CHAPTER VI
AT THE COVERED BRIDGE
There was not a sign of the enemy as they neared the bridge, one ofthose covered affairs so common a few years ago in country districts.The countryside was serene and undisturbed.
"This doesn't look much like war," said Jack. "But I guess Gettysburgitself looked just as peaceful a few days before the big battle in 1863.You can't always tell by appearances. We'll go pretty easy here, anyhow,until we're certain that it's all right."
But the most careful investigation failed to reveal a trace of hostileoccupation or passage. At the end of the bridge Jack got out of the car,leaving Tom Binns at the wheel, and ready to start at an instant'snotice should there be a sudden attack.
"The tracks here don't show anything much," he said, looking up to Tomwith a puzzled face. "I don't believe anything but a couple of farmwagons have passed this way to-day. If General Bliss thought this washis only line of advance, he'd have been certain to have had a fewpickets here--or at least one of his scout cars. And I'll swear thatnothing of that sort has happened here to-day. They'd have been bound toleave all sorts of traces, that's certain!"
"What do you think it means, Jack?"
"That there's something cooking and on the stove that we don't knowabout or suspect, even," said Jack. "I guess that General Bliss gets asgood information as we do, and he must have figured out that he wouldn'tbe able to get here in time. If he went this way, anyhow, he'd have toleave Hardport in our possession behind him. And somehow I don't believehe'd do that."
"Say, Jack," called Tom Binns, suddenly, "I just saw a flash over therebehind you--upon that hillock."
Jack began whistling indifferently. He strolled around, as if he wereinterested only in the view. Gradually he worked over closer to Tom andthe big car, and then, and only then, he turned so that he could followTom's eyes with his own.
"I don't want anyone that's around here to think I'm looking at them,"he said in a low tone to Tom. "What does it seem like to you, Tom?Scouts?"
"I think so, Jack. I caught just a glimpse, after I called to you, ofsomething that looked like a Scout uniform. I think that they'rewatching us."
"That's much better," said Jack, greatly relieved. "It didn't seemnatural, somehow, to find this place so deserted. Say, Tom, you can runthe car, can't you?"
"Yes, if I don't have to go too fast."
"All right. I'm going to climb in. Then pull the hood pretty well overand run her slowly through the bridge. It's covered, you see, and theycan't see us after we're on it. Then, as soon as we're under cover, I'mgoing to drop out. They can't see how many of us there are in the car.I'll stay behind, and you run on around the bend, drop out of the car,quietly, and leave it at the side of the road."
"Will that be safe, Jack? Couldn't anyone who came along run off withit?"
"Not if you take the spark plug out and put it in your pocket. Thatcripples the car absolutely, and you ought always to do that, even ifyou just leave a car outside a store for a couple of minutes when you goin to buy something. This car is great, too, because you don't have tocrank it. It has a self-starting device, so that you can start the motorautomatically without leaving your seat."
"All right, Jack. What am I to do after I leave the car?"
"Work up quietly into the woods there. When you get up a way, scout downeasily, and try to trail them. You'll find traces of them up there onthe ridge, I'm sure, if they're really up there. I'll do the same thingfrom the other side here. I think we've got a good chance to break oneof their signalling relays, don't you see?"
"I'll take my flags along, shall I, Jack?"
"Good idea! No telling what we'll be able to find out and do here. Allright--I'm going to drop out now!"
The car slowed down and he dropped off silently, and laughed as he sawTom Binns guide the big machine off into the light beyond the coveredbridge again. Then, the laughter gone from his face, he slippedcautiously back in the opposite direction, and at the entrance to thebridge dropped down to the bed of the creek. The season had been dry,and the water in the creek was very shallow. His plan was definite inhis own mind, and he had had enough experience in scouting to know thatthere was at least a good chance of success in his enterprise, althougha difficult one.
His destination was the ridge where Tom Binns had seen the flashing ofred and white signal flags. Step by step now, climbing slowly andcarefully, he made his way up the bank, sure that even if whoever was onthe ridge had guessed the ruse of the way in which he had left theautomobile, they would not be looking for an attack from the directionin which he was making his stealthy, Indian-like advance. Another reasonfor slow and deliberate progress was to give Tom Binns time to reach theridge, and take up a position favorable for the playing of his part inthe scheme.
Before him now, as he moved on, he could hear sounds of quiet andstealthy movement, and at last, standing before him, as he peepedthrough a small opening in the thick undergrowth, he could see a BoyScout, standing stiff and straight, and working his signal flags. He hadto stand on a high spot and in a clearing to do this, as otherwise, ofcourse, his flags could not have been seen at any distance. Jackmeasured the place with his eyes. His whole plan would collapse if thebody of the signalling Scout were visible from the next relay stations,but he quickly decided that only the flags would show.
From behind the Scout with the flags now came the call of a crow--caw,caw, caw!
Jack grinned as he answered it. For a moment a look of suspiciousalertness showed on the face of the Blue Scout. He whirled around toface the sound behind him, and in the moment that his back was turnedJack sprang on him.
The Blue Scout put up a fine struggle, but he was helpless against thecombined attack of Jack Danby and Tom Binns, who sprang to his comrade'said as soon as he saw what Jack had done.
"Two to one isn't fair," gasped Jack as he sat on his prisoner's chest,"but we had to do it. This is war, you see, and they say all's fair inlove and war. Who are you?"
"Canfield, Tiger Patrol, Twenty-first Troop, Hampton's Scouts," said theprisoner. "Detailed for Scout service with the Blue army. You got mefair and square. We caught one of your fellows near Mardean, we heard,soon after the war began. Sorry--but it's all in the game.
