraffe told him, calmly.
Thad did not let the car play any trick. He soon had it aboard theferry, and about as well balanced as any one could have accomplished.The old man had just about finished undoing the last rope, and inanother minute they might expect to find themselves moving out towardthe opposite shore, by means of the pulley fastened to the rope above,and the long stout pole which was intended for pushing in the shallowwater.
"Thad, there's somebody coming on a gallop up there!" announced Giraffejust then; "and I do believe it's a mounted soldier in the bargain!"
"Oh! thunder!" gurgled Bumpus, almost collapsing; "that's always the waythings go. We get just so far, and then the string pulls us back again."
"Don't let on that you see him," said Thad, quickly. "The old man ispretty deaf I should say from the way you shouted at him, Giraffe. Hedoesn't hear the man calling. Now, if he is so busy pushing off that hefails to look up, we ought to be half way out in the stream before thathorse gets down to the bank."
"He's coming with a rush, I tell you!" said Giraffe, who had betteropportunities for seeing than any of the others, so that it did appearas though at times it paid to have a neck that would stretch.
The ferryman had now thrown off the last rope and was stooping down totake hold of the setting pole. Another minute or so would decide thequestion.
Bumpus was so worked up that he could not keep still. As usual, headvanced some wild idea, for while not as a rule fertile in expedientsthere were times when it seemed as though that slow brain of the stoutboy worked furiously.
"There, hang the luck, fellows, the ferryman has seen him!" burst outBumpus, in the deepest disgust; "he's going to wait up for the soldier,and take him aboard."
"Our cake will be dough," added Giraffe, gloomily, "if it happens thatthe man on horseback comes from the town where we got turned back, andorders us to go back with him, to be shut up in a German dungeon. I'veheard a lot about what terrible nasty places those fortress prisons are,but I never thought I'd be in danger of finding out for myself."
"Do we have to give in so tamely as all that?" asked Bumpus, with aspurt of spirit that would have become a warrior; "suppose now he doestry to browbeat us, ought four husky scouts from good old America getdown and kiss the shoes of just one bullying German soldier, because hewears a helmet on his head. Thad, it's up to you to say the word, andwe'll all jump on him!"
"Don't be so rash, Bumpus!" Giraffe warned him, while Thad said:
"We'll wait and see what happens before we lay plans that must makeevery man of the Kaiser's army our enemy. Here he comes now. Every onekeep a still tongue in his head but Giraffe; and while about it let'shide these little flags. If he asks who we are tell him the truth,though, remember, Giraffe!"