CHAPTER V.

AT THE FERRY.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"

Giraffe was one of those fellows with a disposition very much like a rubber ball; when crushed down by some sudden disappointment he would come up again on the rebound.

"Here's that other road!" remarked Thad; "and do you see any one following after us, to watch, and find out what we do?"

"Nope, coast clear back here," said Bumpus, nearly bursting a blood vessel in his endeavor to look.

Thereupon the pilot deliberately disobeyed the orders of the officer stationed in the town. He turned into the side road, and thus gave positive evidence of an intention to once more try to run the blockade. At the same time Thad understood what risks he was taking; only there may arise situations that demand radical cures, unless one means to lay down meekly and submit to Fate.

Bumpus began to show signs of renewed interest.

"It may be a case of two strikes, and then a swat over the fence for a home run, Thad!" he announced, after they had gotten well started along the new trail, which did not seem to be built along the same order as those other roads, though not at all bad in that dry season of the year, early August.

"Let's hope so," replied the pilot. "From the way this road runs we'll have to give up all notion of getting across the line into Belgium. We'll be lucky if we can make it Holland."

"Well, along here where a tongue of Holland runs down between Germany and Belgium," explained Allan, who had looked up these things on the map, "and which is a part of the Limberg country, it isn't over twelve or fourteen miles across. There's one place at the Holland town of Sittard where the gap can't be much more than four miles, so you see how easy it would be for us to run across that neck, and land in Belgium."

"With this lightning car," observed Giraffe, "we'd hit the border, give one grand splurge, and then bring up on Belgian soil."

"Limberg, you said, didn't you, Allan?" remarked Bumpus; "I guess I know now where that strong cheese comes from. I only hope we don't strike any factories on the way. It always makes me feel faint, you know."

"Huh!" snorted Giraffe, the taint of German blood coming to the surface, "that's because some people don't know a good thing when they strike it."

"Well, Giraffe, you ought to be glad then that I don't, because sometimes you complain of my appetite, as if I could help being always hungry."

"Thad, of course we're bound to strike that river again, if we keep on heading into the northwest?" suggested Allan.

"Yes, for it runs into Holland on its way to the sea far above where we hope to cross," admitted the other.

"This doesn't seem to be a very important road, for we haven't come across a single soul on it so far," Allan suggested, significantly.

"And from the marks of wheels I'd be inclined to believe few vehicles ever come this way," continued the patrol leader; "but what makes you say that, Allan?"

"Oh! I was only wondering if it really kept on to the river, or turned back after a bit," the other explained.

"That is, you hardly think such a road would deserve a bridge, which must be a pretty costly proposition, the way they build them over here, to last for centuries; is that it, Allan?"

"Yes, you've struck it to a fraction, Thad. Now, supposing there should only be a ford for a crossing, we couldn't take this car over."

"Certainly not," came the ready reply; "but the fact that so many cars travel the roads of Germany in these modern days makes me feel pretty sure there will be some kind of way for getting over the river, even without a bridge."

"Do you mean by a ferry?" asked Giraffe.

"More than likely," he was told, "but we're going to know right away, for I had a little glimpse of the river through those trees back there. We ought to be there in a jiffy."

A "jiffy" might mean almost anything, but with that slow car it stood for more than five minutes. Then Allan heard Giraffe, who had abnormal vision, give an ejaculation that had a smack of satisfaction about it.

"It's a ferry, I guess, Thad!" said the tall scout, who had that neck of his stretched to an enormous extent that gave him a great advantage over his comrades.

"What makes you say so?" asked Bumpus, who could see absolutely nothing as yet.

"I notice a rope stretched across the river," Giraffe told him, "and yes, there's some sort of a barge or float up at the landing on this side."

Allan just then announced that he, too, could see what Giraffe was trying to describe, and there could be no doubt about its being a ferry.

"Here's luck!" cried Bumpus, puffing out with new expectations.

"Let's hope they haven't gone and stuck a soldier alongside the ferryman so as to keep him straight!" grunted Giraffe; "and, Thad, I suppose I'll have to do the interpreter act again, if the chap doesn't talk United States?"

"We depend on you for that, Giraffe," he was told.

The road led directly down to the edge of the water. There was some sort of landing there at which the ferryboat put up. It allowed the traveler who had a vehicle of any sort to pass directly from the shore on to the deck of the monitor which was used for a ferryboat.

No one was in sight when they first arrived.

"If he doesn't show up couldn't we take charge of the boat and run her across to the other side?" Bumpus was asking, as though about ready to try anything once.

"Toot your horn, Thad, and see if it'll wake him up," Allan suggested. "There's so little to do on his lay that p'raps the ferryman takes a nap between trips."

"That's a good idea," assented Thad, and accordingly he used the auto horn to some advantage, making certain doleful sounds that were easily calculated to awaken any sound sleeper.