"How on earth did you get to me so quietly? I was watching you in theroad by the bridge, and I thought you'd gone off in your car. Youcertainly fooled me to the queen's taste."
"Fortune of war," said Jack. "The car gave us a big advantage. You'renot to blame a bit. I guess you'll be exchanged pretty soon, too. We'llgive you for Warner, you see. He's the one of our Troop who was caught.And a fair exchange isn't any robbery."
"Have we got to tie him up?" asked Tom Binns.
"Not if he'll give his parole not to escape or accept a rescue," saidJack. "How about that, Canfield? Will you give me your word of honor?I'm Jack Danby, Assistant Patrol Leader of the Crow Patrol of Durland'sTroop, and ranking as a corporal for the maneuvers in the Red army."
"I'll give you my parole all right," said Canfield. He saluted stiffly."Glad to meet you, Corporal Danby. Sorry the tables aren't turned,though. We've got a special dinner for our prisoners to-night--but wehaven't caught many prisoners yet, worse luck!"
"All right! See if the flags are just the same, Tom."
Tom Binns compared the flags captured from Canfield with those hehimself carried.
"They're exactly the same," he said. "We can use either his or ours. Itdoesn't make any difference."
"That's good. Stand up there now, Tom, and see what's coming. Can yousee the next stations on both sides?"
"Sure I can, Jack. They're wig-wagging like the very dickens now, askingCanfield here why he doesn't answer."
"Signal that he was watching a grey scout car of the Red army, goingnorth," said Jack, with a laugh.
Canfield heard the laugh with a rueful smile.
"You're certainly going to mess things up!" he said. "I ought to becourt-martialled for letting you break up our signal chain this wa
y."
Meanwhile Tom Binns was working his flags frantically.
"O. K.," he reported to Jack. "Message coming!"
Jack sprang to his side, and together the two Red Scouts watched theflags flashing in the distance. Jack showed a good deal of excitement.
"Gee," he said, "this is all to the good! That's a message from GeneralBliss himself, I'll bet! See, Tom? He's sending orders to General Brown,who commands his right wing. They're going to swing around back towardHardport in a big half-circle, of which this place where we are now ispretty nearly the centre. And it's the Newville road that's the line oftheir march, and not this road over the creek at all. That's nerve foryou, if you like, because the Newville pike is right in our lines, andif we move fast we can turn that right wing right in on their center."
For half an hour they stayed there, realizing more and more with everypassing minute that the whole Blue army was developing a great andsweeping attack on Hardport, and in a direction entirely different fromthat being taken by General Bean. The information so far obtained byGeneral Harkness obviously was entirely misleading, and in sendingGeneral Bean to Cripple Creek, as he had, he had simply deprived himselfof a brigade, and, as he would learn in the morning, when the attackwould most certainly begin, weakened a vital part of his lines. Bean wasmoving directly away from the spot where the attack would beconcentrated, and the enemy would be able, unless something were quicklydone, to strike at the unprotected center of the Red line, drive rightthrough it, and throw the main portion of his army, like a great wedge,between the two sections of the Red forces.
Jack's face grew grave as message after message confirmed his fears. Helooked at his watch.
"We've got to get word of this to General Harkness," he said. "Tom, I'mafraid you'll have to stay here and take chances on being caught. I'vegot to get back to headquarters and tell General Harkness what we'velearned here. And if we both go, and leave the relay broken here,they'll smell a rat at once, and investigate. There's enough of a trailhere to show a blind man, much less a bunch of Scouts who are just asgood in their State as we're supposed to be in our own, just what'shappened. So you stay here, and I'll take Canfield along with me in thecar and make my way back to headquarters. You'll be able to leave prettysoon, anyhow, because it will be too dark for effective long-rangesignalling less than an hour from now. You can do it all right, can'tyou?"
"Yes," said Tom Binns, pluckily. It was plain that he didn't like theprospect of staying there alone, but he could see the necessity aseasily as Jack himself, and that there was no other way of meeting thecircumstance that had arisen.
"Do your best, of course, to avoid being captured," said Jack, as heturned to go, with Canfield at his side. "But it will be no reflectionon you if you are made a prisoner, and we won't need to feel thatthey've put one over on us if they catch you. We've got more than a fairreturn for the loss of even a First Class Scout in the information thatthey've unknowingly given us. It may mean the difference between thesuccess and failure of the whole campaign."
"You're a wonder, Danby," said Canfield, as they made their way down tothe car. Being on parole, of course, and, as a Boy Scout should alwaysbe, honorable and incapable of breaking his given word, Canfield made noattempt to escape or hamper Jack in any way. "I've heard a lot aboutyou, and I'm glad to see you at work, even if it does make it bad forme. You seem to be able to tell just about what's going on around here.I couldn't do that. I didn't think about the larger meaning of theorders I was passing on."
"I may be wrong, you know," said Jack, as he waited for Canfield to stepinto the car before climbing into the driver's seat. "I'm really onlymaking a guess, but I think it's a pretty good one. And, anyhow, withthe notes I've got for him, General Harkness ought to be able to get apretty good line on what's doing."
"He ought to be," admitted Canfield, regretfully, but smiling at thesame time. "You're certainly one jim-dandy as a Scout! I'd hate to beagainst you in a real war. If you can handle things always the wayyou've done this time, you'd be a pretty hard proposition in a realhonest-to-goodness fight."
Boy Scout Automobilists; Or, Jack Danby in the Woods Page 6