CHAPTER VII. DODGING TROUBLE.
"Gee whiz!" burst out Giraffe, of course using his favorite expressionto denote his great astonishment; "why, they must be running tointerview us, fellows! And say, I don't just like the way they'rehollering one single bit. They even act as if they might be real mad!"
"Same old story," mumbled Bumpus, sinking back into his seat with a lookof sudden misery on his round face; "out of the frying pan into thefire. Hardly off with one trouble before we're taking on a new one!What's the end going to be, I'd like to know?"
"Thad, how's it coming on?" asked practical Allan, as he once moreleaned over the hard-working mechanic, ready to lend a helping hand ifpossible, though only one could properly work at a time.
"I think I'm getting it straight now," came the quick response that gaveGiraffe fresh cheer.
"But it'll be too late in another five minutes," declared Bumpus, tryingto figure just how long it might take that oncoming crowd of Germancountry people to arrive on the scene.
"Less than that, Bumpus," said Giraffe, better used to judgingdistances; "three would be the limit. Are we intending to haul off andtry to defend ourselves, or do we just throw up our hands and tell 'emwe surrender? They're mostly women and old men, which accounts for 'emnot getting over ground faster."
"Yes, but such women!" echoed Bumpus; "every one looks like a regularAmazon, because they're so used to working in the fields. Besides, Idon't like the way they handle those pitchforks they've been using tohandle the hay with. It makes goose-flesh come up all over just to thinkof having the tines of a pitchfork stuck into me. Guess we'd better callit off, and be good if they surround us."
"It may all be a mistake, after all," said Allan.
"Don't see how that could turn out," grumbled Giraffe.
"These honest people may be taking us for some other boys who have beenpestering the life out of them," Allan hastened to explain.
"Hope they find out the truth then before they start to prodding us withthose old forks!" Bumpus breathed.
Then silence fell upon them. Thad was working furiously, while the otherthree held their breath in suspense, mingled faintly with the hope thatdied hard.
The oncoming crowd was now quite close. Their appearance became evenmore awe-inspiring as they drew nearer the scene; and their loud, angrycries did not soothe the nerves of the anxious scouts.
Bumpus was even fumbling in one of his pockets with the idea of takingout a supposed-to-be white handkerchief, and waving it, to indicate thatthey did not mean to resist the coming onslaught.
Just then Thad gave a cry.
"Oh! have you got it, Thad?" gasped Bumpus.
For answer the patrol leader slammed down the engine hood, and seizinghold of the crank gave it a whirl. There was no response! Bumpus groanedfearfully.
"All is lost!" he exclaimed in abject despair.
Thad made a second try, but with the same disappointing result. Thistime Giraffe sank back in his seat, a look of resignation on his angularface. Two bad turns was apparently his limit.
It proved fortunate that Thad was not constituted that way. He had knownengines to require as many as half a dozen trials before they consentedto be good and turn over. So Thad went at it again, with even moreenergy than before.
What a thrill passed over them all when with a roar the engine startedin to make the old car quiver from end to end. Bumpus and Giraffe couldnot restrain their pent-up enthusiasm; their recent scare only added tothe vim with which they gave a shout.
Thad made a leap into the front seat of the car. Allan had alreadysettled down to do the honors temporarily, for every second counted withthat mob not thirty feet away. If the car was stalled five secondslonger it would be all up with the scouts.
Nothing so bad as that happened, for away they went with a jump, amidstthe angry cries of the disappointed crowd. The country people did notmean to give up without further effort, for most of them continued torun. They must have seen that the car was an old and ramshackle one, andcherished hopes that they might yet overtake it.
Giraffe stood up and waved his campaign hat excitedly as he cheered inthe good old American way.
"Bully for the machine!" was the burden of his cry; "she's actuallydoing her little five miles an hour, perhaps even more. Say, this isgetting too reckless for my blood. I forgot to take out any lifeinsurance, Thad, before starting on this break-neck trip. Be careful,please, and don't spill us out!"
Soon they saw the last of their pursuers, and the road seemed to beclear in front. The boys of course began to chatter concerning thislatest happening, trying to figure out what had caused this sudden andmysterious feeling of enmity on the part of the workers in the harvestfields. In the end, however, they had to give it up as an unsolvedpuzzle; nor did they ever learn the facts, since they came to that partof the German Fatherland no more.
Allan consulted the little road chart which, before they started downthe Rhine on their wonderful cruise, had been purchased in Mentz,principally to know the nature of the many sights that were to be metwith along the historic banks of that famous river.
"As near as I can make out, this is where we are right now, Thad," hementioned, making a pencil mark on the paper. "I know it from manyreasons, and one of them is that fine old Dutch windmill we just passedon the knoll. It's marked here, you can see, as if it had some historicconnections."
"You're right about that part of it, Allan," said the scout leader aftertaking a quick glance at the chart, for his attention was needed at thewheel, since the progress of the car was inclined to be erratic; infact, as Giraffe had several times declared, "she did not mind her helmvery well, which made their course a zigzag one."
