Boy Scout Automobilists; Or, Jack Danby in the Woods

by Richard Harding Davis

  CHAPTER IV

  IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

  Almost at the last moment Scout-Master Durland, or Captain Durland, ashe was again for this week, had decided not to send Jack Danby on histrip into the enemy's country alone. Seated beside Jack, therefore,under the protective hood of the scout car, was little Tom Binns.

  "Keep your eye on your watch, Tom," said Jack. "We don't want to makeany mistake and cross the line too soon--but we don't want to be late,either. This job is too important to run any risks of bungling it. I'dhate to think that I'd been trusted with something really big for thefirst time and then fallen down on it."

  "Where will you cross the line, Jack?" asked Tom. "I should think itwould be pretty hard to tell just where the boundary was."

  Jack pointed to a road map, on a slightly smaller scale than the onefrom which Captain Durland had given him his course, which was pastedright before his eyes on the metal dashboard of the car.

  "I can't lose my way with that, Tom," he said. "See, there's a road thatwe're getting pretty near to now. It crosses the State line about sixmiles east of Bremerton, if you'll notice the map, at a little villagecalled Mardean. That's all on this side of the line. They may bewatching the road there, so what we want to do is to get where we can'tbe seen, and then, about a minute before noon, go ahead as fast as thecar will carry us. That ought to take us through all right, even ifthey've got a guard on duty. Then we can circle around in a big sweepand come down to Hardport from behind. The country people ought to beable to tell us part of what we want to know, and we can confirm whatthey tell us by what we can see ourselves."

  "They wouldn't lie to us, would they, Jack?"

  "You couldn't call it regular lying if they gave us false informationabout their own army, Tom. Remember that this is supposed to be like areal war, and in a war the invading army wouldn't expect to get correctinformation from the people along the roads. On the contrary, they'd dotheir best to delay the enemy, and make all the trouble they could, andthey'd be patriotic. So we've got to be mighty careful this next weekabout how we take any information we pick up in that fashion. If thepeople on the farms take the game seriously, and enter into the spiritof it, they'll do all they can to harass us and bother us."

  Jack drove his car well and carefully, but made no great attempt to gethigh speed out of it, though it was, as he knew, capable of going threeor four times as fast as he was driving it. But there is always acertain danger in driving an automobile at high speed, and Jack saw nouse in taking any risk that was not necessary.

  "You can go a lot faster than this, can't you, Jack?" asked Tom, as theybowled along easily, at little more than fifteen miles an hour.

  "What's the use, Tom? We'll get to Mardean before we can cross the line,anyhow. I'll go fast enough then for a spell, if you're anxious forspeed. Don't be impatient! We'll get all the speed you want before verylong."

  Jack was a true prophet, as one ought to be when he has the means offulfilling the prophecy in his own hands. At Mardean, just out of sightof the line, they waited while the minutes dragged slowly by.

  "One minute more!" cried Tom Binns, breathless with excitement andsuspense.

  "All right," said Jack, quietly. "Hold tight now, Tom! I'm going to lether out a bit."

  Swiftly the grey car gathered speed. In a rush of dust, with hornblowing and exhaust sputtering behind them, the car shot over the line,and, just as a whistle boomed out the twelve o'clock dinner signal, Jackwas in hostile territory. The war was on!

  Behind them there was a confused shouting. The car was built so that itwas easy to look behind.

  "There was an outpost there," said Tom, as he looked back. "They'rekicking up a tremendous fuss, Jack. I guess we rather put one over onthem that time."

  "We've got to put another one over on them in a hurry, then," said Jack,"or they'll put one over on us. Let me know as soon as that outpost iswell out of sight, Tom. And keep your eyes skinned for any sign thatthey're after us with a motorcycle or anything like that, will you?"

  "They're out of sight now--and there's nothing on the road. Hey, Jack,where are you going?"

  For Jack, after a swift glance at his map, had run deliberately off theroad, reducing speed considerably as he did so, but not so much that thecar did not rattle around considerably as it left the smooth roadbed andplunged into a field that had not long since been ploughed.

  "They'll telephone ahead of us, and they'll be waiting," Jack explained."I've got to cut through the fields here, so that we can get on anotherroad where they won't be looking for us. Otherwise I'm afraid wewouldn't get very far before we ran into a trap that all our armor andall our speed wouldn't get us out of without capture. You don't want tolose this car on its first trip, do you, Tom?"

  "Not by a good deal!" yelled Tom, who was beginning to feel theexhilaration of the wild, bumping ride over the furrows of the field."It was sort of sudden, that's all, Jack; I wasn't expecting it, yousee."

  "I meant to tell you we'd do that, but I forgot. I had it all doped out.See, we're coming to another road, now. This is a pretty big field, andit was marked accurately on that map. This whole section was surveyedand mapped especially for this war game."

  "Say, if they do many things like that, it must cost something," saidTom.

  "War's the most expensive thing in the world, Tom, and the next mostexpensive, I guess, is getting ready for it, and having such a strongarmy and navy that no one will want to fight you. But it pays to beready for war, no matter how much it costs, for the country that isn'tready is always the one that has to fight when it least expects it. Andfighting when you're not ready is the most expensive of all. It costsmoney and lives."

  Then, with a sickening bump, the car took the road again, and Jack washeading straight for Hardport.

  "Those wheels worked splendidly," he said. "And the car, too. Anordinary car would have bumped itself to pieces a mile or so back, andthis one is running just as easily as when we started. I suppose it costa lot, but it was certainly worth it."

