CHAPTER XIV

ROB MAKES UP HIS MIND

“Whew, but that’s doubly tough, I should say!” ejaculated Andy, when he heard this astounding declaration on the part of the boy whose cause they were about to champion.

Rob, too, was deeply concerned.

“Then it’s easy to understand why you were so wild to get there in time to stop this horrible act,” he told Donald. “It might be bad enough for the wretches to do something to cripple the railway services, so as to stop the flow of munitions; but it means a whole lot more to it when it’s your own father whose life is placed in danger.”

“Yes, and a fayther like mine, in the bargain,” said Donald, so proudly that it was plain to be seen that the engineer was not without honor and love in his own family.

“If you hadn’t thought that you possibly could get help here at the old logging camp,” said Rob, “and cut across this way to see if the hunting party was still there, I suppose you’d have taken a different route?”

“Oh, ay,” promptly answered the other.

“In that case you wouldn’t have found yourself caught in that trap?” asked the leader of the Eagle Patrol, as the quartette hastened toward camp.

“I couldnae well be ketched in the auld bear trap set by me cousin Archie if it was half a mile awa’ I ran, ye ken,” Donald asserted naïvely.

“Well, we will be at the camp in a few minutes now,” Rob went on to say, thinking to further encourage the poor chap, whom he knew to be suffering more mentally than he was physically. “Once we make it, we needn’t be detained very long. I’m going to depend a whole lot on you to take us across the boundary by the shortest route possible.”

“Ye can wager your last bawbee that I’m capable o’ doin’ it,” came the reply, in such a tone of positive conviction that if Rob had been entertaining any doubts on that score they were quickly put to rest.

“If you need any extra pilotin’,” spoke up Big Zeb, “count on this chicken to do his best to kerry ye through.”

“Then you mean to keep with us, do you, Zeb?” asked the scout master.

“I sartin do; that is, if ye want me along,” the guide replied. “I’m an American born, and p’raps haven’t had as much friendly feelin’ for the Canucks ’cross the line as I might in times past, but, sir, when I hears how they are volunteerin’ by the tens of thousands an’ goin’ away ’cross the ocean to fight ’ginst the Kaiser, I begins to change my idees consarnin’ _that_ brood. Now I thinks they air all to the good, an’ I takes off my hat to them. Yes, an’ arter hearin’ what meanness this ’ere batch o’ schemers is up to, I’d walk all the way to Labrador to upset their ugly game; that’s me, Zeb Crooks, Maine woods guide.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Zeb,” said Rob heartily. “If you’d seen the terrible sights we did in Belgium and northern France, you’d feel that there was need for sympathy for those who are risking their lives to crush all military spirit and prevent a world war like this from ever happening again as long as men people the earth. That’s what’s taking these Canadian boys away from their homes, nearly four hundred thousand of them. It isn’t alone that the empire they belong to is in danger, but the whole world is on fire, and the conflagration must be quenched. They believe it can be done only in one way, which is by winning this war. Of course, the Germans and their allies say it’s just the opposite and that they are fighting for their very existence. Well, there’s the camp!”

They could just glimpse delicate lances of light which managed to escape through the cracks or chinks between the logs that had not been fully filled afresh when the hunting party took possession of the bunk-house.

A minute afterward Andy was pounding at the door, but there was little necessity for this summons, because the listening scout within had heard the murmur of their voices and was already fumbling with the bar. So the friendly door was quickly flung wide open, and Donald found himself ushered into a warm and hospitable interior.

He and Tubby stared at each other, and with reason. Donald on his part may have thought that never before had he run across so fat a youth as Tubby Hopkins, who seemed to be fairly bursting his khaki clothes with plumpness. On his part, Tubby was naturally consumed with a burning curiosity concerning this young stranger—who he could be; what had happened to make him have such a perceptible limp; and, above all, why were Rob and Andy seeming to be in such a stupendous hurry?

“Sit right down here, Donald,” said the scout master, indicating a rude bark chair close to the cheery blaze, “and I’ll look up that magical salve. I know where I put it away in my pack. I give you my word you’ll find it just the thing to soothe that bruised leg of yours. Andy, tell Tubby what’s happened, and about our plan of campaign for invading Canada this very night.”

“W-w-what?” gasped the other, his face the picture of both amazement and consternation.

“Oh, that’s nothing, Tubby!” remarked Andy airily. “Now don’t go to suspecting that we’re meaning to do anything that’s wrong. Just the other way, for the boot’s on the other foot, since this is going to be an errand of mercy and meant to keep Uncle Sam from being accused of a grave breach of neutrality by the folks up in Ottawa.”

“For pity’s sake, what do you mean, Andy?” cried poor bewildered Tubby. “Please be good and explain it all in a jiffy. I’ll certainly burst if you don’t, I’m that keyed up now.”

“I believe you will, sure enough, for I can hear the hoops of the tub creaking under the strain right now,” chuckled the other; and then making a fresh start, he went on to say: “This is our jolly chum, Tubby Hopkins, Donald. We call him our Friar Tuck when we play at Robin Hood of the Greenwood Forest, you know. It is his uncle who has been hunting here and making his headquarters in this old logging camp, though just now he’s up at the Tucker Pond trying for the big bull moose. Donald McGuffey, Tubby, a Canadian boy who belongs to the scouts in his town across the line and who’s been visiting a cousin on our side.”

