CHAPTER VII.

DODGING TROUBLE.

"Gee whiz!" burst out Giraffe, of course using his favorite expression to denote his great astonishment; "why, they must be running to interview us, fellows! And say, I don't just like the way they're hollering one single bit. They even act as if they might be real mad!"

"Same old story," mumbled Bumpus, sinking back into his seat with a look of sudden misery on his round face; "out of the frying pan into the fire. Hardly off with one trouble before we're taking on a new one! What's the end going to be, I'd like to know?"

"Thad, how's it coming on?" asked practical Allan, as he once more leaned over the hard-working mechanic, ready to lend a helping hand if possible, though only one could properly work at a time.

"I think I'm getting it straight now," came the quick response that gave Giraffe fresh cheer.

"But it'll be too late in another five minutes," declared Bumpus, trying to figure just how long it might take that oncoming crowd of German country people to arrive on the scene.

"Less than that, Bumpus," said Giraffe, better used to judging distances; "three would be the limit. Are we intending to haul off and try to defend ourselves, or do we just throw up our hands and tell 'em we surrender? They're mostly women and old men, which accounts for 'em not getting over ground faster."

"Yes, but such women!" echoed Bumpus; "every one looks like a regular Amazon, because they're so used to working in the fields. Besides, I don't like the way they handle those pitchforks they've been using to handle the hay with. It makes goose-flesh come up all over just to think of having the tines of a pitchfork stuck into me. Guess we'd better call it off, and be good if they surround us."

"It may all be a mistake, after all," said Allan.

"Don't see how that could turn out," grumbled Giraffe.

"These honest people may be taking us for some other boys who have been pestering the life out of them," Allan hastened to explain.

"Hope they find out the truth then before they start to prodding us with those old forks!" Bumpus breathed.

Then silence fell upon them. Thad was working furiously, while the other three held their breath in suspense, mingled faintly with the hope that died hard.

The oncoming crowd was now quite close. Their appearance became even more awe-inspiring as they drew nearer the scene; and their loud, angry cries did not soothe the nerves of the anxious scouts.

Bumpus was even fumbling in one of his pockets with the idea of taking out a supposed-to-be white handkerchief, and waving it, to indicate that they did not mean to resist the coming onslaught.

Just then Thad gave a cry.

"Oh! have you got it, Thad?" gasped Bumpus.

For answer the patrol leader slammed down the engine hood, and seizing hold of the crank gave it a whirl. There was no response! Bumpus groaned fearfully.

"All is lost!" he exclaimed in abject despair.

Thad made a second try, but with the same disappointing result. This time Giraffe sank back in his seat, a look of resignation on his angular face. Two bad turns was apparently his limit.

It proved fortunate that Thad was not constituted that way. He had known engines to require as many as half a dozen trials before they consented to be good and turn over. So Thad went at it again, with even more energy than before.

What a thrill passed over them all when with a roar the engine started in to make the old car quiver from end to end. Bumpus and Giraffe could not restrain their pent-up enthusiasm; their recent scare only added to the vim with which they gave a shout.

Thad made a leap into the front seat of the car. Allan had already settled down to do the honors temporarily, for every second counted with that mob not thirty feet away. If the car was stalled five seconds longer it would be all up with the scouts.

Nothing so bad as that happened, for away they went with a jump, amidst the angry cries of the disappointed crowd. The country people did not mean to give up without further effort, for most of them continued to run. They must have seen that the car was an old and ramshackle one, and cherished hopes that they might yet overtake it.

Giraffe stood up and waved his campaign hat excitedly as he cheered in the good old American way.

"Bully for the machine!" was the burden of his cry; "she's actually doing her little five miles an hour, perhaps even more. Say, this is getting too reckless for my blood. I forgot to take out any life insurance, Thad, before starting on this break-neck trip. Be careful, please, and don't spill us out!"

Soon they saw the last of their pursuers, and the road seemed to be clear in front. The boys of course began to chatter concerning this latest happening, trying to figure out what had caused this sudden and mysterious feeling of enmity on the part of the workers in the harvest fields. In the end, however, they had to give it up as an unsolved puzzle; nor did they ever learn the facts, since they came to that part of the German Fatherland no more.

Allan consulted the little road chart which, before they started down the Rhine on their wonderful cruise, had been purchased in Mentz, principally to know the nature of the many sights that were to be met with along the historic banks of that famous river.

"As near as I can make out, this is where we are right now, Thad," he mentioned, making a pencil mark on the paper. "I know it from many reasons, and one of them is that fine old Dutch windmill we just passed on the knoll. It's marked here, you can see, as if it had some historic connections."

"You're right about that part of it, Allan," said the scout leader after taking a quick glance at the chart, for his attention was needed at the wheel, since the progress of the car was inclined to be erratic; in fact, as Giraffe had several times declared, "she did not mind her helm very well, which made their course a zigzag one."

