  “This is something like living,” Blake remarked, after they had easily made the top of the hill, and were coasting down the other side with increased celerity, though Bud apparently did not dare allow full speed for fear lest something would happen to a dilapidated part of the worn machinery, and cause a bad accident. All of them were pleased. Although much time had been lost, still, with anything like decent luck, they should easily be able to make the camp while the sun still hung above the western horizon. Blake asked for nothing better. “That scamp in the flivver had nearly an hour’s start of us, boys,” Blake later on observed. “By rights he ought to be ten miles and more ahead of us, I say; but do you know I half thought I caught a glimpse of his car when we came over the top of the last rise, and not so very far away, either.” “I certainly heard a sound that might have been made by a car dashing across a short bridge ahead, there,” admitted Hugh. “All of which looks queer to me,” continued Blake. “Do you think, Hugh, he might have held back to see how we came out of that scrape? Would he be figuring on doing something to hold us up on the way?” “I don’t know,” was the reply of the patrol leader. “All we can do is to keep a good lookout as we go along, and fight shy of breakers. If only Bud can keep that engine going, we’re bound to arrive, some time or other. If that man tries to bother us, he may wish he hadn’t,” and the light that shone in Hugh’s eyes as he said this told how he meant every word. “Huh! he wouldn’t be the first fellow who felt sorry he’d fooled with the scouts of Oakvale,” boasted Bud, with memories of previous exploits crowding his brain. “If a silly bear will monkey with a buzz-saw, he c’n expect to get hurt, that’s all.” “Pull up!” hastily ejaculated Hugh as he saw something glisten in the road ahead of them. They had just started around a bend, and were going at a fair pace at the time. Bud put on the brake, and the car speedily came to a stand, but, alas! just a trifle too late to avoid the breakers. There was a sudden explosion. “Gee! a tire’s busted!” cried Blake, in dire dismay. All of the boys jumped out, and it needed only one look to tell them the truth, for the left front tire lay flat. “Glass!” snapped Bud, wrathfully, as he glanced around. “Just think of anybody heaving a bottle overboard like that, when there are so many stones around. Seems to me the least the rascal could have done would be to throw the same into the bushes here.” Hugh was bending over as though deeply interested, and just then he electrified his two companions by crying out: “It was no accident, after all, fellows, but a part of a cleverly arranged plot! These bottles were fetched along purposely. They were broken right on this rock, where you can see all the fine glass; and the pieces were put on the road so that a car couldn’t pass along without being terribly cut. See here, and here, and here!” Bud was furious. He gritted his teeth, and growled like a “bear with a sore head,” as he himself afterwards explained it. “Hugh! you’re right, hang the luck if you ain’t!” he went on to say, as he looked the ground over. “That miserable skunk laid the plot, and I’m sorry to say it worked like a charm. See how he chose a place just around a bend, so we mightn’t get warning in time by the sun glinting from the broken glass? Oh! he’s a corker of a schemer, that chap is; and I’d like to get my hands on him! Say, what I wouldn’t do to him would be hardly worth mentioning.” “Forget all that, Bud,” cautioned wise Hugh. “That sort of talk never mends cut tires. All of us must get busy, and see what we can do. Luckily enough you made out to have an extra tire along, even if it’s a tough proposition. Let’s make the change in double-quick time.” All the while they worked the boys exchanged opinions, and if that man could only have heard what they thought of him surely his ears would have burned. “One thing certain,” Hugh was saying later on, as the job progressed fairly well, “this thing has settled the question about his being interested in keeping us out of the mobilization camp.” “Just what it has, Hugh,” admitted Blake, jubilantly. “When once you know what you’re up against, the chances of winning out are stronger; anyway, that’s always been my opinion.” “Have you cleaned off the road ahead of us, Blake?” asked Bud, “because we’ll be on the move again as soon as I get a little more air in this tire.” “I walked along the road for a hundred yards,” replied the other, “and found no more of the glass. I reckon he bunched it all around here, so we couldn’t dodge running smack into the same.” “After this,” said Bud, grimly, “I’ll slow up whenever we come to a turn. You never can tell what a wretch like that may have fixed around the bend. Once bit, twice shy, isn’t a bad motto. I don’t mean to get trapped in the same way again, if I know it.” “So I was right, wasn’t I?” Blake remarked, with a touch of satisfaction in his voice, “when I said I felt sure I had seen that flivver a mile or two ahead of us, when it should have been at least ten miles further along?” “That’s correct, Blake,” assented Hugh; “your eyes told you the truth. All of us will have to keep on the watch right along. The man who could play such a mean trick on people in a car with such bad tires as this one has would be equal to anything, in my opinion. Ready now, Bud?” “Yes, and that tire seems to be pretty snug,” came from the hard-worked pilot, who, however, never once complained, for Bud was not a shirker, if he did have certain faults of his own to contend with. “I only hope the others don’t turn out to have been cut so they’ll go back on us sooner or later. Glass like this is a bad proposition when you’re running on worn rubber.” Once more they were moving along. How keenly they kept their eyes on the lookout for further trouble ahead could be detected by the manner in which all three forgot to observe the scenery around them, the dusty road monopolizing their attention. As the minutes continued to slip past they had the satisfaction of knowing that they were putting the miles behind them. Five and more had been dropped since that last accident. Blake asked further questions concerning the probable distance over which they had now come, and as usual Hugh was able to give a conservative guess. “All of twenty-five miles from Oakvale by now, I should say,” he announced. “If you want to know how I’m able to say that, let me explain. I have a rough map of the country up here. I copied it hastily from one they had at the recruiting tent, for you know the battery must have come along this same road we’re now on. A mile back we saw a crossroads. That was marked on the map with the figures twenty-four; so after all it was easy to add another mile to that score; and there you are.” “Only for your long head in making a rough copy of that road map, Hugh,” declared the admiring Blake, “we would certainly be up against it now. Well, that leaves some fifteen or twenty more miles. Can we fetch it by sundown, do you believe, Bud?” “Oh! easy going!” came the flippant reply, though accompanied by a side wink in the direction of Hugh, which was possibly intended to convey the meaning that the aforesaid result could be attained if they were fortunate, and met with no further mishaps such as had already delayed them on two occasions. “I think we’re coming to some sort of village,” observed Hugh, later on, “for I can see a small house on one side of the road, with some chickens and a dog in the way. Slow up, Bud; we don’t want to race through here, and be hauled up for exceeding the speed limit; or else have to stop and pay for some silly hens that were bound to get under our wheels.” Several cottages were passed. Then they came to a stretch of woodland, beyond which, doubtless, the town proper lay, for they could see signs of smoke rising, and there was also a sound as of an engine working in some sort of mill. Suspecting no immediate trouble, the boys were running along quite smoothly when, without the slightest warning, they received a sudden shock. Again it came to them just around a bend in the road, though Bud had kept his word, and was moving slowly at the time. A rope was stretched directly across from one tree to another. To make the hold-up even more positive, a log had been rolled out, and lay there, blocking the road, so that even should a swiftly-going car have broken the rope, it was bound to come to grief against that other obstacle. “Pull up, Bud! quick!” almost shrieked Blake Merton, but he might just as well have spared himself the trouble of letting out this frantic appeal, for the driver had his car well under control, and was easily able to bring it to a halt some ten feet away from the obstructions. No sooner had they halted than a gruff voice was heard calling out: “Throw up your hands and surrender, you three young raskels! I’ve got yuh covered, all right, and yuh might as well give in peaceable like, because you’re up against the strong arm of the law!” |
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