"Well, how much further do we have to go before we get to the Dutchline?" Bumpus asked, with more or less concern; for every two minutes hehad kept twisting around, almost putting his neck out of joint, with theidea of making sure that they were not being pursued.
"I'm figuring what course we'll have to take in order to avoid severalGerman towns that are marked here," returned Allan.
"That's right, we have no use for even the cleanest towns agoing justnow," ventured Giraffe, "though I'm getting pretty hungry, to tell youthe truth."
"That's cruel of you, mentioning it," spluttered Bumpus, "when I've beenfighting all the while to forget that I've got an awful aching voidinside of me that's wanting to be filled the worst kind. But how far dowe have to go, Allan?"
"Not more than five miles more," came the answer.
"That sounds encouraging, I must say," remarked Thad; "if the cranky oldthing holds out another half hour we might be on the border; and onceacross, our troubles will be done with for awhile anyhow."
"Then she must be making all of _ten_ miles an hour, Thad!" exclaimedGiraffe, pretending to be greatly excited; "why, I can feel my hairbeginning to stand up with the nervous strain! It's the nearest approachto flying I ever expected to meet up with. If we have an accident whengoing like the wind they'll have to collect us in baskets. I'm going tohold on to Bumpus here, let me tell you!"
"What for?" demanded the fat scout, suspiciously.
"Oh! nothing much, only sometimes it's a mighty fine thing to have agood buffer when you meet up with trouble," said Giraffe, calmly.
"Don't mind him, Bumpus," said Allan; "nothing is going to happen, forthe motor seems to be on its best behavior. Let's hope we'll find only aDutch guard on the road when we come to the border line."
"I think that's apt to be the case," ventured Thad.
"So do I," added Allan, "because the Germans as yet couldn't be expectedto care who left their country for Holland; while the Dutch would wantto make sure there was no infringement of neutrality, no using theirterritory by one of the belligerents for passing around and taking theenemy by surprise. If either German, Belgians, French or Britishsoldiers happen to land on Dutch soil they'll have to be interned thereuntil the close of the war."
"Wel
l, all I hope is that they won't include Boy Scouts in that class,"ventured Bumpus, whose sole thought those days was to reach Antwerp andthe suffering mother, who must be very anxious for her boy, knowing hewas at the time in Germany and doubtless caught in the mad whirlaccompanying the mobilization of millions of troops.
"They might if we were German scouts," Thad told them, "but we caneasily prove that we belong on the other side of the Atlantic. I thinkthey'll be pretty kind to us on that account, and do anything we mightask."
"Well," remarked Giraffe, with a longing look in his eyes, "if wehappened on a nice clean tavern over there it might pay us to stop andget a Dutch dinner. I've heard a lot about what appetizing dishes thosehousewives can serve, and I'd like to say I'd eaten just _one_ meal inthe Netherlands."
"Count on me to vote with you, Giraffe," observed Bumpus, "though ofcourse if it was going to delay us any I'd be willing to stand thefamine till we got over in Belgium, and had to put up for the night onaccount of darkness."
"For that matter, we will have a moon about nine o'clock to-night," saidThad, "but I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me from driving this crazycar over roads I don't know, by moonlight. It's bad enough in broadday."
They continued to push steadily on. At no time were they out of sight offarms and gardens, all of them as neat as anything the boys had everseen. They often remarked on the great difference between the thrift ofthese German market gardens and the ordinary shiftless way of doingthings seen in their own country.
"Of course," Allan said, in trying to excuse this want of neatness, "wehave all sorts of people come over to us, and they bring their habitsalong with them. Some are as careful about keeping their places clean asthese Germans, while others never knew a thing about thrift in thenative lands, and have to be taught. But on the whole we seem to getalong pretty well."
"How goes the mad whirl now, Allan?" asked Giraffe.
"Not more than two miles away from the border, my map says," came thereply.
"That sounds good to me," Bumpus assured them, rubbing his handstogether much as a miser is supposed to do when gloating over his gold;"huh! two little miles oughtn't to keep us long on the way."
"Not when you're navigating the roads in such a whiz-cart as this,"chuckled Giraffe, as he started to get partly out of his seat to lookaround him, so as to discover anything new worth calling his companions'attention to.
"Why, hello--we didn't make all that dust back there, did we?" theothers heard him saying, as he shaded his hand to look, and then almostimmediately went on to exclaim: "as sure as you live it's a little squadof horsemen, and they're coming along at a fast gallop! What's thatthey're holding so that the sun glints from the ends like it does whenyou use a glass in heliographing a message? Boys, I do believe they mustbe lances!"
"Lances!" burst out Bumpus, in sudden alarm; "why, that would mean theyare the German rough riders they call the Uhlans; and Thad, if they'recoming after us they'll overhaul this old pony go-cart as easy asfalling off a log!"