Immediately a man appeared in view. He may have been taking a nap for all they ever knew. He was an old fellow wearing wooden shoes and a knit cap. As he approached the car he seemed to look them over curiously. Probably it was seldom indeed that any one outside of the natives came his way.

"See him take in our little American flags, will you?" remarked Bumpus, while Giraffe entered into a labored conversation with the ferryman; "he must know what they stand for, too, because I could see his eyes light up when he first noticed the same."

Giraffe at that moment turned to them.

"Yes, you're right about that, Bumpus," he said; "this man says he has a son and his family out in Cincinnati, and wants to know if we've ever met Hans Kreitzner. I told him I wasn't quite sure, because there were some people in America I'd never yet run across, though I hoped to round them all up later on."

"Don't josh the poor old fellow, Giraffe," urged Bumpus; "as for me, I'm so glad because we haven't run across a pesky military guard here at the ferry I'd be willing almost to promise to look his son up when I got back home--by mail, of course, and tell him I'd met his respected paw."

"How about taking us on his ferryboat, Giraffe?" asked Thad.

"I hope he hasn't got his strict orders, like all the rest of the men we've run across to-day," ventured Allan.

Giraffe nodded his head in a way that stood for hope.

"Seems to be all right, fellows," he assured them. "Old Hans here has agreed to set us over on the other side. Perhaps when I promised to double his fee it made him jump after the silver hook more nimbly."

"Yes, there he goes now to get his ropes unfastened," said Bumpus. "Whew! from the way he's tied the old batteau up I should think he hadn't had a passenger all this day. He's as slow as molasses in winter, and that can't be beaten."

Giraffe looked at the speaker and grinned. When Bumpus called anything "slow" it must move about as tediously as an ice wagon, or one of those enormous German guns drawn over the hard roads by a powerful traction engine.

"Let me crawl out first, Thad," the fat boy remarked, "if you're meaning to move the car aboard the ferryboat."

"Bumpus is afraid of you, Thad!" cried Giraffe; "he thinks you may make a slip and dump the whole business over the side of the boat; and Bumpus doesn't care to go in swimming with his suit on. If it should shrink when he tried to dry it, whatever would he do for another?"

All the same, Giraffe himself was not averse to leaving the little old car while Thad was taking it carefully aboard the flatboat used as a ferry, showing that he might be just as guilty as Bumpus.

"Well, now!" exclaimed the fat scout on noticing that even Allan joined them, "seems like we might all be in the same boat, doesn't it?"

"We expect to be, right away," Giraffe told him, calmly.

Thad did not let the car play any trick. He soon had it aboard the ferry, and about as well balanced as any one could have accomplished. The old man had just about finished undoing the last rope, and in another minute they might expect to find themselves moving out toward the opposite shore, by means of the pulley fastened to the rope above, and the long stout pole which was intended for pushing in the shallow water.

"Thad, there's somebody coming on a gallop up there!" announced Giraffe just then; "and I do believe it's a mounted soldier in the bargain!"

"Oh! thunder!" gurgled Bumpus, almost collapsing; "that's always the way things go. We get just so far, and then the string pulls us back again."

"Don't let on that you see him," said Thad, quickly. "The old man is pretty deaf I should say from the way you shouted at him, Giraffe. He doesn't hear the man calling. Now, if he is so busy pushing off that he fails to look up, we ought to be half way out in the stream before that horse gets down to the bank."

"He's coming with a rush, I tell you!" said Giraffe, who had better opportunities for seeing than any of the others, so that it did appear as though at times it paid to have a neck that would stretch.

The ferryman had now thrown off the last rope and was stooping down to take hold of the setting pole. Another minute or so would decide the question.

Bumpus was so worked up that he could not keep still. As usual, he advanced some wild idea, for while not as a rule fertile in expedients there were times when it seemed as though that slow brain of the stout boy worked furiously.

"There, hang the luck, fellows, the ferryman has seen him!" burst out Bumpus, in the deepest disgust; "he's going to wait up for the soldier, and take him aboard."

"Our cake will be dough," added Giraffe, gloomily, "if it happens that the man on horseback comes from the town where we got turned back, and orders us to go back with him, to be shut up in a German dungeon. I've heard a lot about what terrible nasty places those fortress prisons are, but I never thought I'd be in danger of finding out for myself."

"Do we have to give in so tamely as all that?" asked Bumpus, with a spurt of spirit that would have become a warrior; "suppose now he does try to browbeat us, ought four husky scouts from good old America get down and kiss the shoes of just one bullying German soldier, because he wears a helmet on his head. Thad, it's up to you to say the word, and we'll all jump on him!"

"Don't be so rash, Bumpus!" Giraffe warned him, while Thad said:

"We'll wait and see what happens before we lay plans that must make every man of the Kaiser's army our enemy. Here he comes now. Every one keep a still tongue in his head but Giraffe; and while about it let's hide these little flags. If he asks who we are tell him the truth, though, remember, Giraffe!"