CHAPTER XXIV.

THE AMBUSCADE.

"Well, here's a nice kettle of fish!" burst out Bumpus, fixing his eyes on the scout leader, as though mentally asking what Thad meant to do.

The actions of Giraffe spoke louder than words could have done. With a really wicked grin he reached down and took something in his hand which it seemed he had stowed away in the body of the car. It was a club almost the size of a baseball bat, one of those home-run kind boys talk about, and call "the old wagon-tongue."

"Say, I had a sort of hunch this would come in handy sooner or later, and now I know it!" Giraffe muttered, with a shake of his head.

"But what do you suppose this means, Thad?" asked Allan, with a puzzled look on his face. "I always understood these Belgian boys were well-behaved chaps, and the last ones in the world to do a thing like this. If we were in some town across in our own country it wouldn't seem so strange."

"Stop and think for a minute what's happening here in Belgium this very day," said Thad. "A million Germans have overrun the country, and every Belgian capable of bearing arms is hurrying to the battle line. Of course the boys are worked up to fever heat. You all saw how they acted when that mob surrounded us. They're not the same well-behaved boys they were two weeks ago. The excitement has settled in their brains."

"But, Thad, that doesn't mean we've got to hand them over the old car, does it?" asked Bumpus.

"Certainly not," he was assured.

"Will we have to turn back again so as to keep from having a row?" continued the fat scout, anxiously.

"Well, I should hope not," burst out Giraffe, angrily. "I'd be willing to turn back before the majesty of the whole German army, but I'll be hanged if I want to knuckle down to a pack of kids. If you ask my opinion there it is, straight goods!"

"There's another thing," said Thad, "that I think has had some influence on these boys, or given them the idea of holding us up."

He pointed to a fence across from the inn-yard. It had some gaudy bills pasted on it, which apparently none of the others had noticed before, though taught to use their eyes as scouts on every occasion.

"Why, those look mighty familiar!" said Bumpus.

"What's this?" cried Giraffe. "A regular American Wild West show over here in Belgium, raking in the coin this last summer? Thad, if that gave an exhibition here, or anywhere close by, I can understand what you mean. The kids must have been practicing throwing the rope, and holding up stages ever since. Yes, by George! that's where they get this idea from, as sure as anything."

"After all, the world is getting smaller all the time," remarked Allan, "when you can find such pictures as those thousands of miles away from home. Before long it may be all Japan, China and India will be looking at our cowboys perform, and the Indians hold up stage coaches."

"Oh! they do that already," Thad told him; "for the moving pictures are being shown all around the world. But I've got an idea. Wait here for me, fellows."

With that the scout leader hurried away, leaving the trio to talk matters over, and trying to guess what he had in view. A short time later Thad reappeared, with a little package in his hand.

"I just happened to notice some whips for sale at a store in the place," he explained, "and I've bought several. If we're forced to we'll use them on those boys the best we know how. The old man told me they were the bad lot of the village, so you see they do have them even over in Belgium."

"How that takes me back to dear old Cranford," sighed Bumpus, "where we used to have all manner of times with Brose Griffin and his cronies, Eli Bangs and Walt Hopkins. So they have a rowdy element here too, do they? Thad, I hope you didn't forget me when laying in that stock of cowhides?"

"Three covered the entire stock they had," the other told him; "and so Giraffe will have to depend on that club of his; only I hope he uses it carefully. It's big and heavy enough to floor anybody."

Giraffe nodded, and smiled.

"Oh! I'll be on the watch not to knock the poor chaps silly, if they take warning, and clear out," he remarked, as he hid the article in question away, but in a place where it could be quickly seized.

It was in anything but a pleasant humor that Thad prepared to leave the village where they had been hospitably entertained, after that first little misunderstanding. He did not like this idea of meeting the attack of the Belgian boys with violence, but there seemed to be no other way, for the old man had declined to ride out with them, saying that he did not wish to be connected at all with the matter, and considered his duty done in giving them due warning.

Thad was really under the impression that he would not be sorry if the boys received some sort of drubbing to pay them for their audacity in treating strangers in the way they intended.

There was no choice about the route; it was necessary that they go up or down the river, since no other road led away from the place. Of course across the river there was one they would have been glad to have taken, only with the bridge gone it was not possible to get the car over.

"Somebody waving his hand to us, Thad, over there at that cottage window," observed the watchful Giraffe.

"I think it must be our old friend," said Thad, as he made haste to answer the signal. "Yes, I can see his face now, and his gray beard."

They passed out of the village, with the people simply looking after them, for all signs of resentment had apparently died out. These good folks had too many serious troubles of their own to think of hunting up new ones.

"I wonder how far we'll get before they jump out at us?"