Rob came hurrying up bearing a small zinc box such as salve is often kept in. He was down on his knees without asking questions and assisting the injured lad to roll up his trousers leg to the knee. It seemed that Donald had a wise and careful mother, for he was wearing, in addition to the corduroy trousers, a pair of extra thick drawers.

“You’re lucky, Donald,” Rob told the other, “for these corduroys would serve as a mighty good buffer; and, besides, you’ve had a pad in the other garment. Bad as your leg may be bruised, it would have been a whole lot worse only for these shields.”

By this time he had bared the lower part of Donald’s limb. The boy had his teeth clenched tightly together, as though necessarily there was more or less acute pain connected with this business; but it could not make him even wince, such was his astonishing grit. Andy surveyed him with renewed admiration, for if there was one thing that he liked to see it was this quality in a fellow. Andy himself was in the habit of also setting his teeth grimly when in pain and suppressing all groans.

As for Tubby, he stared as though he half believed he might be asleep and dreaming all this. He saw a dark black-and-blue bruise on the white skin of the boy’s leg, halfway up to the knee. Doubtless there was another just like it on the opposite side. Tubby knew it must hurt like anything. He also wondered greatly what could have given such strange bruises. Then Rob, speaking, excited his curiosity still further.

“You see,” said the scout master, as he started to gently rub some of the soothing salve on the leg of the Canadian boy, “if the springs of that trap had been new and vigorous instead of rusted out and weak, they might have broken the bone here. As it was, they just gripped you and held tight enough to keep you from breaking away, seeing that you couldn’t possibly manage to get around so as to press down one of the springs.”

“Trap!” ejaculated Tubby. “Oh, why don’t you hurry up and explain it all to me, Andy Bowles? Rob, you tell me, won’t you? What sort of a trap was this poor fellow caught in?”

“It was an old bear trap, you see, that his own cousin had set a while ago, thinking to make use of it, as he had seen the tracks of a big black bear over this way,” Andy hastened to say. “Donald was hurrying along through the woods, never thinking about anything of this kind, when all at once he found himself caught. He’s been held fast there for more than an hour, calling out for help as loudly as he could. He was in a desperate hurry to get across the line, because by accident he overheard some rascals scheming to blow up the railway bridge this very night.”

“Great thunder!” was all Tubby could gasp, but the look on his face spoke volumes.

“That’s pretty lively stuff, of course, Tubby,” continued Andy, with the skill of a diplomat, “but the worst is yet to come; for, do you know, Donald’s father is an engineer in the employ of the Canadian railway, and it happens that he pulls the munition train this very night, that these fiends are planning to destroy along with the bridge!”

Tubby was fairly holding his breath as he drank in all these amazing details. His round face began to grow furiously red with a riot of emotions that made his heart beat twice as fast as was its wont. Then, as if he dimly suspected that Andy, given to practical jokes, might be taking advantage of his confiding nature, Tubby turned toward the scout master and implored him to corroborate the story.

“Oh, _is_ it all true, Rob?” he asked tremulously. “Would Andy be so mean as to deceive a trusting comrade in khaki? Please tell me, Rob!”

“Every word is just as he tells you, Tubby,” said the other, still engaged in gently, but more vigorously than before, rubbing the discolored leg of the boy; and, singularly enough, it did not seem to hurt quite as much as at first, from which Donald must be inclined to believe there was considerable virtue in that “magical compound” as a pain remover and a balm in time of trouble.

“And are we going to stand by him, Rob, and try to break up the dastardly game of those criminal plotters?” continued Tubby.

“You give them a pretty hard name,” laughed Rob. “I reckon they’d deny anything of that sort indignantly, saying anything is fair in war time. All the same, _we_ believe they deserve to be called scoundrels. Yes, we mean to stand back of Donald, if that’s what you mean, Tubby. We settled all that on the way here.”

“Going over into Canada, and warn the bridge guards, you mean, Rob?”

“Nothing more or less,” he was informed steadily. “Our only fear is that we may not get there in time to save the bridge.”

“’Course we’re all in this, Rob?” asked Tubby. “You wouldn’t dream of asking _me_ to stay behind, when anything of this sort was being pulled off? I’ve never balked when ordered to obey by a superior officer, but in such a case as this—well, you wouldn’t treat me so mean as that, I just know it, Rob.”

“Make yourself easy on that score,” said Rob, wishing to relieve the strain of suspense under which he knew only too well Tubby was laboring. “We’re all going, all but Wolf here, and we’ll leave him behind to guard the cabin, with plenty of grub to keep him alive for a week. I hope that satisfies you, Tubby.”

“Thank you, Rob; I’m more than glad to hear you say that. I never would have gotten over it if I’d been left in the lurch when this glorious stunt was being pulled off. I promise you that I’ll keep up with the procession. Surely I can walk as fast as poor injured Donald here, who has such a game leg. Yes, I’m satisfied.”