"Well, how much further do we have to go before we get to the Dutch line?" Bumpus asked, with more or less concern; for every two minutes he had kept twisting around, almost putting his neck out of joint, with the idea of making sure that they were not being pursued.

"I'm figuring what course we'll have to take in order to avoid several German towns that are marked here," returned Allan.

"That's right, we have no use for even the cleanest towns agoing just now," ventured Giraffe, "though I'm getting pretty hungry, to tell you the truth."

"That's cruel of you, mentioning it," spluttered Bumpus, "when I've been fighting all the while to forget that I've got an awful aching void inside of me that's wanting to be filled the worst kind. But how far do we have to go, Allan?"

"Not more than five miles more," came the answer.

"That sounds encouraging, I must say," remarked Thad; "if the cranky old thing holds out another half hour we might be on the border; and once across, our troubles will be done with for awhile anyhow."

"Then she must be making all of _ten_ miles an hour, Thad!" exclaimed Giraffe, pretending to be greatly excited; "why, I can feel my hair beginning to stand up with the nervous strain! It's the nearest approach to flying I ever expected to meet up with. If we have an accident when going like the wind they'll have to collect us in baskets. I'm going to hold on to Bumpus here, let me tell you!"

"What for?" demanded the fat scout, suspiciously.

"Oh! nothing much, only sometimes it's a mighty fine thing to have a good buffer when you meet up with trouble," said Giraffe, calmly.

"Don't mind him, Bumpus," said Allan; "nothing is going to happen, for the motor seems to be on its best behavior. Let's hope we'll find only a Dutch guard on the road when we come to the border line."

"I think that's apt to be the case," ventured Thad.

"So do I," added Allan, "because the Germans as yet couldn't be expected to care who left their country for Holland; while the Dutch would want to make sure there was no infringement of neutrality, no using their territory by one of the belligerents for passing around and taking the enemy by surprise. If either German, Belgians, French or British soldiers happen to land on Dutch soil they'll have to be interned there until the close of the war."

"Well, all I hope is that they won't include Boy Scouts in that class," ventured Bumpus, whose sole thought those days was to reach Antwerp and the suffering mother, who must be very anxious for her boy, knowing he was at the time in Germany and doubtless caught in the mad whirl accompanying the mobilization of millions of troops.

"They might if we were German scouts," Thad told them, "but we can easily prove that we belong on the other side of the Atlantic. I think they'll be pretty kind to us on that account, and do anything we might ask."

"Well," remarked Giraffe, with a longing look in his eyes, "if we happened on a nice clean tavern over there it might pay us to stop and get a Dutch dinner. I've heard a lot about what appetizing dishes those housewives can serve, and I'd like to say I'd eaten just _one_ meal in the Netherlands."

"Count on me to vote with you, Giraffe," observed Bumpus, "though of course if it was going to delay us any I'd be willing to stand the famine till we got over in Belgium, and had to put up for the night on account of darkness."

"For that matter, we will have a moon about nine o'clock to-night," said Thad, "but I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me from driving this crazy car over roads I don't know, by moonlight. It's bad enough in broad day."

They continued to push steadily on. At no time were they out of sight of farms and gardens, all of them as neat as anything the boys had ever seen. They often remarked on the great difference between the thrift of these German market gardens and the ordinary shiftless way of doing things seen in their own country.

"Of course," Allan said, in trying to excuse this want of neatness, "we have all sorts of people come over to us, and they bring their habits along with them. Some are as careful about keeping their places clean as these Germans, while others never knew a thing about thrift in the native lands, and have to be taught. But on the whole we seem to get along pretty well."

"How goes the mad whirl now, Allan?" asked Giraffe.

"Not more than two miles away from the border, my map says," came the reply.

"That sounds good to me," Bumpus assured them, rubbing his hands together much as a miser is supposed to do when gloating over his gold; "huh! two little miles oughtn't to keep us long on the way."

"Not when you're navigating the roads in such a whiz-cart as this," chuckled Giraffe, as he started to get partly out of his seat to look around him, so as to discover anything new worth calling his companions' attention to.

"Why, hello--we didn't make all that dust back there, did we?" the others heard him saying, as he shaded his hand to look, and then almost immediately went on to exclaim: "as sure as you live it's a little squad of horsemen, and they're coming along at a fast gallop! What's that they're holding so that the sun glints from the ends like it does when you use a glass in heliographing a message? Boys, I do believe they must be lances!"

"Lances!" burst out Bumpus, in sudden alarm; "why, that would mean they are the German rough riders they call the Uhlans; and Thad, if they're coming after us they'll overhaul this old pony go-cart as easy as falling off a log!"