That was Bumpus trying to secure an opinion. It was one of his ways of fishing for what he called "a rise." And as usual Giraffe hastened to accommodate him.

"Oh! not far, you can depend on it, Bumpus," he said, "because they haven't been gone long, and would have to tramp it. I reckon now they'd just want to get say half a mile or so outside the place, so the racket they kick up won't reach the ears of their folks here."

"Undo the package, Allan," said Thad, with a business-like air.

This being done disclosed three stout whips of the type often spoken of as "cowhides." Bumpus immediately took possession of one, and seemed to be as tickled as a child with a new toy.

"They're just prime stuff, Thad," he asserted. "Course I've never dusted any fellow's jacket with such a thing, and I don't hanker after the job now; but what has to be can't be helped. I'll promise you to do my level best to sting their legs, for that's the best way, I take it."

Giraffe looked at the whips rather enviously. Possibly he almost felt sorry he had displayed that ferocious club so hastily; only for that he might have been given one of the cowhides to manipulate, instead of Bumpus.

They had by this time left the village behind them. The river lay on their left, and the further bank was not very far away. Thad was watching the road in advance, as though mentally figuring on where they would run across the ambuscade planned by these bellicose Belgian boys.

"There's some sort of a turn I can see up yonder, Thad," ventured Giraffe, with his neck stretched in his favorite manner when sighting things, and which peculiarity had given him his queer nick-name.

"Yes, it's a bend, all right," added Allan.

"Just around a place like that would offer a fine chance to jump out on us, I'd think," suggested Giraffe.

He was bending down while speaking, and taking hold of his cudgel as though intending to be ready when the call to duty came.

"Listen," said Thad, impressively. "I'll stop the car the very second they come in sight. The chances are they'll have the road blocked in some way, so as to prevent our getting past. Then when I give the word everybody get out in a hurry, and meet their rush with the liveliest business you know how."

"He didn't say how many there were in this bunch, did he, Thad?" asked Bumpus.

"No, and I forgot to ask him," came the reply.

"That's the way with scouts always," said Giraffe, pompously. "When danger comes along a scout shouldn't say, 'How many are there of the enemy,' but just shout out, 'Where are they, so I can get busy?'"

"Half a dozen or ten, it doesn't matter," said Allan, "we're primed to scatter them like chaff before the wind. Remember they are bringing all this trouble down on their own silly heads. It isn't any of our choosing."

It was in this resolute spirit then that they approached the bend in the river road, around which they fully expected to find trouble lurking. Bumpus was so tremendously excited that he actually seemed to be holding his breath. His blue eyes were round, and staring at that curve in the road now dreadfully near; and if the hand that gripped that tough cowhide trembled it was from nervous tension, not fear.

Apparently all was calm and peaceful about that spot. Not a single sign of anything unusual could the four scouts detect as they came close to the bend. Doubtless watchful eyes had noted their coming, and the news had been duly conveyed to those who were in hiding, so that they would know when to commence operations.

Now the car had reached the turn and was commencing to negotiate it. Whatever was in store for the chums it could not be longer delayed. Still, so far as they could see after swinging around the curve, the road was perfectly clear of all manner of obstacles, which fact rather surprised Giraffe, who had evidently anticipated discovering a log thrown in such a way as to completely barricade the thoroughfare.

"Why, they don't seem to be here after all, Thad!" he exclaimed.

Giraffe spoke just a second too soon. In fact hardly had the last word left his lips when there was something doing just ahead of them.

A shrill whistle sounded, and at that the bushes on both sides of the road seemed to be alive with leaping figures. Some seven or eight boys had been concealed there, and now hurried out on the road. Some of them carried branches, others stones, and still more hastened to throw a half-rotten log across the road, effectually blocking it for the passage of a vehicle, especially a car.

Thad was ready for just this sort of thing. He instantly shut off the power and there was no trouble whatever in coaxing the car to come to a complete standstill--there never was any complaint along this score, all the anxiety being in the other direction.

Immediately the Belgian boys rushed to surround the car. Their actions were very threatening, for they shouted, and waved their arms, and several even had sticks with which they cut the air venomously. Perhaps they expected that the four boys in khaki would just naturally throw up their hands in the same way the actors in the American show had done when the road-agents were robbing the stage coach.

It was a mistake, and those Belgian lads discovered this for themselves before five more seconds had passed. Instead of displaying a willingness to yield without any struggle the strangers immediately started in to "rough house" it in the most approved fashion.

"Go for 'em!" shouted Giraffe, as he made a leap over the side of the car, just as furiously as he had many a time in the past accomplished a "flying tackle" in battling for his school colors on the gridiron.

The others were not far behind him, even clumsy Bumpus displaying unwonted agility in bouncing out of the car, rawhide in hand.