  "Every time we hit a new furrow I thought we were going to break down,"confessed Tom. "I was scared at first. But I soon decided that we wereall right. But I don't believe, even if I knew how to drive a car, thatI'd have the nerve to take it through a ploughed field that way."

  "Yes, you would, Tom, if you knew it was the only thing you could do.You couldn't be any worse scared than I was when we left the road--but Iknew, you see, that there simply wasn't any other way out of it. Whenyou have to do a thing, you can usually manage it. I've found that out."

  "What's next?"

  "The outskirts of Hardport. I want to skirt the railroad track. Theirmobilization was at Smithville, back along the railroad about twentymiles, and if they've sent any force to Hardport, the railroad will showit. If they haven't, I'm going to mark the railroad cut."

  "What do you mean, Jack?"

  "In a real war, if people got a chance, this railroad would be cut. Alot of rails would be torn up and burnt. We don't want to interfere withregular traffic, so in this game we build a fire with spare ties, andmark as much rail as we'd have time to tear up, allowing ten minutes foreach length of rail. Then if a troop train comes along and sees thatsignal, it is held to be delayed an hour for each torn up rail, as thatis the time it would take the sappers to repair the damage."

  They paused for thirty minutes, therefore, when they reached a spotabout three miles and a half from the city line of Hardport.

  "There," said Jack, when he had set his marks, "that will hold them upfor three hours, and give General Bean a chance to occupy Hardport anddestroy the railroad bridge. That will take a day to rebuild, withoutinterference, and I guess it makes it pretty safe for us. Now we'll goon into town."

  But they didn't go into the town. They did not have to, to discover thatHardport was occupied by a Blue regiment, which had outposts wellscattered around the place, anticipating an attack, just as CaptainDurland had said he thought would be the case.

  "We'll do some mo
re circling, now," said Jack, "and get around theiroutposts. I know a way we can do that. What they're planning is to letGeneral Bean advance and walk into a trap. They've got enough menwaiting for him along here to smash him on a frontal attack. What we'vegot to do is to get word to him in time to prevent him from doing that."

  Twice, as the grey car sped along, now on the road, now in the fields,they saw parties of the enemy, but never were they near enough seriouslyto threaten the Boy Scouts with capture. And at last, striking into themain road for Bremerton, they saw a cloud of dust approaching, whichthey recognized as the signal of the coming of General Bean's brigade.

  The soldiers cheered them as they recognized the scout car, and openedup a way for the big car to pass through them to the brigade commanderhimself.

  "What's your name, eh?" asked the General, sharply. "Danby, eh?Excellent work, Scout Danby! I shall make it a point to report myappreciation to your Troop commander. You'd better come along in therear now, and watch the rest of the operations. Thanks to you, I ratherthink they'll be worth watching."

  And, touching the spurs to his speedy black horse, he cantered up to thefront of the column, chuckling and laughing as he thought of how theenemy had been outwitted by his youthful Scout.

  The direct forward march of the brigade was interrupted immediately. Oneregiment, indeed, continued along the straight road to Hardport, but therest of the brigade was deployed at once.

  "What will they do now, Jack?" asked Tom Binns.

  "Well, I wouldn't be able to say for certain," replied Jack, with asmile, "but I rather think they'll manage to get behind the town in somefashion, and close in on the Blue troops in the garrison while theregiment in front here keeps them busy with a strong feint of anattack."

  A colonel of regular cavalry, with a white badge on his arm to show hewas serving as an umpire, drove past just then in a big whiteautomobile.

  "See, there's one of the umpires," said Jack. "He goes all about, anddetermines the result. I'm glad he's here--that means there can't be anydispute this time. General Bean has probably told him what he plans todo, and he will see how it comes out. Of course, he doesn't communicatein any way with the enemy, or tell them what we're planning to do."

  "Of course not! That wouldn't be fair, Jack. I'm glad he's here, too. Doyou suppose he's heard about the way we blocked the railroad?"

  "I think he may have seen our signs and come this way just to find outwhat was doing."

  "Listen!" cried Jack, suddenly. "There's firing ahead! Let's get on andfind out what's going on."

  There was heavy firing ahead of them for a few minutes, and then itbecame intermittent.

  "Our attack is being repelled, I guess," said Jack. "That's the firstengagement of the war, too. Well, we may seem to be beaten in that, butI guess we can afford to lose a skirmish, if we can capture Hardport anda whole Blue regiment."

  Again, after the firing had almost ceased, a rattle of shots burst onthe quiet air. Then, too, came the screaming of a shell, as it burstharmlessly above the city.

  "Hooray!" cried Jack. "We've surrounded them! Come on!"

  And this time there was no opposing the entry of the grey car intoHardport. The city had been surrounded and captured, just as Jack hadpredicted, and the Blue regiment that had been so completely outwitted,thanks to the cleverness of Jack Danby, was out of the war entirely. Itwas an important victory, in more ways than one. General Bliss could illafford to lose so many men, and the capture of Hardport, moreover, was acrippling blow, since it interfered with the operation of the railroadwhich he had relied upon for bringing his troops across the State linein large numbers.

  The umpires lost no time in telling General Bean of their decision, andin congratulating him on the strategy he had displayed.

  "Cutting the railroad was a masterly stroke," said one of the umpires.

  "That's what I say!" said the General, with enthusiasm. "And it was alittle tike of a Boy Scout, in my grey scout car, who did it--and thatwithout orders!"